The BFM Fund Selected As An SSBCI Funder Through State of Oregon, Joins Recast’s Accelerate Fellowship Program and Provides Snapshot of What’s Ahead Through Q4 2023

PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 14, 2023 — Amidst market volatility and legacy fundraising challenges, emerging fund managers continue to make a splash as they disrupt the venture ecosystem. “The BFM Fund team has had an eventful summer and we’re gearing up for an incredible Fall conference season,” says Himalaya Rao-Potlapally, Managing Director of The BFM Fund. “It has been a great honor to be selected as an SSBCI funder, a fellow with Recast Capital and VC Include, to lead healing sessions for women of color leaders across the country, and to be recognized for the continuous work we are doing to expand the accessibility of entrepreneurship to BIPOC and rural communities as a pathway for economic development and generational wealth building.”

Over the last few months, The BFM Fund has had several milestone announcements:

Business Oregon BOV Fund Program – Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency, announced its intent to award $3M to The BFM Fund. The Business Oregon Venture Fund Program (BOV Fund Program) is awarding a total of $5M to three Oregon-based fund managers to increase access to venture capital for as many as 50 early-stage startups. The BFM Fund is looking forward to deploying the capital to support the robust innovation ecosystem that has been building in Oregon over the last 10 years and has already obtained $1.5mm of the $3mm required private match funds.

Recast Cohort Accelerate Program – Recast Capital, a platform dedicated to investing in and supporting emerging managers in venture, announced the first cohort of Recast Accelerate, a catalytic program designed to drive the success of women and nonbinary-led, early stage US funds in venture capital—Himalaya Rao was selected as one of the 36 fall 2023 inaugural cohort members. Of the 36 selected funds, 25% include at least one GP that is Black, 17% Latinx, 39% Asian, 8% from the LGBTQIA+ community, and 36% are first-generation U.S. citizens. The funds are headquartered all across the US, covering 13 states and over 83% of the funds involved are raising Fund I and 53% are a solo GP. Some of the top sectors of focus include health and wellness, consumer technology and climate technology.

Boston Impact Initiative (BII), 2023 Emerging Fund Manager Cohort – Himalaya Rao and Marquita Jamarillo were selected to participate in BII’s third emerging fund manager cohort program in summer 2023. The program provides education and training to diverse, emerging fund managers who are interested in designing and launching integrated capital funds dedicated to closing the racial wealth divide. Himalaya and Marquita both successfully completed the program alongside 12 other participants representing 8 place-based funds in six cities where they learned about integrated capital, stakeholder development, investment criteria, governance structures, fund design and modeling, impact measurement and management, and raising capital.

Black Venture Summit, Build in Tulsa – Himalaya Rao and The BFM Fund have been selected to participate in the The Black Venture Summit which brings together the top Black talent in venture capital from across America to Tulsa, Oklahoma from October 4-6, 2023. Himalaya will have the opportunity to connect one-on-one with those at the forefront of equity and inclusion in the venture capital ecosystem. The summit’s goal is to bring together leading GPs and seasoned LPs committed to investing in diverse fund managers.

Recent Award Wins – The BFM Fund was recently awarded 2023 Afrotech’s Future 50 Investor, recognizing those who are advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and innovation through their career endeavors. Furthermore, Himalya Rao also received the Recent Alumni Leadership, Innovative Achievement Award from Willamette University.

These recent wins join the Managing Director’s already impressive roster of wins including:

Black Friday Film Premiere – September 1 marked “Black Friday”, a community event hosted by Devin Boss and Zoe Piliafas, at Hollywood Theatre which served as the debut for the first two episodes of a Portland-produced docuseries about Black Oregon entrepreneurs. The night also included a panel of business leaders in which Marquita Jaramillo, Principal at The BFM Fund shared the stage alongside Fund friend and community partner, All Raise CEO- Paige Hendrix Buckner, who is a fierce advocate for the inclusion of women in business. The panel was moderated by Microenterprise Services of Oregon Director, Cobi Lewis to celebrate and pay homage to the trailblazers and Black entrepreneurs of Oregon.

