The Garage

Citi Ventures (CV) is Citi’s corporate innovation arm. Citi is a global financial institution with over $70B in Revenue, $8B+ in technology spend, presence in 98 countries and daily processing flow of ~$4T. Citi Ventures has invested in over 100 companies in the last decade, has top quartile returns and the current portfolio includes a 25+ companies valued at > $1B including high growth companies such as Datarobot, Docker, Plaid, Grab, Snyk, Cribl, Tanium, Eightfold.ai, Harness and Trulioo. Portfolio exits include Braze, Grab, Square, Docusign, Jet.com, Honey, Cylance. The Venture Investing team focuses on identifying and investing in entrepreneurs whose unique approach to core challenges will help define the future of financial services. The team brings together Citi’s business needs with portfolio companies’ technologies, services and business models to accelerate Citi’s ability to evolve in a dynamic marketplace and help portfolio companies scale.

Rackhouse Ventures is an early-stage venture capital management firm that focuses on founders and firms that sit at the intersection of AI/ML and the real world. We love driven, passionate people (regardless of pedigree) who are obsessed with using data to make the world more efficient. At Rackhouse, we’re investing in the “Data Sector” - everything from disruptive applications and middleware that utilize data and AI/ML as part of their core value proposition, to data-enabled marketplaces, to infrastructure and hardware that unlocks the next generation of data companies. Our long-term goal is to become the fund of choice for AI/ML founders through a combination of domain excellence, an operator ethos in everything we do, and a fund model that combines a collaborative spirit with enough capital to fund companies from inception to Series A when we’ve got conviction.

From idea to execution, we partner with exceptional founders early on in their journey. When is the best time to approach NXTP for a potential investment? It is never too early to get in touch -- even if you are not raising. We first and foremost invest in people so the more we get to know each other, the better. We invest in everything from PowerPoints to Series A opportunities. ‍ The best way to get in touch is through a warm introduction from a mutual contact but a thoughtful cold email or LinkedIn message is totally fine. What types of businesses do you typically invest in? We predominately invest in B2B companies in pre-seed stage and seed-stage companies, usually becoming the first institutional check into the business. We also invest at the Series A stage, although a little less frequently. Our typical check size for Seed rounds ranges from $500k to $3M USD and we like to lead or co-lead rounds. Sometimes, we invest as followers with a lower initial check, but with the optionality to invest more later on. For Series A investments, the typical investment size ranges from $2-5M. Do you focus on specific sectors? Yes. We are a sector-specific and thesis-driven fund (vs. agnostic) and focus on the following domains: Cloud & SaaS E-commerce Enablers Fintech B2B Marketplaces AI and Data-Driven Businesses We believe that in order to be great partners, we need to thoroughly understand what you are building. By exclusively focusing on B2B businesses in certain domains, we have accumulated strong institutional knowledge after having evaluated thousands and worked with 50+ businesses in our core domains. Furthermore, at NXTP, we have developed a wide network of sector-specific experts we put at your disposal to help you sort through the toughest challenges your business faces. Oftentimes, the experts in our network are retained by founding teams to take on more formal roles as advisors, board members, or angel investors. They include people at companies such as Hubspot, Coupa, Stripe, Auth0, Twilio, and Zendesk, to name a few. What do you look for in founders? As early-stage investors, the quality of the founding team is hands-down the most important selection criteria. If you are a founder and are wondering how we evaluate founding teams, here are a couple of pointers: Obsession and unwavering commitment to your company’s mission Strong leadership qualities and ability to inspire and effectively communicate your company’s vision to new hires and investors Clear founder-market fit and domain expertise Intellectual curiosity and hunger to learn and improve Excellence in prior business and non-business-related experiences Data-driven approach to company with a good understanding of key drivers of your business Customer-centric company culture

