Vela Partners, a San Francisco, CA-based product-led and AI-powered venture capital firm, emerged from stealth mode with $25m under management.
Limited partners include institutional investors like banks, manufacturing companies, energy firms and system integrators that are interested in applying AI to their businesses. LPs, such as founders, C-level executives, and product and engineering leaders of technology companies and financial institutions, participate in portfolio support.
The firm leverages a proprietary product called ‘Ventech’, which has been developed over many years by ex-Googlers and University of Oxford researchers, and features sourcing, company evaluation, relationship graph analysis, and market intelligence capabilities. Additionally, they have recently open-sourced more than 20 machine learning models at their GitHub repository, complete with research papers, to support the startup ecosystem.
Entrepreneurs can analyze tendencies and fast-growing ideas in developer ecosystems like AWS and GitHub, while whitelisted VCs can identify the hottest seed-stage startups and understand emerging early-stage trends. Limited partners can ask questions using natural language about why Vela invested in a certain startup.
Led by Yigit Ihlamur, and Fuat Alican, Vela Partners has 32 portfolio companies in portfolio including Grabango ($93m raised), which is helping grocers run autonomous checkout stores, and Bear Robotics ($115m raised), which is addressing labor shortages by developing self-driving robots for the hospitality industry.
FinSMEs
12/05/2023