If you’re looking to connect with Himalaya Rao or The BFM Fund team, they will be hosting and speaking at several events this upcoming conference season:

Upcoming Calendar of Events featuring or hosted by The BFM Fund

The BFM Fund will also be supporting the following organizations at their community-centered events this Fall:

The BFM Fund
The BFM Fund is a seed-stage venture investment fund, routinely investing in Black and innovative founders who create startups based in the United States. The fund is returns-focused and seeks scalable ventures across multiple industries between the Series Seed and Series A life-stage. Beyond capital, The BFM Fund partners with industry-specific lead firms in the Series A to Series C stage to help its portfolio companies scale efficiently. The fund strategy is to be a “feeder fund” to larger industry-specific funds who lack diversity in their portfolio and connect innovative founders with a pathway to liquidity, creating intentionality in demographic-based investing. To learn more about The BFM Fund, please visit www.bfm.fund or connect with them on Linkedin (@bfmfund). Any inquiries can be sent to hello@bfm.fund. 

SOURCE The BFM Fund (Black Founders Matter Fund)

LLS’s Investment in Leading-Edge Research Aims to Accelerate Treatment Innovation and Expand Equitable Access to Treatments to Increase the Quality of Life and Survival Rates for All Blood Cancer Patients

RYE BROOK, N.Y., Sept. 14, 2023 — The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), the largest nonprofit dedicated to creating a world without blood cancers, is proud to be recognized by the White House Cancer Moonshot for its investment and efforts to promote health equity in the latest Cancer Moonshot Fact Sheet released yesterday by the White House.

From the White House Fact Sheet:

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) will invest more than $17 million to bring clinical trials and treatment innovation to diverse and underrepresented communities across the country. For example, LLS is expanding its Influential Medicine Providing Access to Clinical Trials (IMPACT) Research Grant Program to include seven major, geographically diverse cancer centers and surrounding local cancer care delivery settings, to bring blood cancer treatment studies into more communities. As part of the investment, LLS’s Equity in Access Research Program will spend $2.5 million in the next year to initiate multi-year studies addressing systemic, institutional, clinician, and patient-related barriers to trial participation. In the next five years, LLS aims to improve the speed of innovation and expand equitable access to treatments that have the potential to increase blood cancer patients’ quality of life and survival. 

The ideal timing of this information from the White House during Blood Cancer Awareness Month is amplifying LLS’s dedication to ensuring that all blood cancer patients and survivors have access to the care they need, when they need it. But for too many patients, this does not happen. As demonstrated in the latest Cancer Moonshot Fact Sheet, LLS is making major investments in solutions to advance equitable access to care.

The programs highlighted are just two examples of many ways in which LLS is working to make a difference in the lives of those affected by blood cancer. In addition to investing in research, LLS also provides free, personalized support and advocates for policies at the state and federal levels that eliminate barriers to cancer care.

To learn more, please visit lls.org.

About The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society  

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society® (LLS) is the global leader in the fight against blood cancer. The LLS mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. LLS funds lifesaving blood cancer research around the world, provides free information and support services, and is the voice for all blood cancer patients seeking access to quality, affordable, coordinated care. 

Founded in 1949 and headquartered in Rye Brook, NY, LLS has regions throughout the United States and Canada. To learn more, visit www.LLS.org. Patients should contact the Information Resource Center at (800) 955-4572, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET.  

LLS is the only organization featured in the nonprofit category on both Fast Company’s 2022 Brands That Matter list and the 2023 Best Workplaces for Innovators list. LLS stands out among brands around the world for its relevancy, cultural impact, ingenuity, and mission impact.  

