Impact Venture Capital Announces $425 Million in Follow-on Investments in Inaugural Fund
Impact Venture Capital Announces $425 Million in Follow-on Investments in Inaugural Fund
Fund I investments in 18 startups focused on artificial intelligence attracted world-class co-investors including Softbank, USVP, Sierra Ventures, Madrona, SK Hynix, Yamaha, Kubota, Goldman Sachs, London Stock Exchange, and Serent Capital
PALO ALTO, Calif., March 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Impact Venture Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups today announced a portfolio of companies validating that the future is closer than we think. Along with initial investments from Impact Venture Capital, more than $425 million from other venture investors funded a portfolio including the world’s first products in the following categories: biplane configured flying cars, fruit-picking robotics mounted to autonomous vehicles, drones for personal security and surveillance, and omnidirectional treadmills for training, healthcare, and gaming using virtual reality. The firm has led early-stage investments in dozens of startups that specialize in delivering Artificial Intelligence innovations applied to a range of industries that span security, finance, healthcare, climate, education, and entertainment. Impact Venture Capital is currently closing its second fund with a final close date of March 31, 2022.
“Working closely with Fortune 500 companies to forecast major market trends, we founded Impact Venture Capital with a focus on megatrends like data security, digital currency, workforce automation, transportation, and digital healthcare. The COVID epidemic over the last few years, and the current national security issues have accelerated a tailwind for most of our portfolio companies as they work to deliver their groundbreaking innovations to market,” said Jack Crawford, Founding General Partner for Impact Venture Capital. “After back-to-back record-setting years for venture capital investments, Impact Venture Capital has generated superior financial returns by focusing on technologies that can positively impact billions of people. Fortune 500 companies are forecasted to invest more than $1 trillion on innovation and impact of sustainable development goals like security, health, education, climate, and other areas aligned with the Impact Venture Capital investment strategy.”
Impact Venture Capital’s Founding General Partners Jack Crawford and Dr. Eric Ball launched the firm in 2016 with a focus on making early-stage investments alongside Fortune 500 corporations into startups focused on artificial intelligence applied to security, finance, digital health, and other major markets. The firm’s inaugural ‘Impact Venture Capital I’ completed investments in 18 portfolio companies that include high-performance computing cyber security company Cornami, which has since raised more than $90 million in venture funding (including its most recent $50 million Series C round led by Softbank, the world’s largest venture investor). Other companies include the digital health and wellness platform TaskHuman (recently closed a $12 million round led by USVP, a top silicon valley VC fund), the robotics company Advanced Farm (recently closed a $25M round of funding led by Yamaha and Kubota), Scaeva Technologies, a provider of high-precision spatial audio experience and audio NFT’s; and Infinadeck, the world’s first true omnidirectional treadmill with virtual reality that was featured in the film “Ready Player One”.
“The team at Impact Venture Capital has been instrumental in helping Cornami bring its flagship TruStream® computing platform to market and enabling us to fully exploit our unique advantage to deliver real-time processing on encrypted data sets. This is a game-changer for data privacy and cloud security in today’s digital economy,” said Dr. Wally Rhines, CEO of Cornami. “While many VC firms talk about ‘smart, connected capital’, the team at Impact has truly delivered valuable advice, customer introductions, investor contacts, and new board members. They have the expertise, the network, and the dedicated effort to help us succeed.”
Unlike traditional VC firms, Impact partners with corporates at the early stages of investing to collaborate on industry-relevant innovations. Impact Venture Capital gains an “information advantage” from the broadest network of corporates in the VC industry exchanging research and analysis on key technology trends and market demands. To facilitate and grow this corporate community, Impact Venture Capital hosts a range of both large and intimate high-touch events and programs such as its Impact Global Venture Summit, one of the largest annual technology investor and entrepreneurship events in the US that attracts more than 1,100 corporate investors and startups each year. Through this and other high value-add interactions, Impact is able to offer founders a unique opportunity to identify corporate customers, strategic partners, corporate investors, and even potential acquirers. These factors have succeeded in fostering a level of trust with market innovating startups and market-leading corporations ultimately accelerating the pathway to a successful exit for entrepreneurs.
About Impact Venture Capital
Impact Venture Capital is a Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm that invests alongside corporate venture groups and top-tier investors in early-stage technology startups with a focus on artificial intelligence applied to security, finance, digital health, and other fast-growing industry sectors.
Press Contact:
Robert Nachbar
Kismet Communications
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rob@kismetcommunications.net