Vine Ventures reached a USD140m final close for Vine Ventures II. The seed-stage venture fund will invest in financial services, logistics and supply chain startups in Latin America, Israel and the US.
(Vine Ventures) Vine Ventures, a New York City-based early stage venture capital firm, today announced the final closing of its Fund II. The new fund was oversubscribed, with $140 million of commitments from some of the world’s leading technology investors, founders, pension funds, and endowments. The addition of Fund II brings the firm’s total assets under management to $243 million. In less than two years, Vine Ventures has become one of New York City’s largest Seed-focused funds. The firm, which has seven team members, also announced the opening of two offices: NYC (Flatiron) and Tel Aviv (Sarona Market).
Vine leads the earliest financing rounds of technology companies, investing $1 million to $10 million as a first check. The firm offers hands-on support to founders, which has already resulted in multiple breakouts. Vine’s Fund II follows a successful start to Fund I, which was raised in June 2020 and through year end 2021 is reporting a net IRR of 251%. In Fund I, 13 of 16 portfolio companies have raised further funding from Accel, Coatue, Felicis, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and Tiger Global – with many of these transactions facilitated by Vine’s relationships. These include:
- TUL, a super-app digitizing the Latin American construction industry that raised a $180 million Series B at an $800 million valuation from Avenir, Dragoneer, Tiger Global, 8VC and Coatue
- Komodor, an Israeli DevOps platform automating Kubernetes trouble-shooting that raised a $47 million Series B from Tiger Global, Accel and Felicis
- Habi, a Latin American proptech and first female-led unicorn in the region that raised a $200 million Series C from SoftBank’s Latin America Fund
- Parallel Learning, a telehealth platform serving students with learning differences in New York that raised a $20M Series A from Tiger Global, JAWS and Obvious Ventures
- OpenStore, a Shopify merchant aggregator led by Keith Rabois and backed by Founders Fund and General Catalyst
- Ennabl, a suite of SaaS tools and data-driven services for insurance brokers that aims to become the de facto broker-carrier connectivity platform
- Modern Intelligence, a modular AI for the U.S. defense industry
“Our mission is to identify founders and markets poised for massive outcomes, drive these leaders to success, and deliver top-tier returns to our investors. Vine’s team is composed of investors trained at some of the most successful firms including Insight Partners, TA Associates and Blackstone. We have adapted these firms’ best practices to bring unparalleled horsepower to early stage investing, so that the world’s best company builders can begin their journey with the right resources,” said Eric Reiner, Vine’s Managing Partner.
Vine Founders Eric Reiner and Dan Povitsky launched the firm before the age of 30 and have been recognized in Forbes 30u30. Previously, they held investing roles at Insight Partners and TA Associates. Together, they specialize in applying their unique flavor of multi-stage investing to the early stage. The pair have backed some of the world’s most promising technology companies and dynamic founders, including eight unicorns: Carta, Hippo, Ro, Ramp, Dutchie, Habi, Unqork, and FrontApp.
“With Fund II, we continue the important work of delivering the world’s best user experience to founders. Our team’s age and track-record of refining business models sets us apart from the typical seed venture capital firm. We approach founders from a place of mutuality and seek to build a shared understanding through rapid and comprehensive work. This has enabled us to take big bets on generational companies long before other investors arrive,” said Dan Povitsky.