For additional information, visit lls.org/lls-newsnetwork. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Media Contact: Melissa Valentino [email protected]

SOURCE The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS)

New funding allows company to grow its California
homeowners’ insurance business providing further relief to wildfire-stressed market

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2023 — Delos Insurance Solutions, which uses wildfire science and satellite imagery expertise to solve homeowners’ wildfire insurance availability issues, today announced a $7.3 million seed extension round.  The funding enables the company’s expansion in the California homeowners’ insurance market. The seed extension round was led by IA Capital Group with participation from Blue Bear Capital; Gallatin Point Capital; Generation Space through Seraphim Space Investment Trust PLC; Avanta Ventures, the corporate venture arm of CSAA Insurance Group; Red Dog Capital; DNX Ventures; Robert Glanville; and Jonathan Crystal.

As large national carriers are reducing their California homeowners’ exposure, Delos is doubling down on its commitment to the market by working with its committed carrier partners to dramatically expand insurance options for homeowners struggling to find coverage.

The Delos approach vertically integrates its wildfire science expertise and data from its full suite of wildfire models.  This empowers the company to pinpoint properties in “stressed” areas – ones the traditional market is avoiding due to potential wildfire concerns – that do not pose a high risk of loss and offer those homeowners full insurance coverage.  To date, not a single home insured by Delos has suffered a wildfire loss and they have never non-renewed a home for wildfire exposure.

Delos’ platform aggregates and analyzes exposure and concentration data to quantify a home’s actual wildfire risk.  It’s enabled by a proprietary geospatial AI algorithm and more than two hundred data layer inputs, such as detailed weather and wind data, drought and precipitation history, and multi-level overlays of amount, type, and health of vegetation.

“This new funding round underscores Delos’ commitment to the California homeowners’ insurance marketplace and substantiates the success of our vertically integrated strategy,” said Delos CEO and Co-Founder Kevin Stein. “The significant growth of our homeowners’ insurance product over the past 12 months, combined with the confidence of our investors, helped us secure funding in a difficult environment.  It enables us to write even more homeowners insurance policies through our independent agent network and partner carriers, who offer our policy in regions where they don’t write.”

“We are impressed by Delos’ success and growth trajectory in this incredibly challenging California wildfire insurance market,” said Matt Perlman, Partner at IA Capital. “Delos provides homeowners with a creative and viable solution to the persistent problem of insuring homes in areas under threat of wildfire. We are pleased to provide further support to help fuel their expansion in California and beyond.”

“The home insurance market in California is broken and while wildfire risk isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, neither are Californians,” said Vaughn Blake, Partner at Blue Bear Capital. “Delos leverages a depth of understanding in data-modeling, machine learning, and wildfire behavior that traditional markets currently don’t possess, all in the service of writing coverage.  Blue Bear is excited to partner with Kevin, Shanna, and the rest of the Delos team as they face the wildfire problem head-on, with a data-driven, solutions-oriented approach.”

As a specialist MGA, Delos can continuously update their data set with new information within six weeks, allowing the team to adapt and react to new evolutions in wildfire peril and remain profitable as climate continues to affect this catastrophe.

About Delos Insurance Solutions

Delos Insurance Solutions uses cutting-edge technology to offer insurance protection to homeowners in communities abandoned by other insurers because of wildfire risk. Founded in San Francisco in 2017 by aerospace engineers, Delos uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to identify insurable homes within territories deemed too risky by the rest of the insurance market. Delos is a Managing General Agent (MGA) offering policies on behalf of insurers rated “A” (Excellent) by AM Best.

SOURCE Delos Insurance Solutions

Industry-first automated evaluation and security platform to detect unexpected LLM failures at scale

NEW YORK, Sept. 14, 2023 — Patronus AI today officially launched the first automated evaluation and security platform that helps companies use large language models (LLMs) safely. Using proprietary AI, the new platform enables enterprise development teams to score model performance, generate adversarial test cases, benchmark models and more. Patronus AI automates and scales the manual and costly model evaluation methods prevalent in the enterprise today, enabling organizations to confidently deploy LLMs while minimizing the risk of model failures and misaligned outputs.

