CP VENTURES — DIGEST — April 2021
Investing Globally In Early Stage Breakthrough Technology Companies
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We hope you and your families, friends and colleagues are safe and healthy. We have investments in many corners of the globe and we know from the stories that we’re so fortunate to be based in Australia.
Fund 1 has continued to grow rapidly at between 10%-15% per month, with the market cap of our portfolio companies crossing AUD$1bn for the first time.
Fund 2 is closing soon and we’re really proud of the portfolio companies we’ve invested in and the progress they’re making. Already a significant number are showing initial signs of massive promise.
Exciting news
Fund 2 closing soon
Fund 2 is closing to new investors on the 31st May 2021.
We’ve now made 18 investments in 6 countries in Fund 2, with 3+ investments scheduled in May.
World-first diamond quantum computer technology
Quantum Brilliance, a fund 2 company, has created a quantum computer the size of a lunch box that can function at room temperature, in a world-first development its founder says puts the venture on track to become a $1 billion company.
TikTok partners with Tpaga
TikTok has exclusively partnered with Tpaga, a recent Fund 2 investment, to use them as their new digital wallet in Columbia. TikTok has over 8 million users in Columbia and is one of the world’s most popular social media platforms.
Welcome new investment companies:
New Investments
- MealMe is the Search Engine for Food. The app offers the largest selection of any individual food delivery app in the US.
- EnsuredIt enables and empowers end customers and Insurance Intermediaries with an AI-based product platform for transformational customer experience.
- Tpaga awarded Fast Company’s Top 10 most innovative companies of 2020, is the fastest growing mobile wallet in Columbia.
- SafeStamp is tackling counterfeiting via an advanced quantum nanotech indicator that allows consumers to ensure the legitimacy of the products they purchase.
- A.kin provides AI avatars and robots to run your home and advanced reasoning and emotional IQ for NASA.
Follow-On Investments
- Cruz Foam — Cruz Foam transforms chitin, a biopolymer found in shrimp shells, into structural foams with an environmentally friendly process, replacing petroleum based foam. Also award USD$1m non-dilutive grant.
- Segna is a smart tool that solves one of AI’s biggest problems, wraggling, which aggregates and cleans data from multiple sources in under a minute.
- MealMe has grown at 100% compound per month over the past 6 months, so we followed-on our initial investment.
Notable recent CP Ventures funding rounds:
It’s been a busy couple of months. The following portfolio companies have completed a raise or closing their round.
- Phoria — World leading immersive tech studio that specialises in cutting-edge Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality. Closed their Series A.
- Nutromics — Developing the world’s first continuous realtime molecular monitor via Smart Patch. A world with zero preventable deaths due to delayed patient data to clinicians. Raising. Closed bridge and closing their Seed round.
- MGA Thermal — Developed a new type of scalable low cost thermal energy storage technology for renewable energy that’s more reliable and economical than previously possible. Closing Series A round.
- Notion.ai — AI powered global insights platform that discovers and organises content from the best sources about the subjects you need to keep across. Closed Seed round.
- Quantum Brilliance — room temperature quantum microprocessors to power the next generation of computing. Closing Series A.
- Synchronous — A.I. platform that allows manufacturers to dynamically evaluate future production decisions instantly for the first time. Closing round.
- Tpaga — Columbia’s largest mobile wallet provider.
- Segna smart tool solves AI’s data wraggling problem. Closed round.
- MealMe — Largest food delivery app in the US. Closed round.
- Spiral Genetics — makes software to compare large populations of whole human genomes (large scale data mining), taking in DNA data and providing assembled genome data. Closed round.
- Humaniti — next generation data platform that captures Australian (initially) behavioural and transactional data in real-time.
- Zainar — provides the most accurate location tracking of phones, vehicles, drones, IoT and physical assets in 3D in the world.
Other non-funding portfolio updates and press:
- MealMe recent raise featured in TechCrunch and growing at a super impressive compound “20% week-on-week” over the past 6 months. Link
- Nutromics has just closed two rounds of funding. In this excellent podcast Peter Vranes, the Co-CEO and Co-founder, explains their truly change the world medical technology. Link
- Kami co-founder and COO, Alliv Samson, was one of 13 amazing NZ women to be recognised for her leadership and success. Link
- Quantum Brilliance featured in the press everywhere including the front page of the AFR, the Australian, the Canberra Times and many more. Link
- Kami hits 25 million users and saved their users $45 billion in printing costs. Wow! Link
- MealMe partners with the food delivery robot company Kiwibot for robot food delivery across Los Angeles. Link
- Metigy article titled “Inside a COVID-19 capital raise — Ask for $5 million and get $20 million.” Link
- Zainar is one of the 4 winners of the prestigious Gulftainer’s Future of Ports 2021 global pitch event amongst over 2,000 applicants. Link
- Kami ranked #22 of 500 in the FT ranking: Asia-Pacific High-Growth Companies 2021, with 1,996.7% absolute growth rate. Link
- Featured in the Nerds of Business podcast episode “Raising Capital For Startups: How, When — & What Venture Capitalists Look For In A Product.”. Link
Market Tech Reports:
- 2020 Tech Highlights: The Year’s Biggest Deals, Most Valuable Acquisitions, And More, showing 2020 was a record year in tech mega deals, that tech massively outperformed the wider market and the IPO market was running hot.
- The State of the Markets Report Q1 2021 highlights a number of trends from record VC dry powder to the looming SPAC cliff in 2022.
- Check out CB Insights top 12 tech trends for 2021. Covid style preppers, quantum, AI, crypto and more are in focus.
- Conversely MIT Technology Review have published their 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2021, with some common themes emerging and indeed some exciting breakthroughs.
- If you’re after a bit more future vision of tech then Game-Changing Tech 2021 might be for you. Green energy, healthcare, food production, AI driven education all highlight.
- If you’re just curious there’s the latest Complete List of Unicorn Companies. Australia has 3 (so far). Go Aussie Go!
- For those of you that like to learn from others mistakes or just want to know that even the best and brightest get it wrong, the 368 Startup Failure Post-Mortems might be for you. A lot have blamed Covid as you might expect.
Brilliant Analysis
Below are a few links to incredible must read analysis that may help you on your investor or startup journey.
- Land of the “Super Founders“ — A Data-Driven Approach to Uncover the Secrets of Billion Dollar Startups. Covers the 50 things Ali Tamaseb learned from analysing billion dollar companies over the past 15 years.
- Why Has Seed Investing Declined? And What Does this Mean for the Future? While VC AUM hits all time highs and we’re seeing more massive investments and IPOs than ever, the early Seed stage is struggling. What gives?
- “AI/ML startups are routinely getting 5–6 term sheets from top-tier VC firms and they are able to raise their financings at 150–250X of current ARR.” Why it’s not surprising to see nine-figure AI rounds by Alex Wilhelm at TechCrunch.
- I’ve written about Moore’s Law before. In this article A new era of innovation: Moore’s Law is not dead and AI is ready to explode, Dave Vellante explains that we’re on a cusp of new AI driven growth due to edge computing with custom chips. Or watch the video on YouTube.
May your investing be rewarding a profitable. :)
That’s it for now!
