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At the time of filing, no capital has yet been raised; however, it bears mentioning that it’s common for venture investors to file their Form D immediately prior to calling down at least some pre-committed capital from limited partners.

Precursor Ventures is managed by , the firm’s sole general partner. Prior to starting his own firm, Hudson served in a variety of operating roles, including starting a couple of companies. Hudson cut his teeth as a venture investor at (formerly known as SoftTech VC) where he served in alternating venture partner and partner roles over his more than eight years with the firm.

Hudson, one of the all-too-few black general partners operating in venture today, is also on the teaching team for Entrepreneurship from Diverse Perspectives, a course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

The firm’s investment team consists of and , two black women with extensive startup and financial management experience. , an ex-Googler with prior founding experience, is working on a new financial technology venture as an EIR at the firm.

If fully raised, Fund III will be the firm’s largest yet. Precursor Ventures closed out in February 2019, nearly one year and four months after taking down its first LP commitments.

Precursor raised a little more than $15 million for its first fund, which closed out in late 2016.

Since the firm’s formation in October 2015, Precursor has primarily focused its investment dollars on seed and pre-seed deals. On its website, Precursor Ventures that it’s committed to investing in companies’ first institutional rounds, typically committing between $100,000 and $250,000 to that first round, with reserves for follow-on investment.

The firm adds that it is “committed to investing in founders who represent a wide variety of backgrounds in terms of gender, race, background, academic experience and life circumstances.”

The firm’s recent investments include organization management software company , childcare-as-a-benefit company , and AI-enabled radiology reporting software company .

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If it is fully raised, this fund will match the size of the , which was closed in April 2018. The firm’s was closed in March 2016, raising $300 million to invest mostly in early-stage deals.

The filing states that no capital has yet been closed for the new investment vehicle. Venture capital firms often file a Form D immediately prior to closing capital for new funds, even though most have secured “soft commits” from limited partners prior to making the first official close.

The firm is led by , a multi-time entrepreneur turned venture capital investor. Outside of his work with 8VC, Lonsdale is perhaps best known as a co-founder of controversial data analytics company . In addition to Palantir, he cofounded wealth management platform and government services automator .

Lonsdale is the sole general partner listed on the filing.

8VC has retained the services of New York-based independent broker-dealers Artist Capital and ABG to assist with raising the fund.

As stated earlier, 8VC is an investor in Crunchbase. The firm was a participating investor in , which was closed in November 2015.

More recently, however, the firm has made bets across a number of sectors. Its most recent publicly disclosed deal is a participating investor in insurance technology startup . Other deals from 2020 include leading raised by health care software company and participating in of Seattle-based , which helps immigrants apply for work visas at startup companies.

The firm has seen a number of exits out of its portfolio. These include freelancer-focused mobile banking app-maker , oncology tech company and AI-powered drug discovery company , among .

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The filing states that no capital has yet been raised, but it’s also common for investment firms to submit a Form D immediately prior to calling down capital from limited partners.

At $420 million, Fund VI would be equal in size to , for which Ribbit made its initial filing in September 2018.

Filings for Ribbit , , , and can be found on the SEC’s website.

The firm intends to raise the new fund from “qualified purchasers,” which are institutional funds and individuals with at least $5 million in deployed investment capital, exempting it from securities registration under Section 3(c)(7) of the , as disclosed in the filing.

Ribbit Capital is managed by . Originally hailing from Venezuela, Malka held founding and leadership roles at a number of financial institutions prior to founding Ribbit in 2012.

The firm invests across multiple sectors, but has a focus on financial technology and marketplace-oriented businesses. Its latest bets include lead investments in a for India-based neobank (alongside co-lead ), startup-focused San Francisco-based insurance company and India-based credit card payment rewards company (which was also co-led by Sequoia Capital and ).

Crunchbase data lists two exits for the firm so far. Ribbit was a participating investor in London-based lending platform ’s later-stage rounds; Funding Circle went public on the London Stock Exchange in September 2018. Ribbit also invested in , the last funding closed by the financial news company prior to for $200 million.

Ribbit’s managing director Malka is also listed as the director of a seemingly new entity called Bullfrog Capital. Its filing, disclosing, was submitted to the SEC minutes before the filing for Ribbit Fund VI went through. No other information is known about the new fund or its strategy at this time.

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On the U.S. side, Sequoia Capital U.S. Growth Fund VIII, L.P. raised $998.5 million, according to . 120 limited partners invested in the fund.