Patronus AI was founded by machine learning experts Anand Kannappan and Rebecca Qian. Prior to Patronus AI, Rebecca led responsible NLP research at Meta AI, and Anand pioneered explainable ML frameworks at Meta Reality Labs. They founded the company after experiencing firsthand the difficulties of evaluating AI outputs, and recognized early on that LLM evaluation would become a massive challenge for enterprises.

“Every company is looking for ways to use LLMs today, yet they are concerned that unexpected model behavior, incorrect outputs and hallucinations will put their business and customers at risk,” said Anand Kannappan, CEO and co-founder, Patronus AI. “Whether off-the-shelf, open-source or custom, models today remain inadequately vetted and tested in real-world scenarios. And until now, the process of evaluating LLMs has been extremely inefficient and unscalable, producing unreliable results.”

Patronus AI leverages state-of-the-art machine learning technology to test and score any language model in order to identify potential failures. The platform automates:

• Scoring: Scores model performance in real world scenarios and key criteria like hallucinations and safety.
• Test generation: Automatically generates adversarial test suites at scale.
• Benchmarking: Compares models to help customers identify the best model for specific use cases.

Fueling the company’s launch is a $3 million seed funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Factorial Capital, the CEO of Replit Amjad Masad, Gokul Rajaram and a number of other Fortune 500 executives and board members.

“AI has become a must-have for businesses, as they seek to realize its full potential and not be left behind in the LLM revolution,” said Nnamdi Iregbulem, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “But no responsible company is going to put their reputation on the line by leveraging risky models. Patronus AI not only has the technology to tackle this problem head-on, they have a world-class team from Meta, Airbnb and Samsung, with the expertise to help organizations safely navigate LLMs. We’re thrilled to be on this journey with them and look forward to playing a role in their continued growth.”

Early platform partners include leading AI companies, including Cohere, Nomic AI, and Naologic. Additionally, several high profile companies in traditional industries like financial services will be piloting Patronus AI in the coming months.

About Patronus AI
Patronus AI is the first automated evaluation and security platform that helps companies use large language models (LLMs) safely. For more information, visit https://www.patronus.ai/ or reach out to [email protected].

SOURCE Patronus AI

Round led by T. Rowe Price, joined by new investors Capital One Ventures, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and strategic investor NVIDIA

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2023 — Databricks, the Data and AI company, today announced its Series I funding, raising over $500 million. This funding values the company at $43 billion and establishes the price per share at $73.50. The series is led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., which is joined by other existing investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, ClearBridge Investments, funds and accounts managed by Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Fidelity Management & Research Company, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Octahedron Capital and Tiger Global along with new investors Capital One Ventures, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and NVIDIA.

“The commitment from long-term focused strategic and financial partners reflects Databricks’ continued momentum, the rapid customer adoption of the Databricks Lakehouse, and the success customers are seeing from moving to a unified data and AI platform,” said Ali Ghodsi, Co-Founder and CEO of Databricks. “Databricks and NVIDIA are building transformative AI technology, and we’re excited about the business value and innovation we can bring to our customers.”

The Databricks Lakehouse unifies data, analytics and AI on a single platform so that customers can govern, manage and derive insights from enterprise data and build their own generative AI solutions faster.

“Enterprise data is a goldmine for generative AI,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Databricks is doing incredible work with NVIDIA technology to accelerate data processing and generative AI models.”

“Data and AI have rapidly become the centerpiece of many business strategies. Databricks has not only pioneered the Lakehouse category with a world-class team and product, but it is now also at the forefront of Generative AI for the enterprise. We’re proud to extend our investment at such a pivotal time for the company, its customers, and the data and AI industry.” – Alan Tu, Lead Private Equity Analyst, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.

