Robert Siegel is a Partner at XSeed Capital and a Venture Partner at Piva. He is also a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to joining XSeed, he was General Manager of the Video and Software Solutions division for GE Security, Executive Vice President of Pixim, Inc., Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Weave Innovations Inc. He also served in various management roles at Intel Corporation, including an executive position in their Corporate Business Development division. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? My first experience to venture capital was as an entrepreneur. I was working for a software company, and we raised venture capital money in the early 90s. One of our investors was a gentleman by the name of Bruce Dunlevie, one of the founders of Benchmark. Bruce was an incredibly accomplished and impressive person, and I saw […]

PassiveLogic, a company founded in 2016 with HQ in the Western US and 27 employees as of October 2020, creator of a platform for improving the effectiveness of buildings, has got $16M of Series A investments from Keyframe Capital, Addition, RET Ventures, A/O Proptech and NERP, reaching $19.2M of total investments from 7 investors.

Demium is the fastest-growing pre-team pre-idea startup incubator in Europe. It identifies and develop best in class digital entrepreneurial talent and connect them with human and economic capital through their proven start-up builder framework. With 50+ companies in the portfolio, 12 incubators, 500+ entrepreneurs in residence and a capital hub in London, they are now focused on scaling Demium throughout south-western Europe, to help them fulfill their ambition to launch 100 startups per year. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? Everything started 10 years ago. I was working for one of the wealthiest people in the country at his asset management company. That’s how I got into the world of finance. Afterward, I became a partner and launched my own firm that was called A7 Group, A7 Capital and A7 Conference with Maria Barabash. That was the beginning of my entrepreneurial life […]

Temporal Technologies, a company founded in 2019 and Headquartered in the Greater Seattle Area in the US with 14 employees as of October 2020, that develops its open-source microservices orchestration platform for running mission-critical code at any scale, has secured $18.75M Round A funding from Sequoia Capital, Madrona Venture Group, Amplify Partners, Addition, getting the total amount of investments made in it to $25.5M from 4 investors. The financing will go to grow its existing open source community and develop a Temporal cloud offering. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights The founders of the startup are developers of the Cadence project (an open-source project at Uber Technologies Inc.). The success of Cadence made them think of their own full-fledged business in the industry. They are the only developers offering the end-to-end- process visibility to control data better and, what is more important, recognizing and working out errors appearing. This approach helped the […]

Daniel Blandón is a managing partner at Simma Capital. It is an early stage and growth stage micro VC in Latin America, Colombia. Before Simma Capital, Daniel was working in INVX, an investment vehicle that he founded in 2014 and since then invested in 11 companies in Colombia. At Simma Capital, they are in the stage of fundraising and already started investing in early and growth-stage companies that are cofounded by outstanding teams, are scalable, have solid unit economics, and are connected with Colombia and the rest of Latin America. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I was always interested in investing. From an early time in my life, I used to invest in different kinds of assets. It was something that was inside me. In 2010 we met with foreign friends and started investing together. We do our best but it […]

15+ years in the Private Equity and VC industry, Business Angel, entrepreneur. In 2017 Riccardo has founded DIP (“Disruptive Investment Platform”) an Investment platform focused on tech-based disruptive new businesses, sponsored by Platina Partners LLP, and raised a first €40 million fund (DIP fund I). In 2010 he joined the London/Paris based private equity and infrastructure investment firm Platina Partners, becoming a Partner in 2011 and Managing Partner in 2014. In particular, in Platina Riccardo has driven the renewable energy funds in the main European countries and India. As managing partner of the energy team in Platina, he has been managing a portfolio of assets involving c.ca €2bln of equity and project financing debt. Prior to Platina, he was the founding partner and CEO of Atmos SpA, a private equity investment group based in Milan with a focus on renewables and cleantech. At Atmos he invested in wind, solar PV, […]

Point Pickup, a company that provides the final-mile delivery model for many of the US-based eCommerce organizations, founded in 2015 and based in East Coast New England with 17 employees, has attracted $30M Round A funding from BBH Capital Partners as the next investments after the seed Round from private investors and Connecticut’s CT Innovations. The company offers same-day delivery service that can be ordered using its app and is the only platform offering pre-scheduled deliveries with favorite drivers while accommodating on-demand requests. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights BBH CP is the only investor of the Round, it is a venture wing of the Brown Brothers Harriman partnership bank. It is quite an unusual investment for a bank organization. Of course, BBH CP declares diversity in its investment interests, but there are two things: this is the first known investment BBH CP made in 20 years, and its parent structure BBH […]

Lucius Cary is Founder and Managing Director at Oxford Technology Management. After forming and raising finance for his first business in 1972, he founded “Venture Capital Report” in 1978 and was its managing director for 17 years. In 1996 became Chairman of VCR in order to concentrate on Oxford Technology Management’s investment activities. Oxford Technology Management raised its first fund to invest in start-up and early-stage technology companies in 1983. In 2003, he was awarded an OBE for services to business. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? After school, I did an engineering apprenticeship with the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell. And I then went to Oxford and I read Engineering for 3 years. Then I went to Harvard Business School to try to learn something about business. When I came back from there, I decided that I wanted to start my […]

