High Stakes Game

Sound Ventures Bets Big on AI Titans, Ascend Raises $25 Million for Second Fund, and 8fig Looks to Power E-commerce Progress With its New Funding.

Author

Adam from VC Brags
May 10, 2023

Welcome Shareholders,

In this daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, weā€™ll cover how Sound Ventures looks to break the mold with its concentrated bets on a few AI startups. Also, Ascendā€™s Second Act raises $25 Million, and 8fig Looks to Fuel E-commerce Growth with its new funding.

So sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy!

Venture Today šŸ‘

  • Sound Ventures, which just last week launched its $240 million AI fund, has already allocated half to investments in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stability.AI.

The team at Sound Ventures intends to concentrate their investments on just six companies, without earmarking funds for follow-on rounds and are open to backing competing companies within this fund's scope.

Defying traditional venture investing principles, Sound Ventures' highly focused AI fund strategy underscores their expectation of a limited number of influential players in the AI-driven future, due to the specialized technical talent and substantial capital required to cover computation costs.

Whoā€™s Raising?

  • Ascend has announced the closure of its $25 million second fund, which will primarily invest in pre-seed AI and machine learning companies located in the Pacific Northwest.

The second fund is a step up from the firmā€™s first fund of $15 million, which also focused on the same themes (but had also included investments in brands and marketplaces, which the second fund is stepping away from). The fund, raised entirely from individuals, is split into two vehicles: one that amassed $22.5 million and another that gathered $2.5 million from existing portfolio company founders.

With startups increasingly branding themselves as AI companies to secure funding, Ascend isn't necessarily looking for AI firms but rather focusing on startups that employ AI to devise superior solutions. The first fund's notable AI investments encompass Xembly, an AI-based virtual chief of staff, Fabric, a "headless" e-commerce platform, and WhyLabs, an AI observability platform.

Startup of the Day

  • Austin-based 8fig raised a $140 million Series B round, led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, with participation from existing investors Battery Ventures, LocalGlobe, Hetz Ventures, the Jesselson family, and Silicon Valley Bank.

Founded in Israel in 2020, 8fig, which offers growth plans for small to medium-sized e-commerce businesses with established sales records, has now amassed a total funding of $196.5 million. 8fig's platform provides funding and financial tools for supply chain management, financial planning, and freight and logistics coordination, to maintain ample inventory to prevent growth constraints in e-commerce companies.

Given the substantial capital required for e-commerce operations and the potential for supply chain expenses to impede growth, alternative financing models like 8fig are gaining appeal, particularly as cash becomes scarcer in a slowing venture capital market. Since its inception, 8fig has provided online sellers with over $500 million in financing and achieved an 800% increase in annual revenue last year.

Fresh Finds

  • LT Browser 2.0 facilitates 6X faster responsive web development by allowing interaction and testing with six device viewports simultaneously.

  • The browser enhances mobile view debugging efficiency with dedicated Chrome DevTools for each device viewport and offers multiple recording options for responsive bug combat.

  • It supports custom device viewports creation, real-time React code changes via hot reloading, network throttling for testing across different network profiles, and generates detailed website performance reports.

Memes and Other Things

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