“Teachers’ Venture Growth is excited to invest in Databricks and sees tremendous growth potential for the business as enterprises increasingly deploy AI across their operations. As investors focused on long-term value creation, we look forward to working with Ali and Databricks’ strong management team on the next phase of their growth journey.” – Olivia Steedman, Executive Managing Director, Teachers’ Venture Growth at Ontario Teachers’  

The support from Databricks’ financial and strategic partners comes on the heels of its Q2 momentum (ended July 31, 2023), which includes:

• Crossed $1.5B revenue run rate at over 50% revenue year-over-year growth with the second quarter representing the strongest quarterly incremental revenue growth in Databricks’ history
• Ended the quarter with more than 10,000 global customers, including >300 customers consuming at $1M+ annual revenue run-rate
• Achieved record Non-GAAP subscription gross margins of 85%
• Closed acquisition of MosaicML, a leading generative AI platform
• Delivered 20 product and feature releases at the sold-out Data and AI Summit in June with over 30,000 global attendees

About Databricks
Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics and AI. Founded by the original creators of Delta Lake, Apache Spark™, and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world’s toughest problems. To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Contact: [email protected] 

SOURCE Databricks

Sailebots are a first-of-their-kind, full stack prospecting technology for automating all of sales prospecting, giving enterprise sales teams space for more meaningful human activities

KANSAS CITY, Mo. and NEW YORK, Sept. 14, 2023 — Sailes, the AI startup that developed its patent-pending Sailebots to automate all points in the prospecting lifecycle, today announced the close of a $5.1 million Series A funding round led by Lewis & Clark Ventures. The round was supported with investments from Acronym Venture Capital and Tenzing Capital, plus follow-on investment from existing investors KCRise Fund and Valor Ventures. The round brings the company’s total funding to $6.6 million.

Globally compliant and deployed in multiple languages, Sailes’ proprietary AI technology eliminates repetitive, manual tasks in favor of high-value, high-return sales activities. The first and only known company to automate all prospecting for enterprises, Sailes built and trained its own sales-focused AI model to replace up to a dozen different prospecting point solutions—including for research, discovery, data validation, content generation, marketing automation, follow-up prompts, and sales/revenue intelligence. Beyond “enablement,” Sailebots use proprietary standalone infrastructure to multiply enterprise sales reps with their own personalized AI as a single product to complete all activities. Reflecting the unique personality of the user, Sailebots give saleshumans the time to focus on the most meaningful activities they’ve prepared for their whole career: closing deals.

“Everyone is focused on getting AI in the hands of salespeople—and we’ve been doing our part to make that happen since 2019. However, our larger vision is a world where technology creates the space for us all to be more human,” said Nick Smith, CEO and Founder of Sailes. “We’ll give salespeople their own AI, that they control, and that prospects the same way they do, to deliver them unlimited labor, revenue opportunities, and possibilities. We’ve created a fork in the road between solutions that ‘enable,’ and Sailebots that do your work for you, as you, so you can spend more time selling, and more time living.”

Sailes has set the blueprint for a new era of capital-efficient startups, combining the efficacy of its own Sailebot^® technology with the fuel of significant Fortune 500 adoption across commercial sectors including real estate, heavy equipment, financial services, environmental, social, and corporate governance, and manufacturing, to drive yearly triple-digit revenue growth since its inception. The company deliberately pursued a strategic cash investment to help it more quickly scale its AI and machine learning talent, as well as to grow the company’s footprint in New York City.

The company’s latest innovation, Starboard™, provides an immersive user experience where enterprise sales teams can manage and deploy a “fleet” of Sailebots. This offering allows reps to onboard, instruct, deploy, and train their own AI, giving companies the control they need and the power of four sales development representatives in every Sailebot^®. As new data and insights are uncovered, they’re shared with sales teams to help them become even more effective.