On the Chinese side, the firm closed $1.7995 billion for and $549.5 million for .

Sequoia’s fifth China Growth Fund is its largest yet, coming in at twice the size of its fourth. Sequoia raised $899.5 million for China Growth Fund IV between 2016 and 2017, according and news reports.

The three filings updated today were initially submitted on June 19, 2018, and they indicate that the firm closed its first hard capital commitments for the funds in the days following the filings.

On that same day, Sequoia Capital also for its sixth India-focused venture fund, which closed out $695 million in mid-August 2018. Other filings from mid-June 2018 include and , which have yet to be updated at the time of writing.

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The fund’s assets are split between two entities: (holding $249.425 million raised from 61 investors) and (holding $100.575 million from 22 investors).

According to the filings, Drive Capital received its first concrete capital commitment for Fund III on April 5, 2019. It’s the firm’s largest investment vehicle yet. Drive Capital closed $300 million for Fund II in 2016 and $250 million for its inaugural fund in 2014.

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Drive Capital is among the largest Midwestern venture investors by assets under management. Like most VCs firms, Drive Capital tends to invest relatively close to home. According to Crunchbase data, over half of are headquartered in either Ohio, Illinois, or Michigan.

Drive Capital has invested in the likes of (which Crunchbase News has covered in the past), , and , among . Its exits include HR tech solution ( by Chicago hedge fund Citadel), retail intelligence toolkit Channel IQ ( by Market Track), restaurant front desk platform ( by Yelp for $40 million), and travel planning app (which Togo Group in 2018).

Drive Capital makes the majority of its first investments at Series A and Series B, and the firm invests in latter-stage rounds as well. To this end, Drive is also in the midst of raising capital for its first opportunity fund to bolster its follow-on and opportunistic late-stage investments.

The firm filed amended paperwork for and , alongside the updates to entities representing its flagship Fund III. For the Overdrive Fund, Drive Capital is targeting a total of $400 million, of which roughly $284.4 million has already been raised. Since Drive Capital made its initial filings for the Overdrive Fund back in April, the firm had raised an additional $33.5 million for that particular investment vehicle.

Alone, each of Drive Capital’s new funds are among the largest capital pools drawn in the previous year by Midwestern venture capital firms so far in 2019, according to . At the end of last month, Chicago-based closed more than , which was oversubscribed from the initial $600 million target Crunchbase News broke in October 2018. , a growth-stage firm based in Minneapolis, is targeting $400 million of , according to paperwork filed last month.

This being said, Drive Capital is one of the most-funded Midwestern investors focused on early-stage deals operating in the market today. With new capital to deploy, it’s likely to remain a fixture in the region for some time to come.

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Filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this morning, the company disclosed it has closed $2.32 million of a $25 million round of funding. According to the filing, the new capital comes in the form of debt and options contracts which would grant Leafly’s creditors the right to acquire company securities at some unspecified date in the future.

Crunchbase News reached out to Leafly for comment, but did not hear back prior to publication. This article will be updated when we hear back.

Leafly was founded in March 2010 and was acquired by cannabis-focused private equity holding company in December 2011. It’s unclear how much capital Privateer Holdings invested in Leafly over the years, but the firm has raised from its financial backers including Peter Thiel’s .

Leafly was spun out of Privateer Holdings in February 2019 and is once again an independently operating venture. The new capital comes at a time when Leafly is trying to pare down expenses as it finds its bearings as a rapidly-growing company under new leadership. took over as Leafly’s CEO . Prior to Leafly, Leslie most recently led Amazon Prime Video’s global expansion efforts as the last act of his 20-year tenure at Amazon.

Last week, Business Insider obtained and Leslie sent to the company, notifying current employees of a hiring freeze and requesting that travel that is not business critical be either cancelled or postponed. Leslie wrote that the company has doubled in size, adding 150 people to its organization in the past seven months, since he took over as CEO.

Headquartered in Seattle, Leafly will not be flying satellite staff in for its end-of-year holiday party. Remote staff and those working in Leafly’s local offices will instead be flown out for the company’s summer party next year, and each local office will host its own holiday party. For the holiday season, fully-remote employees will “be receiving a gift certificate to take yourself and a friend or significant other out for dinner.”

Leafly may be putting a pause on hiring for all but the most important engineering and product roles right now, but there was no word of layoffs.

