Moonshots Capital, a Los Angeles, CA- and and Austin, Texas-based seed-stage venture capital firm, closed its inaugural fund, at $20M.
Investors included Dave McCormick, Co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates.
Founded in 2017 by managing partners Kelly Perdew and Craig Cummings, Moonshots Capital focus on seed-stage deals and hold reserve capital for follow-on pro rata, where appropriate.
Beyond capital, the team deploys their military and entrepreneurial experience and network to help portfolio companies grow.
The fund has already committed to four deals in 2018 in:
– New Knowledge, a cyberdefense company that leverages artificial intelligence to detect propaganda campaigns and guard against social-media manipulation;
– Shep, a business travel tool that helps companies optimize travel booking and expense management;
– Threatcare, a leader in proactive cyber defense with its Breach and Attack Simulations; and
– Catalog, a company working with artificial intelligence and independent visual artists to automate and scale custom visual content production.
Kelly Perdew has founded or held senior executive operating roles in 10 companies, five of which he sold, and three still operate profitably to include DuMont Project – a 50-person consultative direct-to-consumer advertising agency. He has held multiple notable advisory/board roles and investments, including: LinkedIn (LNKD), Pandora (P), Harvest.ai (AMZN), and Slack.
Craig Cummings has founded four companies, and most recently served as the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of RideScout, a ground transportation aggregation app acquired by Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) in September 2014. Craig’s board or advisory roles have included Upskill (Co-founder), Harvest.ai (AMZN), and Millie (Co-founder). A West Point graduate and Truman Scholar, Cummings spent 17 years in the U.S. Army, primarily as an Intelligence Officer serving in support of the National Security Agency (NSA).
The firm’s team has collectively founded and operated 14 companies and personally invested in over 65 ventures.
FinSMEs
12/10/2018