Llama Ventures

We are Chingona. Investment ThesisINDUSTRY: Focus on industries that are massively changing and founders whose backgrounds uniquely position them to create businesses in growth markets that are often overlooked. Focus areas are in financial technology, female technology, food technology, health/wellness, and future of learning. STAGE: Primarily pre-seed companies where they are raising their first institutional round of capital. CHECK SIZE: We invest between $250k-$1MM as an initial check size.

“Spero” is Latin for hope. We help founders build a hopeful future. We’re a team of former startup founders, operators, and investors from landmark companies including eBay and Tesla. We invest in determined founders building mission-driven technology companies in three focus areas: wellbeing; sustainability; learning, work, and play. We prefer to lead or co-lead a $3-$10M round (late seed or Series A). Our typical check is $2-$4M, and we reserve capital for follow-on. We are conviction-based investors who play the long game. How We Work With YouWe have the conviction to lead and price your round. We participate in follow-on funding and help with subsequent fundraising. Our concentrated portfolio approach allows us to engage deeply with our founders. We’re supportive throughout the life of a company. Every one of our founders has full access to the entire Spero Ventures team. We know some ideas take time to catch on, so we offer patient capital. We are calm and steady partners in uncertain times. We help companies scale to serve billions of customers. We’ve done this as operators and founders, and as advisors and board members. We connect our companies to a network of founders, advisors, coaches, domain experts, and executive talent. We build community by bringing founders and leaders together through our CEO Summits, Product Leader Summits, founder breakfasts, workshops and thought-provoking events. We offer expert-led workshops that help founders with brand/storytelling, sales/go-to-market, consumer growth, and fundraising. Our focus Wellbeing Agency over physical and mental health People deserve to be in control of their own physical and mental health. For that, they need new kinds of information and access to care. What devices, apps, tools and services will help people live longer, healthier, more vibrant lives? How can genomics help us better understand our world and ourselves, and contribute to new solutions? Companies that answer these questions will make life worth living. Sustainability Protecting and preserving our planet Life is worth living on a healthy planet. But many of the largest systems we rely on - water, food, energy, transportation, product production and waste - were designed in a way that’s unsustainable and detrimental to our personal and planetary health. The economic, social, and health impacts of climate change and industrial pollution are growing too large to ignore: unprecedented droughts, fires and floods have disrupted millions of lives and result in billions of dollars of loss each year. How can we develop safer, more efficient systems? What can we do to improve power grids, recycling, environmental monitoring and disaster analytics? We invest in sustainability with conviction. Learning, Work, and Play Freedom in work and life Savoring relationships, art, joy, and laughter makes life worth living. Today, the way we do these things is changing. We can now learn, work, and play in hybrid ways that suit individual needs. This means self-directed learners need access to education and job preparation. Likewise, self-directed workforces need freedom, flexibility, and the ability to manage their goals. How can we provide better access to rewarding, satisfying work? What tools and support systems do people need to thrive? We invest in powerful visions for the future of learning, work, and play.

CE-Ventures is the corporate venture capital platform of Crescent Enterprises, focusing on strategic investments in early- to late-stage high-growth companies and select venture funds globally. The platform was launched in 2017 and initially capitalised with $150 million to be invested by 2020, 50% of which is targeted towards the MENA region. CE-Ventures targets start-ups that offer synergies with Crescent Enterprises’ operations across supply chain management tech, medical tech, enterprise software as a service (SaaS), and niche consumer emerging tech, among others. The platform focuses on wide-ranging emerging technologies pervasive across industry sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of things (IoT), and blockchain. CE-Ventures partners with purpose-driven entrepreneurs and start-ups to catalyse disruptive technologies and generate long-term returns. Focus Areas EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Internet of Things Big data ENERGY-TECH Industrial drones Energy storage Cleantech Upstream oil & gas production ENTERPRISE/SAAS Cybersecurity Software Infrastructure FIN-TECH Payments & Infrastructure Open/Neo Banking Insure-tech MED-TECH Medical devices Biotech Healthcare services SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGIES Distribution Trucking & Last mile delivery Warehousing Related technologies ED-TECH Virtual classroom/Immersive learning (AR/VR) Learning management systems Collaborative & social learning Computer-aided assessment FOOD-TECH/AG-TECH Cloud kitchens Food e-commerce Smart Farming & Vertical Farming Drones & Robots