Skilljar, a customer training platform for enterprises to accelerate product adoption and improve customer retention, founded in 2013 with HQ in the Greater Seattle Area and 103 employees as of October 2020, obtained $33M in funding from Round B led by Insight Partners with the participation of existing investors Mayfield, Trilogy Equity Partners, Shasta Ventures. The funding will go to expand Skilljar’s team, fuel go-to-market programs, and accelerate product development. The total investments to the startup reached $53.1M from 12 investors. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights After we analyzed the deal in detail, we found out quite clear syndicate relations between SV, Mayfield, and IP.  SV and Mayfield are in the top 3 of their respective lists of preferred co-investors. For example, Skilljar’s Round A in March 2018. SV and Mayfield not only entered the Round together but also were both lead investors. IP also invests quite often with these two […]

Roman Scharf is co-founder and partner of capital300. Roman has worked in various leadership positions in European companies until he landed his first coup in 2005 with his own VoIP startup Jajah, the first European company to be funded by Silicon Valley powerhouse Sequoia Capital. Through Jajah Roman lived and worked in Silicon Valley for 10 years, before returning to Vienna for capital300. Jajah was acquired by Telefonica (BME:TEF) for USD 270 million. Before Jajah, Roman co-founded and lead Ecotech Software in Germany until it has been acquired by Rockwool International AS (CPH:ROCK-B). After Jajah, Roman co-founded Talenthouse Inc., the World’s leading creative collaboration platform for brands & agencies. In December 2019 Talenthouse merged with Ello and Zooppa to become TLNT Group now connecting marketeers with 50 million aspiring creators in 175 countries. Roman has valuable contacts with the Silicon Valley ecosystem and experience in the areas of branding and […]

Peter Pham is Founder and Managing Director at Phoenix Capital. He is an author, international fund manager, and a registered financial director by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA). In 2013 he published his first book entitled The Big Trade: Simple Strategies for Maximum Market Returns. He currently manages the portfolio of a global hedge fund and runs an asset management company. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I came from a finance background. As you can see now, at these pandemics times, many people were affected, in some places you can see things like riots and uprising. What happens for finance people, when they witness something like that, is basically 2 pathways. One is they continue to trade stocks and invest in stocks. The other way is that people could be drawn into real businesses, operating businesses. And when people from […]

BEGiN, the developer of the proven early learning program HOMER, the award-winning education technology company that creates learning products to bring children the highest quality education, founded in 2011 and based in the Greater New York Area, with over 50 employees (legal entity Conscious Content Media, LLC) discovered Series C $50M financing from  LEGO Ventures, Sesame Workshop, 3one4 Capital, Trustbridge Partners, Interlock Partners to launch the industry’s first comprehensive early learning program across digital, physical, and in-person experiences, co-develop curriculum alongside trusted partners such as Sesame Workshop, and launch globally through distribution partners such as Gymboree Play & Music. The total investments in the startup reached $107.8 from 29 investors. Additionally, Liquidity Capital contributed $25M in trajectory-based funding for growth. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights BEGiN’s basis is the HOMER system it acquired in 2017 (at the time, HOMER was a digital system to teach children to read). BEGiN improved the […]

Alain le Loux has 20+ years of experience in technology on board level positions (former member of the Executive committee of corporate Getronics PinkRoccade) and as CEO at startups. Alain studied at the Technical University of Twente and graduated in 1994 with a double degree. He became a successful angel investor before the Cottonwood period. Now he is an expert in strategy, marketing, product launching, pricing, and international business acceleration. In the past, Alain was one of the founders of the European Accelerator Program for the European Institute for Technology and Innovation and coached more than 200 high-tech startups in Europe. Alain has a huge network and direct access to a lot of corporates and all relevant ecosystems in Europe (Paris, Berlin, London, Helsinki, Stockholm, Leuven, Munich, etc.). Alain graduated in 2001 cum laude for an Executive MBA at Business School Nederland. How it all started? How did you decide […]

ShipBob, Ecommerce Fulfillment Solutions for Online Brands, a company founded in 2014 with HQ in Chicago and 600+ employees, helping 3600+ Ecommerce online businesses to be more successful online by providing end-to-end fulfillment solution, has raised Series D Round of $68M in primary funding from SoftBank Vision Fund, Menlo Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels, and Y Combinator, totaling the overall investments to $130.5M from 29 investors. The new capital will enhance the company’s capabilities to bring world-class fulfillment to more customers, fuel growth, expand its software platform, and scale its global fulfillment network. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights ShipBob has been originally building as a default eCommerce logistics solution for all direct-to-consumer brands around the world, and options developed in the platform can help the startup to reach the goal. ShipBob built its entire fulfillment technology stack, from its merchant-facing software to its warehouse management […]

RoadRunner Recycling, a company providing tech-powered solutions for commercial waste recycling which helps businesses lower recurring costs for diverting waste from landfills, founded in 2014 and based in Northeastern US (HQ in Pittsburgh) with around 190 employees as of September 2020, has rounded Series C financing in the amount of $10M from Valo Ventures and Avery Dennison, in addition to the original Series C of $28.6M, reaching $84.1M of the total investment in the startup from 9 investors. The money generated will be spent to expand end-to-end waste and recycling management services, to at least 10 new markets across the US. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights This spin-off Round tells the investors are strongly sure about the future of RRR and its success in recycling the outdated and inefficient recycling sector. And that is quite understandable taking into consideration that RRR since it was founded back in 2014 expanded to serve […]

Mitra joined South Park Commons from Nava Public Benefit Corporation, the software company responsible for the improved healthcare.gov insurance marketplace. At Nava, Mitra spearheaded business development efforts and won contracts also to build new VA benefit appeals and Medicare incentive payments systems. Prior to Nava, she led revenue analytics and international expansion efforts at Dropbox. Mitra began her career at Bain as a management consultant and is on the board of LeanMarket. She graduated from MIT How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I’ll describe both my journey and how our fund was formed because they are merged. We have a bit longer of an origin story than a traditional venture fund. In 2015 Ruchi, the head of our fund was rapping a decade-long career at Facebook and Dropbox. She wanted to push pause on, going back to the grind and catch up […]

