Climate investor Bay Bridge Ventures is raising a new $200 million fund, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
Bay Bridge filed paperwork Monday for the new climate fund with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
And Congruent Ventures raised a $275 million fund in 2023, turning down $325 million in additional LP interest.
Bay Bridge Ventures is new, having been founded in 2022 with a focus on ESG more broadly and sustainability in particular.
Still, that doesn’t mean Bay Bridge lacks experience.
And more AI companies are receiving investments than ever before, with 1,812 AI startups announcing funding in 2023, up 40.6% versus 2022, according to the Stanford HAI report.
“There’s been a more deliberate approach by investors in evaluating AI investments compared to a year ago.
According to a PitchBook report compiled for TechCrunch, VCs invested $25.87 billion globally in AI startups in Q1 2024, up from $21.69 billion in Q1 2023.
Despite the general malaise within AI investor circles, generative AI — AI that creates new content, such as text, images, music and videos — remains a bright spot.
“We’ll soon be evaluating whether generative AI delivers the promised efficiency gains at scale and drives top-line growth through AI-integrated products and services,” Kumar said.
Bitkraft Ventures — a games investor based out of Denver, Colorado, but with European founders — has raised its third fund, coming in at $275 million.
The fund will make seed and Series A investments in gaming studios, and platforms to support game production.
The moves comes at a time when games investments have actually declined 72 per cent year on year, according to a recent Pitchbook report.
Founded by games industry veteran Jens Hilgers, Bitkraft has over 130 companies in its portfolio, and more than $1 billion in assets under management.
Perhaps the best way of positioning Bitkraft is to compare it to Play Ventures in Singapore which has raised $222.9M across 4 funds, but also invests across several types games platforms.
Climate-tech VC Satgana has reached a final close of its first fund, which targets to back up to 30 early-stage startups in Africa and Europe.
“I ran it for like five years, and about six years ago I started to really have the awakening to the extent of climate change.
“We are entering the continent to pursue green growth objectives; so deploying renewable energy, low carbon buildings, mobility solutions and so on.
Satgana is among the new funds that are dedicated to the African climate tech sector.
These funds include Africa People + Planet Fund by Novastar Ventures, Equator’s fund and the Catalyst Fund.
New Summit Investments is raising a new $100 million impact fund, according to documents filed with the SEC.
This is the firm’s fifth fund and marks a sizable jump from the $40 million its previous fund, which closed back in 2022.
New Summit has supported marginalized fund managers by launching initiatives like its partnership with investment firm Gratitude Railroad to source and underwrite underrepresented fund managers.
New Summit Investments’ was founded in 2016 as an impact investment firm focusing on climate, health, and economic opportunities.
New Summit Investments’ first fund closed for $20 million in 2016, followed by $36 million in 2018, according to Pitchbook.
Investors’ pledge to fight spyware undercut by past investments in US malware maker Cyber investors announced commitments to fighting spyware, but at least one firm previously invested in an exploit maker.
Now, some investors have announced that they too are committed to fighting spyware.
More recently, the government has imposed economic sanctions not only on companies, but also directly on the executive who founded Intellexa.
To hear some of these investors talk, you’d think that spyware has no place in a free and open society.
Gula Tech and Paladin’s investment in Boldend — effectively a U.S.-based exploit and hacking software maker — and the two investment firms’ commitment to not invest in spyware companies might seem at odds.
If you’re looking for comparisons, Norrsken VC is a $130 million impact VC that covers climate, while Demeter Partners last raised a €250 million fund focused on climate.
World Fund is also backed by pension funds including the UK Environment Agency Pension Fund, Wiltshire Pension Fund, and Croatia’s Erste Plavi.
World Fund has completed its raise during a war in Europe, interest rate rises, and jittery LPs.
In 2023 there was over $20 billion raised by European climate tech startups, almost matching the previous year, and bucking declining trends in other sectors, according to Dealroom.
The U.K., Sweden and Germany led for total climate tech VC in 2023 but Iceland, Lithuania and Bulgaria showed notable growth.
Not a day goes by without some confirmation that deep tech is on the rise in Europe — and that public and private capital investors are here for it.
Latest case in point, OTB Ventures, which closed a $185 million fund to invest in deep tech in Europe that it will mostly deploy at the Series A stage.
OTB’s take on deep tech focuses on four verticals that do sound fairly NATO-compatible: space tech, enterprise automation and AI, cybersecurity and fintech infrastructure.
This means we can’t confirm either whether the funding that went to OTB could also have gone to, say, a French or Austrian deep tech fund.
Like NIF, OTB is headquartered in Amsterdam, and its other office is in Warsaw, where NIF is also planning to have a regional office.
Nvidia’s chief rivals in the AI chip space — AMD, Arm and Intel — have been investing aggressively in startups, too, looking to make up ground in markets inclusive of the especially frothy generative AI segment.
IntelOf Nvidia’s competitors, Intel far and away has the biggest startup investment operation thanks to Intel Capital, its long-running VC.
Curiously, AI startups — despite their strategic importance to the chip industry these days — make up a relatively small portion of Intel’s venture portfolio.
According to Crunchbase, Intel’s holdings in software, IT and enterprise SaaS companies far outnumber its AI startup holdings by deal volume.
AMDLike Intel and Arm, AMD invests in startups both directly and through a VC org, AMD Ventures.
India has approved allocating up to $15.2 billion (1.26 trillion Indian rupees) to build three new semiconductor plants, including its first semiconductor fab facility — part of the country’s big bid to take on China, Taiwan and other countries in the chip race.
On Thursday, the Indian cabinet approved the country’s first semiconductor fab facility set up by the salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group and Taiwan’s Power Chip, which will be established in the Dholera region of Gujarat.
The Indian IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters at a media briefing in New Delhi that the construction work for the semiconductor fab will start within 100 days.
“A typical semiconductor fab, construction is a three-four-year time frame.
This will be the country’s third semiconductor unit and will be able to produce 48 million chips per day.
