aVenture is in Alpha: aVenture recently launched early public access to our research product. It's intended to illustrate capabilities and gather feedback from users. While in Alpha, you should expect the research data to be limited and may not yet meet our exacting standards. We've made the decision to temporarily present this information to showcase the product's potential, but you should not yet rely upon it for your investment decisions.
aVenture is in Alpha: aVenture recently launched early public access to our research product. It's intended to illustrate capabilities and gather feedback from users. While in Alpha, you should expect the research data to be limited and may not yet meet our exacting standards. We've made the decision to temporarily present this information to showcase the product's potential, but you should not yet rely upon it for your investment decisions.
© aVenture Investment Company, 2024. All rights reserved.
44 Tehama St, San Francisco, CA 94105
Privacy Policy
aVenture Investment Company (“aVenture”) is an independent research platform providing information and analysis about startups.
Certain metrics provided by aVenture may seek to assess the risks and opportunities associated with a company, fund, or its representatives (collectively “research”). aVenture seeks to provide this information with objectivity and fairness, and with diligence about its accuracy. Nonetheless, aVenture cannot provide assurance as to the accuracy of the information provided by our research. We strongly advise those using the research platform to seek multiple, independent sources for your research when making financial decisions.
Any links provided to other websites are offered as a matter of convenience and are not intended to imply that aVenture or its authors endorse, sponsor, promote, and/or are affiliated with the owners of or participants in those sites.
The aVenture platform also provides investment listings offered by independent investment advisers in the United States. aVenture is neither a registered investment adviser nor an exempt reporting adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and no statements made by aVenture are intended to imply any financial instruments are under the counsel or advice of aVenture or its representatives.
Funds offered on the platform are generally managed by a private investment adviser that, unless stated otherwise, claims exemption from SEC or state registration. Investment funds presented on the platform are only available to investors who meet the requirements of the offering, and solicitations are not made outside those listed jurisdictions.
Additionally, each investment offered on the platform has qualifications for eligibility, including some offered only to Qualified Clients and/or Accredited Investors. Certain funds may be available to non-Qualified or Accredited investors, but only those who become personally known and identifiable to aVenture Investment Company staff, who have had an opportunity to assess the financial capacity and suitability for such an investment, and discuss its risks. Funds, when offered, are only offered following a review of a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM), subscription agreement, and other disclosures.
Investments in startups, venture capital, angel investments, private equity, real estate, stocks, and similar asset classes all involve risks, including: the risk of a decline in the value of your investments, including potentially large declines (suddenly and/or for long periods of time), the potential for illiquidity where part or all of a withdrawal request may not be honored on the date requested (even when a feature of the fund). These risks are heightened during periods of market duress.
Diversification has the possibility of reducing the magnitude of declines (either caused by market/economic factors, or by factors related to the individual company), but does not guarantee these risks have been fully or partially alleviated. Most importantly, past results are not an assurance of future outcomes. While most of these risks are shared and similarly held by other investment asset classes, we recommend investors only consider venture capital investments as part of a broader, diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, and immediately accessible cash reserves.
From Startups | TechCrunch
By Christine Hall
April 16, 2024
When prolific venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Lerer Hippeau announced in early 2024 they were pivoting away from consumer tech, it sparked a social media debate about whether there are still opportunities.
Maven Ventures’ Jim Scheinman and Sara Deshpande say “yes.” And to prove it, they raised $60 million in capital commitments for a fourth fund to back “massive consumer tech trends.”
They say “massive” because this is the firm that seeded companies like videoconferencing giant Zoom and autonomous vehicle maker Cruise. Scheinman, founding managing partner, is even credited for coming up with the Zoom name.
As to the notion that no one wants to invest in consumer tech anymore, Scheinman told TechCrunch “it’s not true.” Like other sectors, this one also has cycles where consumers either think something is “the coolest thing ever” or “the worst.”
Consumer tech is in the trough of the cycle, Scheinman said. As such, he believes this is the best time to be an investor. “It’s less noisy, and there is a lot less competition as less people try to invest,” he said.
When he started investing, the internet was the first major platform. Then came mobile, then cloud and AWS. Scheinman thought web3 was going to be the next thing, but that was eclipsed by artificial intelligence. Jumping in, Maven will be there helping to build the next game-changing health AI company or robotics AI consumer business, he said.
“This is absolutely the time when multibillion-dollar companies are born, from now to over the next three to four years,” Scheinman said. “There are dozens of companies that you’ve never heard of that will be household names with the likes of Zoom, Cruise and Facebook. This is the time to invest in it.”
Any new portfolio business will be in good company. Overall, 16% of Maven’s portfolio companies have reached a minimum $500 million exit or valuation, which is 10x industry average, Scheinman and Deshpande, general partner, told TechCrunch.
Scheinman started the firm in 2013 and brought in Deshpande soon after to focus on consumer AI and personalized medicine. They brought in investment partner Robert Ravanshenas in 2015, and again in 2020 after a stint in a startup operating role, to focus on fintech, longevity and consumer AI.
Together the trio remains committed to seeding similar consumer tech trends, including applications of AI, personalized healthcare, climate and sustainability, family technology and fintech.
Fund IV brings total assets under management to $200 million and more than 50 total investments. The firm makes six to eight investments each year, writing average check sizes between $1 million and $1.5 million.
Maven invested in seven new companies so far from the new fund, including Medeloop, a platform to help improve clinical research; Lutra AI, a startup that creates AI workflows from natural language; and AI agent company MultiOn.
A big theme for this new fund is investing in founders that have unique insight around how this technology can improve life for consumers. In addition, “figuring how, with this new emergence and improvement in AI technology, do we envision that we can actually improve life for consumers all the way to the consumer,” Deshpande said.
“Consumer trends will never go away,” Deshpande said. “Consumers are the spending engine of a healthy economy. We are all consumers. For us, it’s really this knack of being able to see what is changing consumer behavior or a new technology that can massively impact people’s lives. Founders come to us with an amazing vision worth fighting for, and that’s the type of stuff we’re spending a lot of time on right now.”
View original article on techcrunch.com
Share:
Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup, launches with a massive $1B, says it’s ‘ready’ to start developing drugs
Advances in generative AI have taken the tech world by storm. Biotech investors are making a big bet that similar computational methods could revolutionize drug discovery. On Tuesday, ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, an affiliate of Foresite Capital, announced that they incubated Xaira Therapeutics and funded the AI biotech with $1 billion. Other investors […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Apr 25, 2024
Eric Schmidt-backed Augment, a GitHub Copilot rival, launches out of stealth with $252M
AI is supercharging coding — and developers are embracing it. In a recent StackOverflow poll, 44% of software engineers said that they use AI tools as part of their development processes now and 26% plan to soon. Gartner estimates that over half of organizations are currently piloting or have already deployed AI-driven coding assistants, and […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Apr 24, 2024
Radical thinks the time has come for solar-powered, high-altitude autonomous aircraft
Though many eyes are on space as orbit develops into a thriving business ecosystem, Radical is keeping things a little closer to the ground — but not too close. Its high-altitude, solar-powered aircraft aim to succeed where Facebook’s infamous Aquila failed by refining the tech and embracing more markets. It’s hard to believe that Facebook’s […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Apr 24, 2024
Don't miss our latest news and updates. Subscribe to the newsletter
More from Tech Crunch: