Presence Capital Launches Venture Capital Fund to Back Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Startups

Presence Capital, a San Francisco, CA-based early-stage venture capital firm, has just launched to invest virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) startups.

The firm, which has held the first closing in its inaugural fund of $10m, aims to create a pipeline of startups to accelerate innovation, creativity and forward movement within the emerging VR and AR markets.

Led by by founding managing partners Paul Bragiel, Amitt Mahajan and Phil Chen, Presence Capital has invested in Harmonix (makers of the game Rock Band), Baobab (story and character-driven cinematic experiences in VR), Waygo (Automatic translation of Asian languages to English), among other unannounced companies.

The Managing Partners
– Paul Bragiel founded three startups and subsequently started five funds across four continents, including being an early advisor to companies such as Uber and Unity. Collectively, he has invested in seed rounds to more than 150 companies, including Unity and Zappos.
– Amitt Mahajan is a serial technology entrepreneur and investor. Prior to Presence Capital, he was the founder and CTO of MyMiniLife (acquired by Zynga) and the founder and CEO of Toro (acquired by Google). While at Zynga, Mahajan co-created the game FarmVille and served as the CTO of Zynga Japan. Before his entrepreneurial work, he was an engineer at Epic Games on the Unreal Engine and Gears of War.
– Phil Chen founded the HTC Vive project at HTC and brokered the Valve and HTC partnership. As head of HTC’s business and corporate development, he has led investments into KKBox (#1 music service in Asia), Soundhound, Magnet and the acquisition of Beats electronics. Previously, Chen was VP of Product for the Alex eReader and founded Glo Bible.

FinSMEs

11/12/2015

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