Earlier this year, chip manufacturer Qualcomm announced a $100M venture fund for backing metaverse startups. The San Diego-headquartered company’s focus on metaverse is strategically important as it continues to expand beyond its core areas, an ethos underlying the foundation of the venture arm in 2000. Qualcomm Ventures has invested across 5G, AI, automotive, IoT, and connectivity tech domains, with its investment portfolio of 150 companies totaling over $2B. More: - Since its founding, Qualcomm Ventures has made over 500 investments, most notably Cloudflare, Fitbit, and Zoom; and has made 122 successful exits.
- It currently has 22 unicorns in its portfolio.
- Qualcomm’s recent funding participation includes:
- The firm had M&A exits from several firms, including Pensando, which was acquired by AMD for $1.9B; and Affirmed Networks, acquired by Microsoft for $1.35B.
- The firm has a yearly rolling fund of $150M to $200M for all investments but earmarked $100M for Metaverse startups in March this year.
- The fund invests across all stages but seldom leads investments, with check sizes ranging from $1M to $10M.
- Metaverse investments are an extension of its core technology portfolio, as Qualcomm Ventures’ senior vice president Quinn Li noted that “We supply most of the metaverse with semiconductors.”
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Archetype, a Brooklyn-based venture firm that just closed a $150M Web3 focused fund earlier this month, is optimistic about the cryptocurrency sector’s prospects as it continues to invest during the bear market. Through its Archetype II fund, the firm aims to make between $500,000 to $5M of initial investments in early-stage firms. More: - Previous notable portfolio investments include POAP Inc., an NFT marketplace; Polynomial, a DeFi platform; and Syndicate, a DAO infrastructure provider.
- Despite Bitcoin and Ethereum losing over 55% of their market value last week, the firm will continue to back Web3 startups.
- Founder and general partner Ash Egan noted that “If you’re investing based on the macro trends or off headlines, you will go absolutely crazy. You’ll become jittery when the markets are jittery. It’s hard to go against that and create your own thesis, but that’s where the real returns are made.”
- Archetype forecasts that smart contracts will be an integral part of digital commerce transactions over the next 10 to 15 years.
- They further anticipate between 10 million to 100 million users for smart contract-dominated apps over the next few years.
- Both the predictions form the underlying thesis of the firm’s investment strategy.
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Good Growth Capital secured $100M in capital toward its oversubscribed third fund. The impact investor focuses its investments on high potential firms across biomedical, health science, green tech, data science, and material sciences sectors. Good Growth typically invests from pre-seed to Series B stages. More: - Over 60% of Good Growth’s Managing Partners are female, with 20% being Latino.
- Good Growth Capital has made over 74 investments, per Crunchbase.
- Notable portfolio companies include lightweight perovskite solar panels manufacturer Swift Solar, private investment platform Republic, precision medicine health tech firm ReviveMed, and enterprise AI automation tool Pryon, amongst others.
- Over three-quarters of the Charleston, S.C.-based firm’s portfolio companies are led by founders from diverse backgrounds.
- Good Growth Capital claims that the new fund makes it the “largest venture capital fund in South Carolina history and one of the largest early-stage funds in the Southeast.”
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Digital investing platform Bibit raised $80M in funding led by GIC Private Limited and Prosus Ventures. The Indonesian company provides a mutual fund investment platform geared toward first-time investors. Bibit provides a robo-advisory service that helps users on its platform invest according to their risk profile and investment goals. More: - The company will use the proceeds from the fundraiser to accelerate product development, launch new products, hire more workforce, and strengthen its financial education program.
- Stockbit Academy, its stock market education program, helps connect users with experienced investors to gain advice and knowledge.
- It launched an e-IPO feature, named Stockbit Sekuritas, on its platform the last year, allowing users to take part in a completely online IPO process.
- The Ministry of Finance of Indonesia named Bibit as an authorized distribution partner to sell and trade government securities, commencing in early 2022.
- Bibit currently serves over 500 cities in the region.
- The fintech startup has secured $175M in total funding to date, per Crunchbase.
- Sequoia Capital is a previous investor, leading its previous $65M and $30M Series A rounds in 2021.
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Austin, Texas- and Los Angeles, California-based Redbud Brands secured $46M in funding led by Satori Capital. Sands Capital and VMG Partners participated in the funding. The holding company focuses on creating, incubating, and scaling healthy consumer products across the food and beverage, health and wellness, beauty, and pet sectors. More: - The firm differentiates itself from traditional venture firms by providing services, infrastructure, guidance, and capital to incubation stage brands.
- Since its founding in 2020, Redbud has scaled fermented juice cocktail brand SunDaze, plant-based nutritional supplements brand KOS, and cannabis-infused snacking company TSUMO Snacks.
- Hershey acquired Redbud’s previous portfolio company Amplify Snacks Brands in 2018 for $1.6B.
- Redbud Brands’s portfolio currently consists of 10 seed-stage startups, with several others operating across various growth stages.
- The company intends to use the incoming proceeds to provide backing to its commercialized portfolio brands and to create and launch new products.
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Plant protein-based alternative sugar products manufacturer Joywell closed its oversubscribed Series B funding round with $25M in funding. Piva Capital led the financing with participation from B37 Ventures and Global Brain Corporation. The funding round saw participation from returning investors Khosla Ventures, Evolv Ventures, SOSV, and Alumni Ventures. More: - The California-based company has pioneered a microbial fermentation process to manufacture sweet proteins similar to ones found in fruits and berries.
- Alternative sugars manufactured from the process have no impact on blood sugar levels or gut microbiomes, the company reported.
- Joywell will use the incoming funds for R&D and scaling up operations for commercialization, with a view to sell products directly to customers or to existing food companies for use in food products.
- Adzmel Adznan, Piva Capital’s co-founder, will join Joywell’s board as part of the deal. Since its founding in 2014, the firm has raised $38M in total funding to date.
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- U.K.-based subscription credit finance fintech Creditspring raised ~$60M (£48M). The funding round participants were not disclosed.
- San Francisco-based healthcare on-demand startup Solv secured $45M in Series C capital co-led by Acrew Capital and Corner Ventures, with participation from Benchmark and Greylock. $3.4M of the funding was provided via an SPV formed by 75 female investors.
- Targan, a Morrisville-based biotech company working on improving animal health and livestock productivity, raised $35M in Series C funding led by Mountain Group Partners. NovaQuest Capital Management, Merck Animal Health, and Oval Park Capital participated in the funding.
- Fidelity Management led a $30M funding into California-based machine learning startup SiMA.ai.
- Insight Partners led a $10M Series A funding round into the digital engagement platform Juno.
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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