Competition is fierce in the legal cannabis recommendation business, which has grown rapidly as more states opt to legalize the plant and its derivatives. And it’s looking like a winner-take-most niche in the industry. Leafly’s principal competitor, , (approximately 25 percent of headcount) two weeks ago.

Though most states allow for some type of cannabis use, most often on medical grounds, expansion of the market has been somewhat slow over the past year or two. THC-containing cannabis remains federally illegal in the United States. Though the current U.S. administration is unlikely to liberalize federal drug policy, several Democratic challengers are promising to reschedule or fully legalize cannabis if elected in 2020 which would usher in a new wave of growth for the industry.

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The filing states that the fund first closed capital in early May of this year, the day after the firm to raise Fund II. Refactor’s second fund is materially smaller than its first, a closed in May 2016, likely due to changes in its management and leadership team. Especially these days, it’s unusual for a venture firm to raise smaller second funds after deploying their first flagship funds. But, at the same time, it’s unusual for general partners to peel off from the firm. With a headcount of one on the GP side, the firm can afford to raise less capital.

Refactor’s sole general partner is , a product management professional who, before moving into venture capital, served stints at Microsoft and Google. He was also head of mobile at Netflix between 2011 and 2012 and as a senior product manager of LinkedIn’s premium subscription features the following year.

Bilimoria joined Andreessen Horowitz as a partner in late 2013, where he stayed until launching Refactor Capital in January 2016 with co-founding general partner . Prior to starting Refactor Capital with Billimoria, Lee spent nearly 8 years as the managing partner of , historically among the most prolific seed-stage venture funds in the Bay Area. A lawyer by training, Lee previously served as corporate counsel to Google and briefly led StumbleUpon’s business development efforts before transitioning into venture.

Lee stepped back from his general partner role sometime before the initial filing for Fund II went through on April 30th. Lee remains part of the firm, staying on as chairperson. Lee that “[b]ecoming Chairman will keep me involved with Refactor, and also allow me to spend more time in Los Angeles, work more closely with current Refactor portfolio founders and pursue new adventures.”

While at Andreessen Horowitz, Billimoria helped that firm launch , and that tendency to find and fund ventures in biotech and life science continues to play out through Refactor’s investments. Refactor writes the bulk of its first checks at seed stage and primarily funds companies working in healthcare or biotech.

According to and on its own website, the firm has backed ventures aligned on one of several themes. On the theme of mental health and wellness, Refactor backed meditation service , self-styled sobriety school , nicotine gum-maker , and zero-alcohol beverage company .

Refactor has also made several investments in computational research and diagnostics companies, like , , , and . In the raw materials and manufacturing side, the firm has stakes in , , , and .

Outside the life sciences and biotech field, Refactor Capital has invested in select software and high-technology ventures including telecoms satellite-maker , supply chain and demand analytics provider , and the , which hopes to compete with the NYSE and Nasdaq by offering an IPO process and shareholder equity structure which it says is more favorable to technology companies.

Since the majority of companies in Refactor’s portfolio are still early on in the venture lifecycle, none of its portfolio companies have yet exited, according to Crunchbase data.

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Silverton Partners

filed paperwork signaling its intent to raise not just one, but a pair of new venture capital funds. The firm is one of the most active venture firms in Texas with an emphasis on backing Austin-based startups.

The first filing to cross the wires was , for which the firm aims to raise $120 million. If fully closed out, it would be the largest flagship venture capital fund raised by the firm since its inception in 2003.

The filing lists Michael Dodd, , and as its general partners. , who was listed on the filing for Silverton’s , is not included on the listing for Fund VI.

In May 2018, we reported on the firm closing on its fifth fund, in which it raised $108 million in an oversubscribed round of funding. Previous funds raised $75 million in 2006 and .

Some of the firm’s most recent investments include participating in Austin-based last-mile delivery startup  $10.5 million (announced just today) and cybersecurity company $21 million Series B raise (which was led by , Microsoft’s venture arm)

In addition to its sixth flagship fund, Silverton Partners also filed paperwork , a $20 million investment vehicle. If the firm is following VC industry naming conventions, its first “opportunity fund” will likely be earmarked for later-stage investments with the firm’s existing portfolio companies.

The filings state that, so far, no money has been closed for either of its new funds. However, it should be noted that venture investors frequently submit Form D’s immediately prior to securing their first capital commitments.

Capital Factory

Described by Crunchbase News as the “the lone star state’s best-kept startup secret,” signaled that it is looking to raise $20 million for its venture fund. If Capital Factory successfully raises the $20 million, it will be the sixth and largest fund to be deployed into, presumably, seed and early-stage startups by Capital Factory, .

