Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Seattle-based Madrona raises $320M for its eighth fund

Madrona Venture Group has been a mainstay of the Seattle and northwest United States startup ecosystem for years now, and it looks like it is going to continue that legacy going forward.

In a filing with the SEC, the firm announced its eighth venture capital fund, raising $320 million. That’s up slightly from the firm’s past two funds, both of which were $300 million vehicles. The filing comes roughly a year and a half after the firm’s last fundraise for its seventh fund. That slight increase in size is a different choice from many other VC firms these days, which have ballooned their fund sizes in pursuit of larger and later-stage deals.

Madrona in recent years has been on a hiring spree. It picked up Steve Singh, the former CEO of enterprise startup Docker, as a managing director earlier this year, and also promoted Hope Cochran as its first female managing director in 2019. She had joined the firm in 2016 as a venture partner, and was formerly the CFO of mobile gaming giant King Digital and telecom services provider Clearwire. The firm has also hired several experienced enterprise hands to round its portfolio services, including Katie Drucker and Mark Britton.

Former Docker CEO Steve Singh joins Madrona

The firm is perhaps best known for its enterprise bets, and the firm has been on a tear this year writing checks. Among the companies it has invested in are Sila, which offers programmable banking infrastructure and Madrona led a $7.7 million seed; Temporal, where Madrona joined a Sequoia-led $18.75 million Series A round; and Stratify, an automated budgeting startup where the firm led a $4.9 million seed.

Last year, the firm raised a $100 million Acceleration Fund that was designed to take minority stakes in growth rounds at the Series B and Series C stages. No word on where that growth fund sits, or whether the firm will double down more on that strategy in the future.

Madrona Venture Group launches $100M acceleration fund

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line...
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted a...
3 comments
Read more