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| Here's your daily VC briefing: - 🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund established a new investment firm to capitalize on the AI and semiconductor boom.
- 🥇 Andreessen Horowitz was the most active investor for the second consecutive month in February.
- 💰 Peak XV Partners will create a new evergreen fund to explore different investment opportunities.
Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co. and AI firm G42 are setting up a new investment firm called MGX. The new investment firm aims to capitalize on the AI and semiconductor sector boom. MGX expects investments in AI and the semiconductor sector could help it reach about $100B in assets under management in a few years. More: - Mubadala's CEO of the direct investments platform, Ahmed Yahia Al Idrissi, will serve as the CEO of the newly formed entity.
- The firm will initially pursue deals with capital provided by Abu Dhabi's government.
- MGX aims to invest in AI infrastructure, semiconductors, and AI core technologies and applications.
Zoom out: - Mubadala is one of the three sovereign wealth funds in Abu Dhabi, which collectively manage about $1.5T worth of assets.
- Mubadala has about $276B worth of assets under management.
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| 2 | | Andreessen Horowitz was the most active investor in February, investing in 15 U.S.-based startups, per Crunchbase. 
What the numbers say: A16z was the most active investor for the second consecutive month after topping the list with 11 deals in January. The majority of its deals involved healthcare and biotech startups. Notable deals closed in February include blood-test developer Freenome's $254M funding round, BioAge Labs' $170M Series D, and Ambience Healthcare's $70M Series B rounds. Relevance: GV and Alumni Ventures jointly held the second spot in the rankings, inking seven deals each. The third spot was jointly held by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. What happened: Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sands Capital Ventures led or co-led three deals each. Disney topped the list for the highest amount led or co-led with its $1.5B investment in Epic Games. Lightspeed was second on the list, leading or co-leading deals worth $414M. | | | |
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| 3 | | Next Ventures is looking to raise $100M in capital for the second fund. The Next Ventures Fund II will invest primarily in healthcare startups working on preventative care, diagnostics, and healthcare infrastructure. More: - Cyclist turned investor Lance Amstrong co-founded the firm along with Canadian athlete Lionel Conacher and former Nike Melanie Strong.
- Conacher left the firm in 2021.
- The firm typically prefers to lead pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds in startups, with initial checks averaging $2M.
- Exercise recovery startup Amp Human, health tracking ring developer Oura, and medical device diagnostics firm Vital Bio are a few of its notable portfolio startups.
Zoom out: - The new fund comes five years after it raised a $50M fund, with an additional $10M for special purpose vehicles.
- The fund initially had a target of $75M.
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| 4 | | Peak XV Partners is creating a new evergreen fund called Peak XV Anchor Fund, the firm announced at its annual general meeting this week. The new perpetual fund will help the firm become "a significant investor in our future funds" and explore investment opportunities in different asset classes. More: - Peak XV will invest capital from its internal balance sheet into the perpetual fund.
- In addition, the fund will be backed by Peak XV's employees and investment partners.
- The firm will partner with other "managers across regions, strategies, and sectors."
Zoom out: - Peak VX manages over $9B in assets under management.
- Before its split with Sequoia Capital, the firm raised a $2.85B fund and an early-stage focused program called Surge.
- At the time of the split, Sequoia Capital had about $2.5B in dry powder to be deployed in India and Southeast Asia.
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| 5 | | Ada Partners held the final close of its second fund at £63M ($80M) to support startups addressing inclusivity and diversity challenges. The British VC firm typically invests between £250,000 ($320,450) to £1.5M ($1.9M) in pre-seed to seed stage startups. The firm wants to make 10 to 12 investments annually into startups working on climate equity, economic empowerment, and healthy aging. More: - Limited partners contributing capital to the fund include the British Business Bank, the University of Edinburgh, Atomico, the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, and Molten Ventures.
- Ada Partners has already backed 12 startups with the new fund, including Alive, BlackBear Glowb, Greenwork, Materials Nexus, MultiOmic, Boldr, and JunoBio.
- The firm has about £100M ($128M) in assets under management.
- Ada claims that 30% of its Fund I and II investments came from the Ada Scout program, which has about 100 scouts, who all have access to an investment pot of £50,000 ($64,000).
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| 6 | | Today's Funding: Blockchain - Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain development startup Eclipse Labs raked in $50M in Series A funding. Placeholder and Hack VC co-led the round, joined by Polychain Capital, Delphi Digital, Maven 11, DBA, and Fenbushi Capital.
Data - Hyperscale data processing and analytics startup Ocient extended its Series B round with an additional $49.4M capital provided by Buoyant Ventures, Levy Family Partners, Riverwalk Capital, and Wolf Capital Management. The round adds to the firm's previous $40M Series B round led by Greycroft and OCA Ventures in January 2021.
Food & beverages - Canned water brand Liquid Death doubled its valuation from $700M in 2022 to $1.4B while raising a $67M funding round from strategic investors and distributors. SuRo Capital, Live Nation, Science Inc., and Creek Capital Partners provided the funding, along with actor Josh Brolin and NFL player DeAndre Hopkins.
- Pouched baby food brand Serenity Kids raised $52M in Series B funding led by Stride Consumer Partners.
Transportation - Applied Intuition, an automotive startup developing software for vehicles used in the automotive, trucking, construction, and mining sectors, increased its valuation to $6B at its $250M Series E funding round led by existing backers Lux Capital, Elad Gil, and Porsche Investments Management. Other investors participating in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, BOND, Human Capital, and Human Capital.
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- Monad Labs is in talks with investors to raise a $200M funding round at a $3B valuation, sources informed Fortune. Crypto investor Paradigm has reportedly committed $150M to the round.
- VCs invested $135.3M (177.4B won) in Korean startups in the first two months of this year, about double that of the same time last year.
- Hein Vogel is stepping down from the CEO role at Australian publicly listed VC firm Touch Ventures after 4.5 years "to pursue other opportunities." In 2023, the company reported $15.4M in losses after writing off $27M worth of investments in portfolio companies PlanPay and Till Payments.
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 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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