Blueboard, an employee recognition and incentives platform powered by hand-curated experiences (both in-home and out in the world), founded in 2014 and incorporated in the SF Bay Area with 67 employees as of September 2020 headhunted Series A Round of financing in the amount of $9.3M from Origin Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Greycroft, Plug and Play, Gaingels, Martin Babinec, with total investments of $15.8M so far from 14 investors. The Blueboard platform makes it easy for companies to give meaningful employee rewards, incentives, and gifts—from one-of-a-kind to once-in-a-lifetime experiences; unlike cash or gift cards, experiential rewards are the best tool for motivating and engaging your employees, especially while we’re working remotely. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights The funding history of the startup launched as a kickstart from one of the biggest startup accelerator of the World, 500 Startups, with rasing a pre-seed Round from a bunch of super angel investors. That step […]

The number of exits of portfolio startups is one of the core metrics of a venture fund. To generate revenue for their LPs and attract investors in the future, VCs try to come up with smart and viable investment strategies. It requires finding a balance between portfolio diversification and limited expertise of funds’ partners.

Financial intelligence combined with a deep knowledge of business operations: Darwin Capital brings together the best of both worlds to bring new air and innovate the capital market. With a long experience in leading international ventures and projects, the founding partners bring to each case an understanding that only hands-on executives can have about conducting business. These resources are placed at the service of our customers through a complete advisory service. From companies looking for financial support to acquisition projects, Darwin Capital is ready to treat every new project as unique, attentive to its specificities. The final objective, however, is one: to do everything so that our customers multiply their value, properly prepared for mergers and acquisitions. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? First of all, I’d like to thank you for the invitation. It is an honor to participate in your […]

Jean Sini invests as General Partner at venture firm Partech. He’s been investing since 2011, and has backed Treasure Data (sold to ARM in 2018 for $650m+), Canva (currently valued at $6b), People.ai (backed by Lightspeed Ventures, a16z, and Iconiq), Antheia, ProdPerfect, Clubhouse, Datakin, Firefly and Medigate amongst others. A repeat founder with 20+ years of software engineering experience, Jean’s held CTO roles at Activeweave (sold in 2007), Mint.com (acquired by Intuit for $175m in 2010), One Kings Lane, Fountain (acquired by Porch in 2015) and Cadre. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? A very gradual process. I started investing in startups, as an individual, close to  10 years ago, long before joining Partech.  At the time, I had been living in San Francisco for 15 years, and was busy building startups, typically as VP of Engineering or Chief Technology Officer.  For […]

Alloy, a developer of an identity verification platform used to check frauds and make identity management effective and simple for banks and financial institutions, founded in 2015 with HQ in New York City (legal name First Mile Group, Inc.), the number of employees is about 70, attracted Series B investment of $40M from Canapi Ventures (that led the Round), Avid Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Bessemer Venture, Primary Venture Partners, and Eniac Ventures. With previous Series A $12M financing the total investment reached $55.8M from 15 investors. The new funds will be used to build out its sales, marketing and engineering teams, and product development. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Canapi Ventures led the Round. The business profile of the fund fits ideally to Alloy, as Canapi’s strategy is “transforms financial services with API driven technology through strategic investments and partnerships”. Fund’s partner Walker Forehand, who joined the Alloy board, said they would […]

Observe.AI, a leading company in Contact Center AI that specializes in the fields of machine learning, enterprise, big data, and analytics, founded on July 19 2017 and also known as Z21 Labs, Inc., with HQ in SF Bay Area and around 120 employees, received $54M Series B financing from Menlo Ventures, Next47 Ventures, and NGP Capital, in addition to the Round A $26M, totaling funding to $88.1M from 14 investors. The money received will help Observe.AI «to continue its momentum by helping the world’s top brands accurately transcribe and analyze every call while providing deeper visibility into customer service operations». Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Observe.AI demonstrated excellent growth last year, that’s why investors show confidence in this startup. Since previous reports, Observe.AI hired over 100 employees and got over 150 customers with revenue growing 600%. Menlo Ventures has been closely following the transformation of the customer service landscape, and been […]

Samuel Harrison is Founding Partner at Blockchain.com Ventures, a Venture Capital Fund anchored by Blockchain.com & Lightspeed Venture Partners. Previously he led Naspers Ventures early-stage tech investments and blockchain efforts, was Apple featured iOS app publisher and Angel investor in 30+ companies. If you’re raising capital for a blockchain project, please reach him out. Invested in Origin Protocol, Theta.tv, DappRadar, Nodle, Securitize, Zerion, Enjin, Amber, Wintermute, Blockdaemon & more. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I started my career at Morgan Stanley in London, with a finance background. But I found myself spending quite a lot of time in the tech world. I was building apps on iOS during my spare time and Bitcoin was also new dabbling that was discovered by accident. My housemate at that time was paying me his share of our rent for the house in Bitcoin. And […]

Stephen Socolof is Managing Partner at Tech Council Ventures. He has been a technology investor for over twenty years. His interests are in enterprise software (particularly applications of AI/ML), infrastructure required to collect, store, and process data, internet of things, wireless, and environmental and materials technologies. He is currently on the board of StratIS IoT, SunRay Scientific, and Vydia as well as the public company Everspin Technologies, an investment of his prior fund. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I had been a consultant for large companies on the topic of innovation and on how to improve the productivity of research and development. I was recruited from that job to Lucent Technologies in 1996, when it was formed, to help with the efforts that were going on – to drive more innovation out of Bell Labs and do more commercialization. I was […]

Private equity investments in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East spanning 30 years ranging between growth capital, small, medium and large buyouts and later stage growth investments. Private Equity Investment Experience:28 Investments, €9 billion cumulative Enterprise Value (€7.5 billion pre add-on acq.), €1 billion cumulative Equity Investment (2.62x & 50%+ IRR (source: KPMG)) Deal Origination, including Cold Call platform in Environmental, Healthcare and Specialty Chemicals industry. Further direct investment experience in Crypto, Blockchain, FinTech, Gambling, Retail and Media companies Geographic Experience: Europe, US, Middle East, SE Asia & ChinaMember of the Investment Committee since 1998,Member (or past member) of the Board of Directors of 39 companies across Europe and the US Financing Experience:• €5.7 billion of debt capital raised, including 9 public debt issuances (among these were the first non-Sovereign debt issuance in Poland (1997) and the first corporate High Yield issuance in France (1999));• 4 PIK-note / preference placements […]

Ouster, a Hi-Tech company founded in 2015, with 160 employees as of September 2020, and HQ in San-Francisco and offices in Paris, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, and Suzhou, that created the automation revolution with high-resolution lidar sensors (robotics and computer vision systems), and served over 800 customers in 15 markets,  attracted Series B financing Round of $42M from Fontinalis Partners, Tao Capital Partners, and Cox Automotive, reaching $140M investments from 13 investors. The money attracted will go to develop more products and promote worldwide sales. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights In spite of pandemic-induced delays in the self-driving vehicle industry, Ouster raised Series B Round of $42M. The Round B financing is less than the previous one of $60M directed to prepare the main set of 3 products and build the factory. Because of COVID Ouster had to cut 10% of employees and stop manufacturing at its factory in SF. So […]

Redwood Ventures is an industry-agnostic venture capital fund that seeks to invest in the early stages of technology-based startups How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I’ve been involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem my whole life. I started my first company 15 years ago when I was at university. I didn’t know about venture capital, but we wanted an uprising from the university to be accelerated in a university accelerator. So when I was in the process of the accelerator we met with some investors and they told us about the venture capital business and I liked it a lot. Then when the time came up, like 3 years after that I sold the company and I wanted to start my first venture capital fund. I raised a little bit of money to invest Mexican capital into Silicon Valley companies. That was my […]

Dr. Carlos Baradello is an investor, corporate advisor, university professor, and public speaker. A leading innovation and entrepreneurship practitioner, Carlos draws his understanding from his broad global business and academic experience, deep technical knowledge, and understanding of the reality innovators encounter in organizations both large and small. His experience working with hundreds of entrepreneurs around the world has enabled him to gain key lessons in the creation of sustainable social and economic value across multiple sectors, and their global growth. Carlos’s interests include new global business creation, venture funding, business acceleration for “born global” startups, and global scaling for “foreign-born” startups in emerging economies. He is the founder of the University of San Francisco’s (USF) groundbreaking Silicon Valley Immersion programs and former Associate Dean of its Global and Executive Programs. In addition to his teaching responsibilities across four continents as a member of the faculty at the Hult International Business […]

Startups often underestimate their chances to find cross-border investments and receive funding for the required purposes. UN decided to learn more about the reasons and consequences of such decisions and interviewed 230 funds around the globe to find out how cross-border deals work for them, what spheres of interest attract VC-funds, where they prefer to invest, on what stages, and much more information. This research aimed to be useful both for startups and for investors to see key directions for cross-border deals and might help to review the investment strategy. Cross-border is a new black  According to the research, only 6% of funds are going to reduce the number of cross-border transactions, while 36% are going to increase it. This means COVID-19 crisis might have a short-term impact on investment plans now, but ⅓ of funds will increase their investments in the nearest future.  Funds from Latin America, Western Europe […]

Mark Linao is Partner at AET Fund (Akatsuki Entertainment Technology Fund). He was a senior multi-disciplined engineer at aerospace and defense firm Raytheon. He has also worked at the Rubicon Project and Amazon. After that, he was an Associate at Technicolor Ventures eventually transitioning to Director of Corporate Development and Strategy at Technicolor. How it’s all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I’ve been working in мenture for almost 7 years now; I’ve started off as an associate in another firm. And before that, I worked at a startup. While working at the startup and meeting with a lot of venture investors, I started to think that it might be a good role. I became interested in investment as a career, because being an investor in an emerging company, be with entrepreneurs and partner entrepreneurs was always very appealing to me. That’s how my passion […]

Itamar Novick is the Founder & Partner of Recursive Ventures, a micro Seed fund backing amazing tech entrepreneurs,working with over 40 Mobile, IoT, and SaaS companies. His portfolio includes companies like Peerspace, MileIQ, Honeybook, Zendrive, and Airdog. Itamar was previously a venture capitalist at Morgenthaler Ventures and a Venture Partner at UpWest Labs, the Israeli accelerator in Silicon Valley. Before moving to the “dark side” of VC, Itamar was head of product at Gigya, the leading social tools provider for web and mobile publishers, and spent several years in product and engineering management roles at a variety of companies big and small. Itamar also serves as Chief Business Officer at Life360, the biggest mobile Family Network, with over 80 million registered families globally. The Life360 app keeps families safe when they’re out and about, in their car, or at home He holds an MBA from Berkeley-Haas and a Computer Science […]