Coalition Capital is a venture capital firm that partners with the best entrepreneurs in Europe to help them shape the digital economy. We partner with entrepreneurs and invest in spaces where tectonic technological shifts like Artificial Intelligence are creating extraordinary opportunities. It is our believe that the biggest companies of the next decade will be solving the world’s most pressing challenges, leveraging the power of AI along the way. From redefinition of supply chains, the improvement of worker's mental health, disruption in financials services, cybersecurity to bridging the digital skills gap, we see it as our mission to help solve real-world problems. Coalition is thesis-driven and we are focused on Europe. We bring a true pay-it-forward mentality: invest time first, money second. We are convinced that true value and sustainable returns can only be created with a long-term strategic vision and a plan around the growth of organizations. It is our goal to patiently build companies into global leaders. We laud actual achievements, not artificial milestones of every increasing funding round valuations. As a break-out team from Inkef and Prosus, we are venture and growth equity veterans who have helped build iconic companies across the world. Often, we joined in the early innings and helped scale these businesses into category-defining multi-billion-dollar global gorillas. Under the flag of Coalition we intend to do it again. We accelerate growth…We prefer capital efficient, scalable companies with proven product-market fit and a defensible model. We partner with hungry overachievers to take those companies from: Local hero to a global champion 1 to 10 and then from 10 to 100 We invest from Seed to Series B; And can be a lifetime partner until you go public … of the digital economy…We go beyond the hype of ChatGPT: It is our belief that the proliferation of new technologies like AI will enable the creation of a new generational companies Those that solve real problems in trillion-dollar industries or provide the ‘picks-and-shovels’ required to drive tectonic technological change …in EuropeWe believe Europe’s moment is now We are Europe-native VCs with a global outlook We are un-European in our ambitions and drive; Introducing US/Asia-style execution and pace We focus on creating new generational companies solve real problems in trillion-dollar industries or provide the ‘picks-and-shovels’ required to drive tectonic technological changeAI and Data ToolingDataOps Design Cybersecurity Code Search DevOps Productivity Knowledge management Future of CommerceAI-driven commerce enablers (e.g. pricing, inventory management) Supply chain management Re-commerce Next-gen (B2B) marketplaces Future of FinanceEmbedded finance Verticalized solutions Payments Supply chain finance Data driven investing Compliance / AML Future of WorkNext Gen HR stack Digital skills building Worker’s mental health How we are differentCollaborative Investment EthosWe prove our worth to you by investing time first Lead, follow, or stay stealth, board seat or not, we take your lead We understand that building durable companies takes time; we support in good times and bad times We offer real help where it matters most: topline acceleration and the people function We aspire to be the Most Valuable Player on the cap table Radically Thesis & Data-drivenWe are radically thesis-driven and understand your business like no other investor does We operate a conviction-based approach; always working from first principles We eat our own dog food and drink our own champagne by leveraging AI to identify the most promising businesses Connected & experiencedWe are venture and growth equity veterans with experience in building iconic global gorillas (and obsessed about doing it again) We bring an unrivalled industry network, opening doors to global tech giants and enterprises We offer a unique global view on tech trends and scaling

Playfair Capital is one of London’s leading seed stage investors We’ve been helping ambitious and exceptional entrepreneurs build brilliant technology businesses since 2013. We’ve backed the founders of more than 60 companies including Mapillary (acq. Facebook), CryptoFacilities (acq. Kraken), Omnipresent, Orca AI, Ravelin, sprout.ai, Thought Machine, Trouva and Vinehealth. We were founded by an angel and our values drive everything that we do. Like the best angels, we are supportive, passionate investors. Nothing excites us more than working closely with founders to build successful companies. We invest early and enthusiastically in founding teams around the world, with a focus on the UK. We thrive being a generalist tech fund with the flexibility to look at a broad range of companies. Each member of our team has particular areas of interest and focus. It’s never too early for a first conversation.

FJ Labs’ investment approach stems from its roots. FJ Labs is the extension of Jose’s and my angel investing activities. We scaled our activities and processes, but we did not change the strategy. Most venture capital funds have very well-defined portfolio construction. They invest the funds they raised over a specific period, in a specific type of company, in a specific number of companies, investing a specific investment amount, at a specific stage, in a specific geography. These funds lead rounds and the partners take board seats. They reserve a certain amount of capital for follow-ons and typically do follow-on. Fund rules are such that subsequent funds cannot invest in the companies from the prior fund. The fund does extensive due diligence and invests in less than 7 deals per year. A typical $175 million dollar VC fund may look like this: US only Series A focus B2B SAAS companies only Invests $5-7M Series A lead checks Targeting investing in 20 companies over a 3-year period 40% of the capital reserved for follow-ons Follow-on in most of the portfolio companies Partners take board seats Investments take 2-4 months from first meeting FJ Labs does not operate this way. As we did when we were angels, we evaluate all the companies in our pipeline, and we invest in those we like. We decide whether we invest or not based on two 60-minute calls over the course of a week or two. We do not lead, and we do not take board seats. In other words, you could say we invest at any stage, in any geography, in any industry with extremely limited due diligence. Those are the very words that scared away institutional investors and made us think we would never raise a fund. Given this “strategy,” you might expect that our portfolio composition would vary dramatically over time. In fact, it has been very consistent over the years.