The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System continued to aggressively expand its venture portfolio over the past couple of years as unicorn valuations skyrocketed and money poured into the asset class. The pension manager signed up with 21 funds from the 2014 and 2015 vintage years favoring many top name firms, according to a recent performance […]
When Benhamou Global Ventures announced a first close on its $75 million third fund this September, it made a point of highlighting several Chinese LPs among its new investors. Andrew Chung benefitted from Chinese money, too, when he raised $200 million for his 1955 Capital earlier this year. A significant number of LPs were from […]
Has Chinese capital helped pump up startup valuations in the United States, or at least kept them from falling faster? Investors are of two minds. Some argue the magnitude of the capital flow isn’t yet significant enough. Others disagree and say the cash already is propping up deal pricing, at least in certain sectors. Looking […]
IBeat, maker of a heart-monitoring smartwatch, revealed that it has raised $250,000 from Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of television’s “The Dr. Oz Show.” Oz, a cardiac surgeon, has also agreed to be a special adviser to iBeat, said Ryan Howard, founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based company. The new money from Oz — along with fresh capital […]
Mozido Inc, the mobile payments company once valued at more than $2 billion, is out fundraising and exploring a sale at the same time, two sources said. It’s unclear how much Mozido is seeking. The Austin-based company has previously raised more than $300 million from high-profile investors including Google billionaire Eric Schmidt. The company is also […]
Before Adrian Fortino joined Mercury Fund, an early-stage venture firm investing in startups in the middle of the United States, he ran two Detroit-based seed funds. One was technology-focused, targeting healthcare, transportation and industrial applications; the other was industry-agnostic, intended to help revive the economy of Southeast Michigan. That dual experience taught Fortino that “it’s much […]
It’s been a busy several weeks at Technology Crossover Ventures. In early August, the firm announced its $2.5 billion ninth fund. A handful of days before, Unilever agreed to purchase portfolio company Dollar Shave Club for about $1 billion. Hardly a summer for sand-in-the-toes vacations. General Partner Woody Marshall said the size of the new […]
Tim Anglade, who recently joined Scale Venture Partners as an executive-in-residence, said he’ll be doing a bit of “advising and helping around all the usual topics” in his new role at the Foster City, California-based firm. Most of his time will be spent on a project called “The Startup Tapes,” a series of conversations with successful founders on topics […]
Canvas Ventures, whose partners backed Houzz, Lending Club and Mulesoft, has wrapped up its second fund, reaching its hard cap of $300 million. The fund, which closed during the summer, is more than 70 percent larger than the firm’s previous early-stage fund in 2013, when the Portola Valley, California, firm raised $175 million in commitments. “It’s […]
Jonathan Lehr is not just an investor in x.ai, he’s a power user of the artificial-intelligence-powered scheduling chatbot. Last year, Lehr scheduled more than 1,000 business meetings using x.ai. “We are a small fund and I don’t have a personal assistant,” says Lehr, a managing director at Work-Bench, which recently participated in x.ai’s $23 million Series […]