Remy de Tonnac is Partner at ETF Partners in London, UK. He was CEO at Inside Secure, Gemalto and so on. He was also Venture Partner at Vertex Ventures. He joined ETF Partners in 2016. He is driven by the desire to demonstrate that technological innovation offers compelling answers to one of the most pressing problems of the world – achieving sustainable prosperity. How it’s all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? So I am over 60 years old which is considered to be very old in the new technologies world. A long time ago I was a co-founder of the company Gemplus, in 1987. In those days venture capital did almost not exist in Europe. It was starting in the UK. It was quite difficult for us to raise money; we were talking to banks which did not understand that business. And I remember […]

Amitabh Sinha is a serial entrepreneur, start-up evangelist, advisor, mentor, ecosystem builder and facilitator active in the start-up domain since 1999. In a career spanning more than 21 years, Amitabh has worked across domains as diverse as Petroleum, Consulting, Chemicals, International Trading, Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing, Brand Communications, Venture Capital, Financing, and Industry representation. He has been associated with SME Chamber of India, Start-Ups Council of India & Packaging Industry Association of India in honorary roles evangelizing industry, creating facilitating networks, expanding small industry footprint, and representing small businesses. Amitabh is a frequent speaker at various fora and talks on a variety of subjects including business logic, business building, scaling, funding and financing, professionalization, small business growth, organizational culture building, and lateral thought. Amitabh also actively consults with businesses in a professional capacity on scaling, growth hacking, business strategy, and customer experience. How it all started? How did you decide to enter […]

NeuroPace, a Silicon Valley-based medical technology company with 146 employees as of September 2020, founded in 1999, HQ in Mountain View, California, that initially focused on the treatment of epilepsy (this debilitating neurological disorder affects approximately 1% of the planet population) and developed the recognized RNS System, raised a $67M funding Round led by Accelmed Partners with the participation of Revelation Partners, Soleus Capital, KCK Group, OrbiMed Advisors, and unnamed strategic investor in form of $33m of new equity capital and $34M through convertible debt from the prior funding Round. The overall amount of investments in NeuroPace has reached $208m. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights The lead investor is Accelmed Partners, investment company focused on value creation for medical device companies and technologies. Despite prefering to invest in Israeli companies rather, it seems AP is going to foster significant value growth by leveraging its expertise in HealthTech and its presence in […]

Kartik Desai leads Asha Impact, an impact investment platform for Indian HNIs and family offices, and a not-profit trust to engage with the government on development finance. Prior to Asha, he was a Vice President at Lok Capital and Aavishkaar, the two largest impact funds in India, and before this an investment banker with Merrill Lynch. He has also done consulting work for organizations including the UNDP and the Rockefeller Foundation and launched a social enterprise providing a co-working and culture center for underprivileged youth in New Delhi. Kartik was born in Delhi and raised in Geneva and New York, studying at Wharton and Columbia, before he returned to India in 2005 to begin his career journey as a pioneer in impact investing. What is your story of coming back to India and joining the venture investment business? I was born in India and raised in Geneva and the United […]

Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Investor focusing on technology-enabled business. At GPO Fund they back visionary Founders who want to accelerate their aspirations to disrupt and dominate global industries. Fund believes the private venture capital markets are broken, resulting in unnecessary fundraising cycles, a lack of transparency, misalignment of incentives across funding rounds, inflexible holding periods for investors, and outcomes that are often suboptimal. GPO Fund invest in rapidly scaling, growth-stage global tech firms whose strategy can substantially benefit from access to international capital markets. Interested in technology-driven business models in the fields of emerging markets, education, clean-tech, network effects, B2B SaaS, blockchain, big data, and financial services. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I was a technology entrepreneur. My co-founder and I started our first businesses in the mid-nineties at the early days of the world wide web. Since then we started several […]

Ravi Belani is Managing Director & Founder of the Alchemist Accelerator. He is also a Fenwick & West Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Stanford University. Alchemist is a venture-backed accelerator focused on accelerating the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises. CB Insights rated Alchemist the top accelerator in 2016 based on median funding rates of its grads. The organization provides seed investment into companies it admits (typically $36K) and provides founders a structured path to traction, fundraising, mentorship, and community over the course of a 6-month program. Their backers include many of the top corporate and VC funds in Silicon Valley and Europe — including Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, GE, Next47 (Siemens), and Salesforce, among others. The accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures/year. Notable alumni include LaunchDarkly, Rigetti Quantum Computing, mPharma, Matternet, and MightyHive. How’s it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture and investment business? […]

Niklas is an ESCP Europe Master graduate. He worked for digital and high-tech companies as a Roland Berger consultant and gained experience in Private Equity with Quadriga Capital. As a Head of International Business with PEC Group, he scaled up the company from 50 to 120 employees and accompanied the M&A sell-side process to Hilti AG. In his role as Junior Partner at Freigeist, he sources new deals and supports portfolio companies to realize their strategy. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? Freigeist was started by three founders. Frank, Marc, and Alex have been building up and investing in companies over the past 20 years. After selling their own company to Fujifilm in 2008, they wanted to invest part of it back into the startup community. When the investments started to pay off, they discovered their new business model. Then, Marcel and […]

