Eniac Ventures, a prominent seed-stage venture capital firm based in New York, has closed two funds totaling $220 million. This significant milestone was shared exclusively with TechCrunch.
Fundraising Success Amidst Challenging Environment
Despite the current challenging fundraising environment, Eniac Ventures’ co-founder and general partner Nihal Mehta attributes their success to being able to return multiple funds in the past few years. Mehta declined to provide specific figures around returns but noted that this achievement contributed to the fundraise being "ironically the quickest" Eniac has done in 15 years.
New Funds: Select 1 and Eniac VI
The two new funds closed by Eniac Ventures are:
- Select 1: a $60 million vehicle for follow-on later-stage investments in portfolio companies. This fund actually closed in 2021 but was not publicly announced until now.
- Eniac VI: a $160 million fund.
Portfolio and Investment Strategy
Eniac Ventures is known for its sector-agnostic approach, with Mehta describing the team as "pre-product-market-fit generalists." Despite being open to various sectors, even Eniac has been bitten by the artificial intelligence bug. Mehta notes that "machine learning and AI has been a predominant theme" for the firm over the past decade.
There is indeed some hype surrounding AI, but Mehta believes it to be the most transformative wave of computing since the internet. With this in mind, Eniac Ventures plans to make about 40 investments across both funds.
Average Check Size and Follow-on Investments
When making new investments, Eniac’s average check size is $1.5 million. However, follow-on checks are typically larger, with Mehta noting that the largest check invested out of its Select fund was $6 million.
Portfolio Companies and Exits
Eniac Ventures’ portfolio companies include:
- 1up Health
- Alloy
- Anchor
- Attentive
- Brightwheel
- Embrace
- Ghost
- Hinge
- Hive
- Level.ai
- Maestro
- Owlet
- Vungle
The firm was also an early investor in Airbnb and has seen exits in companies such as TapCommerce (to Twitter), Anchor (to Spotify), Dubsmash (to Reddit), Hinge (to IAC), Workflow (to Apple), Vungle (to Blackstone), and Vence (to Merck Animal Health).
LPs and Fundraising
Mehta declined to name specific LPs, noting only that they are a mix of top foundations, endowments, pensions, and fund of funds. The majority of them are "mission-driven." Despite the challenging fundraising environment, Eniac Ventures’ co-founder and general partner Nihal Mehta attributes their success to being able to return multiple funds in the past few years.
Growth and Expansion
The size of Eniac’s funds has grown significantly over the years. The firm raised its inaugural $1.5 million fund in 2010, raised $100 million for its fourth fund in 2017, and another $125 million for Eniac Fund V in 2021.
Over the years, Eniac Ventures has backed more than 250 startups. With these new funds closed, Eniac is poised to continue its support of innovative companies across various sectors.
Conclusion
Eniac Ventures’ closing of two funds totaling $220 million is a testament to the firm’s success in identifying and supporting innovative companies. As the venture capital landscape continues to evolve, firms like Eniac Ventures will play a crucial role in shaping the future of technology and entrepreneurship.
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