“From the early stages of our diligence process, it was apparent that Sailes was the first mover in using AI to fully automate the lead gen and prospecting activities for enterprise sales teams,” said Michael Rockhold, Principal at Lewis & Clark Ventures. “With so much buzz around AI, it was incredibly validating to hear customers rave about the actual value, in terms of both sales pipeline creation and labor efficiency, the platform provides. As evidenced by their tremendous growth and marquee customer logos, Sailes is experiencing a strong pull from the market. Additionally, Nick and team embody all of the characteristics we look for when backing early-stage founders. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with the business.”

For more information, visit www.sailes.com.

About Sailes
Headquartered in Kansas City, MO and New York City, Sailes is sales with AI for enterprises. Founded in 2018 by enterprise sales leaders, Sailes deploys its patent-pending, globally compliant Sailebots to automate all prospecting for global enterprise sales teams.

Contact
5WPR for Sailes
[email protected] 

SOURCE Sailes

CALGARY, AB, Sept. 14, 2023 — Ontopical, the most trusted data and intelligence platform to help businesses discover and win government work, announced today a $3.3 million Seed Extension round co-led by Rhino Ventures and Graphite Ventures and supported by Accelerate Fund III. The round also incorporates a grant from Alberta Innovates. To date, Ontopical has raised over $6 million in funding. 

At a time of increasing public demand for government organisations to provide higher transparency in how contracts are awarded, Ontopical provides equitable access to government opportunities for qualified businesses. Ontopical’s AI-driven data and intelligence platform makes it possible for the private sector to detect early signals from public sector data about upcoming contract opportunities and policy updates to help them efficiently win more business.

Ontopical will use the funds to further develop its AI-driven intelligence platform and expand its business further across North America. The company also plans to triple their team over the next two years, hiring data engineers, data scientists, AI/ML specialists and new members to its sales and marketing teams. The majority of roles will be based in Calgary.

“This funding represents a major milestone for Ontopical and expedites our ability to improve the efficiency of how public sector markets work for private sector clients,” said Clayton Feick, CEO of Ontopical. “We are effectively applying an AI-layer on top of an ever-growing pool of credible public data to attract the most qualified private sector teams to public works contracts.”

With Ontopical’s AI-driven platform, businesses of all sizes are equipped to discover and compete for government work. The platform mines millions of unstructured and multi-format public sector data sources including agendas, minutes, budgets and videos within cities, counties and school districts to identify and consolidate intelligence to help businesses efficiently apply for new contracts. Ontopical’s customers include some of North America’s largest telecom players, major architectural, engineering and construction firms, energy and utilities providers, health services, software, IoT and technology companies. More than half of its customers are in the U.S.

“The procurement process for municipal governments remains incredibly antiquated, heavily favouring long standing incumbent relationships,” said Dave Hogarth, Partner at Rhino Ventures. “Ontopical provides not only a platform for more scalable growth to their customers, but improves outcomes for the constituents of local governments by allowing the best government service providers access to bid on a far wider range of projects.”

“We’re really pleased to join Clayton, Derrick and the Ontopical team as we’ve tracked them for the last year and are impressed with their data-focused approach to solving procurement problems in the public and private sectors,” said Craig Leonard, General Partner with Graphite Ventures. “They’re a great example of a company that uses AI in a meaningful way and of the strong companies emerging out of the Alberta ecosystem.”

About Ontopical
Ontopical is the most trusted data and intelligence platform to help businesses discover and win government work. Its AI-driven data platform enables business development leaders in engineering and construction, telecommunications, technology, health services and other industries to efficiently identify and win new opportunities. Users gain access to credible, organised insights on government plans, policies and activities mined from publicly available data, updated daily across millions of council and committee agendas, minutes, budgets, and plans, including over 125,000 video hours of government meetings. Ontopical is headquartered in Calgary with remote employees across North America. Find out more at Ontopical.com.

About Graphite Ventures
Graphite Ventures is an early-stage seeding-for-scale venture capital firm that invests in early-stage B2B SaaS, fintech, proptech, digital health and capital-efficient hardware companies. Graphite is one of Canada’s most active and consistent VC firms, and the team has invested in more than 200 companies over the past decade. Graphite launched the $110M Graphite Fund IV in 2021 with a focus on Seed and Series A opportunities across Canada. For more information, visit www.graphitevc.com.