Per prior reporting by Crunchbase News, in 2018, Capital Factory claimed “2,416 members and 1,480 startups called Capital Factory home.”

Executive director and co-founder of Capital Factory is listed on the filing as a fund manager.

Although based in Austin, Capital Factory has a presence all over Texas with satellite locations in both and . An active investor, Capital Factory also backed the afore-mentioned Fetch Package. It also participated in Dallas-based recent $11 million Series A raise, which we reported on here.

Here too, Capital Factory states that it has not closed any outside capital for its sixth investment fund. The same caveats about investors filing paperwork right before calling down capital apply.

Crunchbase News reached out to Silverton Partner’s Flager and Capital Factory’s Baer for comment. Both declined at this time.

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This fund, if fully raised, would be less than the firm’s two previous funds: Precursor I and II are $15.2 million and $31 million, respectively. The first two funds focus on seed stage startups ranging in focus from SaaS, e-commerce, and marketplace.

According to Crunchbase data, Precursor has invested in at least 176 known startups to date, including companies we have covered such as Finix, Anyroad, and Squad.

Precursor’s Hudson was unable to comment regarding the new fund. Last time we chatted with him, however, was for our quarterly report on venture capital dollars raised by female founded companies. Hudson, one of the few African American venture capitalists in the Bay, explained that his firm invests in minority and underserved entrepreneurs without branding or strategy.

His only strategy, he said back in July, was to invest in more women is having a diverse team. Two people in his three-person funding team are black women.

What Is An Opportunity Fund?

In venture capital, fund naming matters, and those names point to what the strategy of the fund might be. Precursor’s first investments in companies primarily happen at seed and Series A stage.

It’s common for venture capitalists to secure pro rata rights with their portfolio companies. For example, if a hypothetical investor acquires 10 percent of a company’s stock in its Series A round, and gets pro rata rights, that investor has the right (but not the obligation) to invest additional capital in the company’s Series B round, such that their 10 percent stake is maintained. (Crunchbase News went over the math behind pro rata rights in a handy guide.)

However, many investors have covenants in their limited partner agreements which bar them from committing more than a certain percentage of the fund to any single portfolio company, as a risk management strategy. For particularly fast-growing portfolio companies, investors may quickly exhaust the capital they’ve internally allocated for follow-on funding in a particular portfolio company.

Some investors may opt to raise additional follow-on capital through so-called special purpose vehicles (SPVs) which, as the name might suggest, are structured similar to VC funds, except instead of investing across a broad portfolio, all the capital raised in an SPV (less legal fees and closing costs) is invested in one particular company, and often just one particular round of funding.

Though Precursor Ventures may have a unique strategy for Opportunity Fund I, the general pattern for seed and Series A firms is to raise a more generalized pool of follow-on capital which can be spread across multiple successful portfolio companies from the firm’s flagship funds. These capital pools may be called “opportunity funds,” but “growth funds,” “select funds” and other monikers are also used. Regardless of name, more follow-on allocation gives early-stage firms additional runway to exercise their pro rata rights, and to buy these firms a seat at the negotiating table in future funding rounds.

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It is nearly three times the size of , which topped out at a little over $3 million in 2017.

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According to the filing, Weekend Fund received its first hard capital commitment in early June, and has raised Fund II from 98 investors.

Weekend Fund is an early-stage investment firm founded and operated by , founder of , a popular community-driven aggregator of recently-launched startups and new products from large companies. Hoover started Weekend Fund in 2017, shortly after for around $20 million.

In a announcing the launch of his new fund, Hoover wrote that Weekend Fund echoes his work on Product Hunt, which he “started as a side project” and worked on during nights and weekends. Writing at the time, Hoover said that “Product Hunt remains my #1 focus, and like the startups I plan to invest in, this is my nights and weekend hustle.”

In the post announcing Fund I, Hoover cited a number of companies and products which started as side projects. This includes the likes of , , and , among many others. “Right now, the next Facebook is being built on nights and weekends and its these curious, creative founders that I’d like to support,” he wrote.

Weekend Fund is , but largely sector-agnostic. The firm invested in social media companies like and , elder care communication company , personal finance companies like and , esports streetwear and lifestyle brand , and voice interface design platform Voiceflow, among the many other ventures listed on .

Hoover in early 2019 that Fund I did not take a management fee from its limited partners, but that Fund II would.

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