Juan Arango is Executive Director of Keiretsu Forum Rockies at Keiretsu Forum Northwest. He builds Angel Groups. He is passionate about fueling emerging technology companies by helping them build and fund their new ventures, while providing professional angel investors tailored deal flow that fit targeted funding strategies. Juan sources a network of 55 chapters worldwide within the Keiretsu Forum angel group organization, 40+ angel groups within the Angel Syndication Network (ASN), and a growing number of brand name national accelerators to locate deals and syndicate for funding. How it’s all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? The idea behind the creation of Keiretsu Forum was that in the year 2000 Randy Williams, a big real estate investor in the Bay area in San Francisco was pitched left and right by people that had interesting companies, but he didn’t know what was good and what was […]

Marcel’s long-term, versatile, and international experience in the IT, internet, and mobile industry has challenged him to take on leading technical roles in business development. Both (his own) startups and global market leaders have benefited from his expertise and dedication. Marcel holds a Ph.D. in Physics, which shapes his highly analytical way of contributing towards outstanding success stories in the industry. Before joining Speedinvest in 2012, Marcel managed the EMEA-hosted applications business and a partnership with a global operator within Microsoft. As a Partner at Speedinvest, Marcel provides hands-on cooperation and support to portfolio companies in the complex field of technology. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? It was really a serendipity. When I was in university during my PhD I founded some companies. With one of them, we managed to raise quite a bit of money at the end of the […]

Dutchie, a company selling marijuana online for the legalized markets, founded by Ross Lipson, Samuel Ellis, and Zach Lipson in July 2017 with the first 3 dispensaries in Bend, Oregon, where their HQ is currently located with 102 employees, serving 1300 stores in 32 markets (that’s 10% of the Global legal cannabis market), and processing around 75,000 orders per day, molded $35m during Series B from Thrive Capital, Casa Verde Capital, Thirty Five Ventures, Gron Ventures, and Howard Schultz, totaling $53m of investments. These days they processed their ten millionth order since the beginning, and their business model seems to be prosperous. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Cannabis is one of the fastest-growing industries in the World. Dutchie processes 10 percent of all legal cannabis sales worldwide, and powers 25 percent of all legal dispensaries across markets and 301 cities in the United States and Canada. So, it is no wonder […]

Venture industry itself is risky, full of surprises and requires attention. Information is a new air, but it can be used in different ways, and sometimes might be harmful for the market. COVID-19 is a perfect example that happened only half a year ago: internet and media were overdosed with materials predicting the future of all VC industry and startups market. Eventually, all this data could influence a company with premature decisions and intensify the crisis.   That’s why it is crucially important to define and understand the media landscape. For this purpose, one of the methods of automatized linguistics is being used. It is called sentiment-analysis and together with the UN we will discover how big is its power.  Meet the basis Sentiment-analysis already entered your life, starting from Barack Obama election campaign back in 2008. There are definitely a lot of examples even before, but Obama’s social media campaign […]

After leading a successful turnaround for a large direct marketing organizations Maarten moved to Shanghai in 2013, where he has consulted foreign SMEs in the water technology sector on market entry strategy in China as a run-up to PureTerra. Maarten is an expert in deal structuring, financial modeling, managing Chinese networks, partner selection and has an intimate knowledge of the global water technology sector. He holds a MSc in Economics from Tilburg University and has attended executive courses at London Business School. How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I came to China more than seven years ago. Very quickly I joined the mother company of PureTerra Ventures, which was founded by two Dutch entrepreneurs who came to China 25 years ago. They set up a number of businesses and did very well for themselves. With one of their businesses they organized the […]

Jacqueline van den Ende is Partner at Peak Capital. She is an entrepreneur and investor passionate about building high impact ventures. In the Philippines she founded Lamudi Philippines and over the past 3 years grew it to be the clear market leader in online real estate. Prior to that she worked as an investment professional in a leading private equity firm. Prior to HAL Investments she founded a non-profit company which now employs over 200 students in three countries. How it’s all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I personally have a bit of a mix career as an investor and a venture builder. As a student, I started my first company and then I accidentally ended up in private equity. I wasn’t looking for a role in investing, but I’ve got an opportunity to join HAL Investments. I worked there for 3.5 years and […]

Jessica Rameau is a British-French investment professional, with experience in supporting fast-growing businesses. She’s currently a Partner at Wellstreet, a Stockholm-based super-active early stage investor, which has been part of creating successes like Tibber, DanAds, Regily, Scrive, and roughly 30 more companies. Lately, they have been recognized for opening The Factory, the 14,000+ sqm glass building on the outskirts of Stockholm, becoming the biggest innovation and tech hub in the Nordics. Jess is the Fund Manager for Wellstreet’s first Ventures Fund, Wellstreet’s early stage investment fund. She oversees the portfolio of over 30 companies and is responsible for sourcing new investment opportunities. Previously, Jessica managed Synergy Growth LLP’s startup portfolio, has co-founded Five Years Time, an educational platform for entrepreneurs, and has acted as an advisor to the UK’s Department for International Development on innovation. She has actively supported the London and Stockholm tech ecosystems, where she has mentored hundreds […]

Rick Segal is CEO at Rethink Capital Partners and Managing Partner at Rethink Education. He has a long history of investing in real estate and venture capital investments. Prior to Seavest, he was a partner at Cramer Rosenthal McGlynn where he managed the firm’s private investments. He has served on the boards of many public companies including Hudson General Inc., Air Express Int., and Penn Traffic. He also has served on many private company boards including Schoolnet, Civitas, Wireless Generation and Smarterer. How it’s all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I entered the VC world in early 1980s – mostly because I was hired by a money management firm and, as a young kid on the block, when the idea of alternative investment strategies was emerging, I was asked to learn something about opportunities that we as a money manager could be offering to […]