About Rhino Ventures
Rhino Ventures leads financing for early-stage businesses in Canada. With over $200M under management, they’ve invested in several iconic Canadian companies including Article, Aspect Biosystems, FISPAN, and Klue. Rhino Ventures is led by partners Fraser Hall, Jay Rhind and David Hogarth and is based in Vancouver, BC. For more information, visit www.rhinovc.com.

About Accelerate Fund
Accelerate Fund III is an early-stage angel co-investment fund in Alberta. Managed by Yaletown Partners with the support of The A100, Accelerate Fund III invests in private Alberta companies in knowledge-based industries including: information and communications technology, energy technology, life sciences, agtech and biotech. Alberta Enterprise Corporation is Accelerate Fund III’s lead limited partner with support from other investors including Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund.  Find out more at AccelerateFund.ca.

For media inquiries, please contact:                                      
Claudia Moore
Material Insight
Phone: 403.703.0029
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Ontopical

Founding partners, Nagraj Kashyap, Priya Saiprasad, and Samir Kumar bring a combined 60+ years of experience from SoftBank and M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2023 — Today, Nagraj Kashyap, Priya Saiprasad, and Samir Kumar announced the launch of Touring Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investing in the next generation of early-growth stage, AI-powered SaaS startups around the world. Touring Capital’s founding partners previously led M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, and Qualcomm Ventures and have been in leadership roles at SoftBank Vision Fund II.

Touring Capital is partnering with Oakley Capital, a leading investment firm with $10 billion under management, to build a new venture capital platform. The platform will offer decades of experience spanning market cycles, the power of a tried-and-tested network across the global technology ecosystem, and a deliberate hands-on approach to value creation for portfolio companies. The team has already made its first investment by leading the latest financing round in Pixis, a cutting edge AI-powered software for digital marketers.

Touring Capital is backed by institutional firms and family offices, as well as more than 20 former founders who previously worked with Touring Capital’s leadership, highlighting the team’s commitment to strong, long-lasting relationships with entrepreneurs.

Touring Capital’s founding team has worked together across three platforms since 2012, successfully building cultures that drive platform longevity and market-leading returns. Kashyap, Kumar, and Saiprasad have collectively invested in 16 unicorns and led 26 successfully exited investments, underscoring their deep connectivity and proven track record of venture capital investing across the global technology startup ecosystem. 

With a differentiated approach, Touring Capital aims to source deals in and outside of Silicon Valley and will be searching from coast to coast to identify exceptional founders. In addition to sourcing deals from across North America, the firm will focus heavily on emerging software ecosystems including India, Australia, Israel and Europe. The firm’s debut fund will predominantly focus on investing in Series B and Series C rounds of category-defining SaaS companies powered by AI. 

“While we’re a first-time fund, we’re not a first-time team. Our partners bring more than sixty years of experience investing in best-in-class software unicorns including Zoom, Kahoot, Livongo, Outreach, Applied Intuition, Innovaccer, and Go1,” said Nagraj Kashyap, founding partner at Touring Capital. “Our deep, cross-generational industry expertise uniquely positions us to support entrepreneurs from a variety of backgrounds and equip them with a network of global relationships that extend beyond Silicon Valley and the U.S. We are committed to partnering with exceptional founders that are reshaping the software landscape through AI and supercharging their growth for long-term success.” 

“The Touring Capital team’s history of choosing emerging category winners is a testament to the impact they will have on every portfolio company they engage with,” said Peter Dubens, founding partner at Oakley Capital. “I am confident Touring Capital’s deep industry expertise and network will equip founders with the support they need to sustain rapid growth, and I am honored to be part of their journey as they build upon a global network of entrepreneurs who are transforming AI-fueled software to improve human productivity at-large.” 

