2020 Year End VC Update
Despite the global situation, 2020 has been good for Array and I just want to share some year-end updates. But first a quick reminder -
Array Ventures leads first check rounds of $1.5M-$2M in enterprise deeptech AI/ML companies
Here are 11 Enterprise Opportunities Array Ventures is looking for. So if you see good teams solving these problems then please get in touch with us.
** We are ramping up for Fund 3 in 2021. In the meantime, we wanted to work with some awesome angel investors especially women angels investors and launched a parallel fund! Reach out to me for more details on it. **
Array in the news:
- Forbes: Women in AI
- Business Insider: Future of work trends for 2021
- Additiv: Wealth management predictions
- Business Insider: Seed stage funding trends
- Techcrunch: Top 10 VCs that founders like (I was covered in this list based on recommendations from founders)
- SF Business Journal: Shruti Gandhi shares red flags when vetting founders.
<< Array Ventures had 2 exits, invested in 8 new deals (led 6 of them) & 14 follow-on rounds of which we participated in 8 of them. We launched a parallel fund to work with amazing angels. >>
Here are some details:
- Array had 2 exits Passage AI and Wootric where we returned hard $$ to our LPs in a pandemic year.
- We have returned 20% of our 1st fund already within 4 years! As a fund manager it’s awesome to see your strategy working.
- When I pitched to my investors about our fund model I said as per power law some startups will breakout and do well. But for downside we will not have many write-offs.
- We have one of the lowest failure rates and highest follow-on rates for our portfolio and stage.
Array Ventures First-check Investments
We invested first checks in:
- Uniform (JAMstack solution for the enterprise) — Traditional web interfaces have struggled with slow time-to-market, slow performance, weak security and limited scalability that can be addressed with a new generation of technologies described as JAMstack. Uniform fills the gaps and enables brands to embrace the JAMstack approach without having to compromise on the marketing features they depend on
- Blumira (Automated threat detection and response) — Cybersecurity platform that offers both automated threat detection and response. It eases the burden of alert fatigue, complexity of log management and lack of IT visibility. Blumira’s cloud SIEM can be deployed in hours with broad integration coverage across cloud, endpoint protection, firewall and identity providers including Office 365, G Suite, Crowdstrike, Okta, Palo Alto, Cisco FTD and many others
- Mozart Data (Modern Stack Engineering Solutions) — The growth of SaaS means that more data is being siloed across Salesforce, Stripe, Shopify, and application databases. Mozart collects, organizes, and orchestrates that data by managing a data warehouse ETL pipelines, and scheduling of data transformations. No matter the tools you use, join it together, and start automating dashboards and generating insights without any engineering
- Shipyard (Infrastructure as Code provisioning tools) — A cloud-based workflow automation platform that removes complexity and increases visibility of automation efforts. It empowers Data Teams to focus on launching, monitoring, and scaling their business solutions instead of infrastructure
- Invisible Commerce (Micro-influence Commerce Platform) — A unique social commerce platform that enables you to build a free digital store embedded within your website, Facebook and Instagram. They also offer a curated, high quality broad selection of merchandise along with shipping and fulfillment systems
And 3 other stealth deals!
Kudos to our companies for growing and raising follow-on rounds in 2020. I’m so impressed by their execution.
This year we had great mix of angel investors and venture firms that invested in our companies:
Wishing you a healthy, happy, and abundant 2021! Best is yet to come!
I shared an original version of the update on Twitter. Feel free to share it with others.