Jessica Liu is a partner of AppWorks, leading the company’s efforts in Southeast Asia and the region’s burgeoning blockchain ecosystem. Specifically, she has been closely watching the development of consumer Internet applications, especially as they intersect with the increasing ubiquity of deep technologies. Jessica loves helping visionary founders realize their full potential. She holds B.B.A from the University of Southern California. Jessica, how did you find yourself in the venture investment business? I have been active in the digital industry since 2010, starting my career managing online marketing for Standard Chartered Bank’s cross-selling strategies before joining AppWorks in 2014. Here I served as an Associate in charge of the company’s Accelerator and Southeast Asia initiatives amongst many other major projects before becoming a Partner in 2019. At what stage you prefer to enter and what’s the geography of your projects – Southeast Asia or maybe other countries? Our company provides […]

Natural Fiber Welding, a sustainable material science startup company, founded in 2015 by Dr. Luke Haverhals and re-incorporated in July 2020, with HQ in Peoria, Illinois, raised $13m Round led by Ralph Lauren Corporation with the participation of Central Illinois Angels and Prairie Crest Capital. NFW is a disruptive chemistry and technology company poised to offer sustainable alternatives to non-renewable plastics and produce high-value materials from low cost, highly functional naturally occurring fibers. Previously the company was funded by US Agencies including U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Ralph Lauren Corporation is a “global leader in the design, marketing, and distribution of premium lifestyle products” who focuses on the sustainability and integration of zero-waste principles across its business. They decided to support NFW because they have “revolutionized the reuse of natural fibers – such as cotton waste – into patented, high-performance materials”. Both NFW and […]

Thirty Madison, who already developed a treatment for hair loss, migraines, and chronic indigestion problems, founded in 2016 (turns 4 on August 29th) by a former Google employee, re-incorporated in March 2017, with under 100 employees, HQ in Greater New York Area, mastered Series B investment of $47m from Polaris Partners, Northzone, Maveron, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC. The total amount of investments in this startup reached $69.8m with 8 investors. Thirty Madison positions itself as “The human-first health company bringing specialized care and treatment to everyone.” Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Not only Education is heading to digitalization, but also Healthcare. Participation of a Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC (a venture capital arm of Johnson & Johnson Innovation) in the Series B of Thirty Madison (parent company of Keeps, Cove, and Evens) proves the importance of the area. The company provides continuing care after diagnosis and […]

Labster, virtual reality science simulation lab software developer for high schools and universities, founded in 2011 in Demark, and re-incorporated into Labster ApS in 2012, with HQ in Copenhagen and offices in Switzerland, USA, and Indonesia, and 113 employees as of August 2020, attracted $9m from GGV Capital, Owl Ventures, Balderton Capital, and Northzone, totaling $44.7m of venture investments (excluding $10m grant). Up-to-date revenue is estimated at $18.8m. Their lab simulation apps are widely used for educational purposes in a range of universities including CSU, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and so on. They are currently running a pilot fall program at the University of Toronto (Canada). Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights In our report on Skillshare’s latest round, we mentioned that online learning is on fire right now, and the Labster’s Round just confirmed the trend. Since March, the usage of Labster’s VR product has increased 15x and their apps will no […]

GoSite, San-Diego-based online platform for helping 12m SMB in the US on their journey online, founded by Alex Goode in 2013, with under 100 employees has just summoned $16m of Series A investments from Longley Capital, Stage 2 Capital and Ankona Capital, who joined existing investors Serra Ventures and SaaS Ventures; the total money raised reached $19.8m. The money will be used to expanding Gosite’s footprint on the global market and hiring more specialists, including Frank Auger as Chief Customer Officer. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Considering the global digitalization of businesses, this is a very smart investment into a company offering everything businesses need to go online. Gosite attracted players who are active in this area (Software and SaaS). There is one exciting moment: SaaS Ventures, Serra Ventures, and AC have CRM and Advertising background, and it may mean GoSite will get a good kick to generate income more efficiently. […]

Allergy Amulet, creator of the smallest food allergen sensor that can fit in your pocket, founded by Abigail Barnes in 2016, a company with less than 10 employees and 13 investors, and with HQ in Great Lakes (Midwest) just received $3.3m during Seed round from TitletownTech (leading investor), Great Oaks Venture Capital, Great North Labs, Dipalo Ventures, DeepWork Capital, Colle Capital Partners, Bulldog Innovation Group (total funding reached $4.8m). Allergy Amulet is developed to avoid allergic reactions by checking food for known allergens in seconds. This problem affects 32 million people in the United States and about 220m-520m worldwide. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Another Co-founder and Scientific Advisor of AA is Dr. Joseph BelBruno, a Dartmouth chemistry professor emeritus. Graduation from the Gener8tor accelerator of Wisconsin in 2016, AA raised funds from a couple of investors – Bulldog Innovation Group (Yale alumni-led venture capital firm, Barnes got her Master’s Degree […]

Skillshare, online learning community with thousands of classes and 5+ millions of members, and 10+ millions of website visits per month, founded in 2010, with about 500 employees and HQ in New York City, has enlarge their financial power with some $66m during new investment Round led by OMERS Growth Equity with participation of all existing investors – Union Square Ventures, Amasia, Burda Principal Investments, and Spero Ventures, totaling investments to almost $117m. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Skillshare decided to rebrand in early 2020 and started focusing mainly on the content of their platform and provision of more features and better usability. So no wonder that OGE joined the funding train as they are happy to invest in confident growth of companies, and Skillshare attracted another late stage investor to the gang. Considering the average exit period in USV (they used to exit after 7.5 years, and they invested into […]