Touring Capital believes we are on the cusp of significant, AI-driven transformations within software that will fuel major productivity gains for workers across all lines of business and sectors. To learn more about Touring Capital, visit https://touringcapital.com.

About Touring Capital:
Founded in 2023, Touring Capital is a venture capital firm focused on investing in the next generation of early growth stage, AI-driven SaaS companies around the world. Its founders, Nagraj Kashyap, Priya Saiprasad, and Samir Kumar, have more than a decade of experience working together at leading investment firms and a proven track record of venture capital investing across the global technology startup ecosystem. The Touring Capital team is committed to investing in companies that are leveraging AI to fuel major productivity gains for workers across all lines of business and sectors. Visit https://touringcapital.com to learn more.

SOURCE Touring Capital

COLUMBIA, Mo., Sept. 13, 2023 — EquipmentShare, an equipment and digital solutions provider serving the construction industry, today announced that it has completed an extension of its Series E equity raise, led by funds affiliated with BDT & MSD Partners. Through the extension, EquipmentShare raised an incremental $150 million from existing and new investors, for a total of $440 million in Series E funding in 2022 and 2023.

“We are pleased to announce the extension of our equity raise, which furthers our ability to build the future of construction through cutting-edge technology,” said Jabbok Schlacks, CEO and Co-Founder of EquipmentShare. “Once again, our growth is driven by our bar-raising rental experience and an influx of customers embracing our technology-driven construction solutions. This round of funding not only attracts fresh capital from both new and existing investors, but it also showcases our ability to stand tall in a challenging macroeconomic landscape, positioning us for even greater success in the future.”

“The extension of our equity raise speaks to the strength of our business and our proven track record of performance and growth,” said Trevor Schauenberg, CFO of EquipmentShare. “This new capital enhances our liquidity and will enable us to continue to invest in the expansion and distribution of our US rental footprint and our T3 technology platform.” 

“We are excited to deepen our partnership with Jabbok, Willy, and the EquipmentShare team in their efforts to transform the construction industry,” said Henry Yeagley, Partner at BDT & MSD Partners. “Through a combination of deep, hands-on industry knowledge and cutting-edge technology systems, EquipmentShare is helping to make the rental equipment market and broader construction space more productive, efficient and safe. As an aligned, long-term capital partner to family- and founder-led companies, we look forward to supporting EquipmentShare in its next chapter of growth.”

Since its founding in 2015, EquipmentShare has experienced rapid growth, spurred by the demand for its fleet management technology and equipment solutions. In 2022, EquipmentShare opened 32 new branch locations, and today its geographic footprint has more than 185 locations across the U.S.

About EquipmentShare
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Columbia, Mo., EquipmentShare is a nationwide construction technology and equipment solutions provider dedicated to transforming the construction industry through innovative tools, platforms and data-driven insights. By empowering contractors, builders and equipment owners with its proprietary technology, T3, EquipmentShare aims to drive productivity, efficiency and collaboration across the construction sector. With a comprehensive suite of solutions that includes a fleet management platform, telematics devices and a best-in-class equipment rental marketplace, EquipmentShare continues to lead the industry in building the future of construction. For more information, visit www.equipmentshare.com.

About BDT & MSD Partners
BDT & MSD Partners is a merchant bank with an advisory and investment platform built to serve the distinct needs of business owners and strategic, long-term investors. The firm is distinguished by its decades of experience advising at the intersection of founders, families, and businesses, as well as by its differentiated capital base and culture of aligned investing. Its funds are managed by its affiliated investment advisers, BDT Capital Partners and MSD Partners. For more information, visit www.bdtmsd.com.

For additional information or media
inquiries, please contact:
Amy Susan
Phone: (573) 890-0609
[email protected]

BDT & MSD Partners
Sara Evans / Matthew Glasser
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (312) 529-6548 / (312) 385-2883

SOURCE EquipmentShare