Aegis Ventures is an next-generation startup studio that partners with entrepreneurs and industry leaders to originate, launch, and scale transformative companies. Our platform brings together market-shaping ideas, permanent growth capital, and ambitious individuals driven to solve major societal problems. We aim to build companies with the capacity for vast impact, with an initial focus on three key areas: data and automation, health and wellness, and emerging sciences and technologies. "In business‌‌,‌‌ I am driven by two things - building value through knowledge and improving the world through investment‌‌.‌‌ ‌‌A‌egis V‌entures is where I translate these passions into reality‌.‌" - Aegis Chairman, Bill Schoenfeld ‌A‌egis draws on decades of experience executing $20B of global transactions since Bill Schoenfeld's founding of‌‌ A‌‌PL Group in 1994‌‌.‌‌ Differentiated Skillset & Philosophy While building businesses is equal parts art and science‌‌,‌‌ we have found that many elements of the venture creation process are identif‌iable and replicable - and can be learned by a broad array of talented individuals‌‌.‌‌ Our venture creation playbook is founded on the expertise we have formed in other asset classes and is built on the understanding that success depends upon our ability to cultivate exceptional talent across the studio‌‌.‌‌ Financial Strength & Flexibility ‌A‌ll of our capital is internal‌‌,‌‌ and we are free to invest in the time and manner we see f‌it‌‌.‌‌ With no predetermined time horizon for realizing returns‌‌,‌‌ we are empowered to pursue long‑term‌‌,‌‌ structural theses in high‑magnitude opportunities‌‌.‌‌ Freed from the burdens of fundraising‌‌,‌‌ the full breadth of our focus is devoted to the advancement of our portfolio companies and the improvement of our platform‌‌.‌‌ Incisive Risk Management ‌A‌‌egis's unif‌ied risk framework aims to identify‌‌,‌‌ track‌‌,‌‌ and execute upon distinct risk reduction milestones that maximize upside potential and minimize downside exposure‌‌.‌‌ This analytical rigor allows our entrepreneurs to develop a disciplined‌‌,‌‌ methodical approach to venture creation‌ to vet and validate ideas with greater eff‌iciency and effectiveness‌‌.‌‌

We are differentiated as investors with our expertise in corporate development and institutional research capability. Our 20 years of experience has been spent at the largest companies. We have been a dynamic duo for 10+ years, patiently building the experience, reputation and network require to launch an insititutional VC firm. We are attracted to companies building solutions leveraging emerging technologies (AI, AR/VR, blockchain, etc.), as some of the largest value creation opportunities in history have followed the mass-adoption of novel technologies (e.g. mobile, cloud). Most of our investments are Pre-Seed / Seed, with opportunistic participation at Series A. Post-investment we provide personalized support when they need it most.

At Menlo Ventures, we go ALL IN. This isn’t just a motto, but how we show up everyday for the companies we back, the investors who back us, and each other. When we win, we win as a team. 47 Years 80+ Public Companies 165 + Mergers + Aquisitions $5B+ Under Management We focus on the "three stages of early" We are investors and company builders - we know what it takes to turn a budding idea into a scalable business. We work with early-stage founders to find product-market fit, develop go-to-market strategies, scale their organizations, and support them as they grow. Inception: Our Menlo Labs team helps founders validate early-stage ideas, de-risk opportunities, and build successful foundations. Venture: Our venture team provides series A and B startups with guidance and hands-on help as they build their teams and products. Inflection: Our inflection team supports early growth-stage startups during critical points as they prepare to scale. Our focus areas At every stage from inception through IPO, we invest in game-changing ideas that reinvent life and work. Although we remain open to new ventures within consumer, enterprise, and healthcare, we go deep in the following seven focus areas: AI: Generative AI is breaking into every software vertical, and winners in these markets will create massive economic and societal value. Menlo Ventures is placing bets on the most promising GenAI companies at the infrastructure and application layers, where we see immense potential for groundbreaking businesses that will reshape industries and push the boundaries of what we can achieve. Bio + Healthcare: Innovations at the intersection of advancements in technology and biology will drive major improvements in the quality of our health and the cost of healthcare. At Menlo, we invest at that intersection - backing breakthrough digital health companies (vertical SaaS and digital care) and novel life sciences companies (therapeutic platforms and transformative technologies). Consumer: The world we live in today is enhanced by technologies we might not have thought possible even 10 years ago. There is so much still to come. At Menlo, we invest in the game-changing companies of the future, those that will help us do things better, faster, or cheaper than we can today. Cloud Infrastructure: As enterprises continue migrating to the public cloud, a new generation of companies will write the playbook for the underlying infrastructure that powers their applications. These tools and platforms are built for and cater to the developer, optimized for time-to-integration with beautiful, easy-to-use UIs and APIs. Cybersecurity: In a complex, post-pandemic world, rapid cloud adoption and the proliferation of open-source software have dramatically expanded the attack surface for bad actors against enterprises, governments, and their applications. Additionally, the shift-left approach to software development requires developers to embrace a security-first mindset. As the cyber war continues, Menlo will back the best teams fighting on the frontlines. Fintech: Financial transactions and services power the global economy. Menlo invests in four fintech categories: dev-focused infrastructure and embedded finance (API layers), vertical banking, end-to-end financial services for consumers and SMBs, and tools that serve finance teams and the office of the CFO. SaaS: The shift to the cloud introduced an entirely new business model–Software-as-a-Service–and created unprecedented opportunities for enterprise software companies. Menlo divides the SaaS landscape into three categories, each with a distinct point of view that guides our investment, research, and resources: Departmental SaaS, Vertical SaaS, and Horizontal SaaS. Supply Chain + Automation: This once-in-a-generation reinvention/reinvigoration of the supply chain will create a world that is more efficient, resilient, and sustainable because of the operational efficiencies we gain. With an eye on a more functional future, Menlo invests in a broad range of technologies–robotics and industrial automation among them.