Shigeru Handa is Director at Asia Africa Investment and Consulting Pte Ltd. He is a seasoned professional with over 20 years in business development consulting experience in the private sector as well as in international development. He has extensive experience in leading multi-national management teams even in fragile states. He has worked at Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Boston consulting group (BCG: Japan), Natural Lawson and United Nations Development Program. How it’s all started? How you decided to enter the venture investment business? I’ve been working in international business development and finance, both in public and private sectors. I helped to evaluate business opportunities and have been working with an aim of creating opportunities financially or job creation. Unlike others, I’m not an entrepreneur. Once I joined a team to develop and grow new convenient stores, and we managed to expand from 10 to more than 100 stores. There […]

The number of cross-border venture capital investments has increased by 5 times since 2000, and it continues to grow. At Unicorn Nest, we decided to examine the trends in cross-border investments in the latest period, since 2014, and here are some of the key takeaways. But firstly, let’s clarify what we are writing about. Cross-border investing refers to a financing arrangement that occurs outside a country’s borders and could help to find resources beyond domestic borders. Cross-border venture capital investments play an important role in scaling up high-growth companies. Policymakers express concerns that foreign VC investments transfer the majority of economic activity to the investor country. The startups however welcome foreign capital, expertise, and networks that usually go along with cross-border investments. Startups are often wary of international investments, especially from VC-funds located far from a startup’s incorporation country. This article also explains geographical connections between VC funds origins and […]

StreetLight Data, a company utilizing big data for mobility and transportation insights, founded in 2011 by Laura Schewel, with HQ in San Francisco and offices in Richmond, Virginia and Vancouver, BC, Canada, that makes 6000+ transportation machine-learning analyses per month of 5m+ roadways, sidewalks, bike lanes and 40b+location datapoints per month, paved a new development boost of the services provided with $15m Round D from new investors Macquarie Capital and Activate Capital, and existing investors Osage University Partners and Ajax Investment Strategies. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Founder Laura Schewel graduated Ph.D. at UC Berkley, a core partner of OUP which focuses on investing in startups that are commercializing pioneering university technologies. So it is the third investment from them, and Fund’s partner Marc Singer, a VC veteran with vast experience in CleanTech, got a seat in the Board of SLD. AIS focuses exclusively on solving climate change problems and they […]

PandaDoc, a SaaS document automation platform, organized by Belorussian founders Mikita Mikado and Sergey Barysiuk in 2013 as a successor to their successful 2011 Quote Roller project. HQ is in San Francisco and offices in Minks, Belarus, St. Petersburg, Florida, and Manila, Philippines with 300+ employees, and over 20,000 b2b customers, aggregated Round B ($15m in 2017) with additional $30m. The Round process involved 5 investors: One Peak Partners (lead-investor), Savano Capital Partners, M12, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, David Sipes. PandaDoc needs the money to enter the space with many competitors. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights PandaDoc declares the collected money will go “to take on competitors”, “expand to new businesses, such as education and health care”, but no doubts they need a piece of the Document Management cake. They can do it with CRM and ERP integrations. PandaDoc started offering some of their services free of charge during […]

Zencity, Israeli general and social media monitoring developer, whose system collects data from various sources (social posts, news, government communications, etc.) with the goal to provide local authorities with insights on the public sector, attracted $13.5m for further development of their products. Zencity services 150 local governments, including 40 cities in 29 US states and 4 countries. Salesforce Ventures and TLV Partners led the round, Canaan Partners Israel, Vertex Ventures, M12, i3 Equity Partners joined the party. The total VC investments attracted by Zencity reached $21m. Unicorn Nest Dataset Insights Two existing investors Canaan Partners Israel and i3 Equity Partners are focused on the IoT vertical and geographically are interested in Israel only. I3 participated in the seed round while stood aside during Round A in 2017. They are not active recently, so this follow-on was quite a surprise. Another interesting fact is participation of M12 (venture arm of Microsoft), […]

Vanessa Larco is Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA). She joined NEA as a Partner in 2016 and focuses on enterprise SaaS and consumer investing. She is passionate about well-designed products and services that enable people to be more productive and fulfilled at work and at home. Prior to joining NEA, she was the Director of Product Management at Box where she worked on building the next generation of productivity apps across web and mobile. How it’s all started? How you decided to enter the venture investment business? I fell into it. I’d never really thought about going into VС. My background is in product, I went to School for Computer Science at Georgia Tech. I thought I meant to be a software developer. When I was interviewing for internships at Microsoft, they recommended me to look for a PM position there, told me about the role and what it […]

Michele Novelli boasts more than 25 years of experience in the startup and venture capital industry. In 2011 he founded and became Managing Partner of Earlybird Italia, one of the most successful Venture Capital funds in Europe. Since 2013 he has been Partner at Digital Magics. In recent years, he has focused on the Fintech field by investing and contributing to the growth of several Italian companies. How it’s all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business? I came into Venture investment from the telecom industry. In 1995 I started working for the startup of Omnitel-Vodafone, in 2000 I started working for the Fastweb. Then I left Italy and from 2002 to 2010 I contributed to the launch of HanseNet Telekommunikation Gmbh in Germany and was working as a Member of the Board of Directors and a member of the Supervisory Board. So, I had more […]