CircleUp, a San Francisco, CA-based investment platform, has launched a $125m venture capital fund focused on investing in innovative, early-stage consumer and retail companies.
Limited Partners in CircleUp Growth Partners include institutional investors and consumer industry veterans, such as Temasek, Euclidean Capital, outsourced CIOs, Annie’s Homegrown cofounder John Foraker, former Blackrock executive of Scientific Active Equity Ken Kroner, Plum Organics founder Gigi Lee Chang, and Deva and Tevya Finger, cofounders of Luxury Brand Partners, the beauty incubator behind Oribe, Becca Cosmetics, etc.
The fund, which can both lead and participate in existing rounds, leverages CircleUp’s machine learning platform – Helio – through each step of the investment process, from deal sourcing, to investment decisions, to post-close company support. The platform proactively collects and analyzes billions of data points across more than 1.2 million companies to understand and predict their future success and find and evaluate more investment opportunities and help bring value to companies after close.
The first investments out of CircleUp Growth Partners are:
- HUM Nutrition, a beauty supplements brand , and
- 4505 Chicharrones, a high protein salty snacks brand.
Founded in 2012, CircleUp is backed by Union Square Ventures, GV, Canaan Partners, QED Advisors, and former leaders of Goldman Sachs, Capital One and Stanford Endowment.
FinSMEs
31/10/2017