Kevin Hartz's A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years

by with No Comment Tech

A-Star Capital founding partners

Image Credits: A*

Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the fundraising market’s frost the most, some emerging VCs like A* have enough name recognition, and a good enough track record, to still find success.

A*, led by former Eventbrite founder Kevin Hartz, former Coatue partner Bennett Siegel and former Opendoor and Uber operator Gautam Gupta, raised $315 million for its oversubscribed Fund II. The firm plans to continue its focus of leading seed rounds and doubling down on portfolio companies at the Series A, in addition to making select new investments at the Series B stage.

“We found our product market fit is really at the seed and inception stage, partnering with founders on zero to one while continuing to back the breakouts in our portfolio,” Siegel said. “That’s where we have been the most successful.”

Zero to one is a reference to Peter Thiel’s book of the same name. It is VC parlance that means turning a new, unproven concept into a company with a product and customers, as opposed to a startup that mimics or expands on an existing idea.

The fund will continue to be generalist and invest across different industries. Gupta said that they like to find the right founders and follow them to whichever industry they are building in. Right now, that means the firm is spending a lot of time in AI and the resurgence of consumer tech.

“Everything takes care of itself when you back the right people” Gupta said.

The one noticeable change between Fund I and Fund II is the vehicle’s LP base. Fund II was raised entirely from institutional investors whereas Fund I was backed by many well-known VCs and former operators. Max Levchin, David Sacks and Peter Thiel of former PayPal fame were all Fund I backers in addition to the co-founder and CEO of DoorDash, Tony Xu, and the co-founder and president of Opendoor, Eric Wu, among others.

Switching to institutional investors is not uncommon at the Fund II stage, another VC firm just told me this week after doing the same thing. This is because firms have enough of a track record to attract institutional investors and these deep-pocketed investors become necessary as firms look to grow their fund sizes down the road.

A* isn’t looking to raise as much money as it can though. It intentionally kept Fund II at just a modest step up from the firm’s first fund — Fund I raised $300 million, surpassed its $250 million target, and closed in 2021.

“Fund size is strategy and strategy is fund size,” Siegel said. “We want to be the preferred partner but small enough that we can focus on generating incredible returns for our investors. We wanted to focus on mentorship and not necessarily just deploying large funds of capital.”

The company backed 35 startups in Fund I, including fintech startup Ramp, workflow tool Notion and wholesale marketplace Faire, all at Series B or beyond. It also led the seed rounds for companies like AI startup EyeTell, recruiting marketplace Paraform and primary care startup Aligned Marketplace. The firm incubated three companies as well, which are still in stealth.

The firm thinks it stands out from the very crowded seed market because of its three founding partners and their vast set of experience across industries and three different decades.

Hartz’s name recognition in the tech space probably doesn’t hurt either. Hartz launched and scaled both Eventbrite and Xoom through their respective exits before serving a stint at Founders Fund and angel investing into companies including Gusto, Pinterest and Reddit. Gupta was the former head of finance at Uber and COO and CFO at Opendoor. As an investor at Coatue, Siegel backed Peloton, Instacart and DoorDash, among others.

The group had known each other for years before they started talking about launching a fund in late 2020. Now they are looking to use this latest fund to continue finding and backing great early-stage founders in a very different market than the firm initially launched in.

“The challenge of our era is companies don’t die from starvation but instead indigestion,” Hartz said. “We can really help these companies that are hungry for the insights and want all that assistance to get from zero to one where capital is a plenty.”

CityRock launches second fund to back founders from diverse backgrounds

by with No Comment Tech

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 17: Oliver Libby attends Resolve 2013 fundraising gala at The Harvard Club on October 17, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/WireImage)

Image Credits: Oliver Libby by John Lamparski / Contributor / Getty Images

CityRock announced on Wednesday the close of a $24 million Fund II to invest in founders from diverse backgrounds. The fund, which is part of H/L Ventures, will seek to back companies in areas such as climate, healthcare and the future of work.

The firm has numerous legs to it, ranging from a venture studio to standard funds, where it does everything from co-founding companies to deploying capital. It has three funds within its venture studio and now two CityRock funds, which will focus on investing in Series A. It also has a seed program that supports pre-Series A companies within the wider H/L portfolio. 

The CityRock Funds focus on Series A investments, with CityRock Fund launching in late 2019. “It is part of H/L Ventures’ mission to provide a holistic platform of support and investment for our portfolio companies,” Oliver Libby, co-founder and managing partner of H/L Ventures, told TechCrunch. The average check size for CityRock Fund II will be $1 million, with a reserve for follow-on investments in the companies that were backed in CityRock Fund I. The fund is currently being deployed and expects to invest in 14 Series A companies and a similar amount of seed-stage companies through its seed program. 

Fund I was $17 million and closed in 2021. It is fully deployed and has backed 15 companies, including AndieSwim, Group Black and Aunt Flow. The firm says nearly 85% of the founders in the CityRock portfolio hail from what the firm describes as underrepresented backgrounds, but the firm defines it quite broadly, including identifiers like gender, race, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, and military services. “Diversity is a strong preference for the fund, not a requirement, but the vast majority of our founding teams have underrepresented founder-CEO,” Libby said. 

He says that fundraising was challenging for the firm’s general partners. “Sufficient LPs did indeed back our strategy, which is to invest at the nexus of growth, impact and diversity,” he said, adding that there still seems to be an appetite for diversity within an investment strategy — especially with research showing that diverse founding teams lead to strong outcomes. “The situation has gotten more difficult, both because of the polarized climate and also because in challenging economic times, support for impact and diversity always tends to retreat.”

The firm remains focused on its commitment, though, saying that supporting diverse founders within the areas the fund wants to focus on — like healthcare and climate — is important for innovation. “Diverse founders often come from backgrounds that allow them to see or understand solutions that sometimes more privileged founders might miss,” Libby said, citing topics like energy efficiency in certain communities and health disparities. “We need innovations not just coming from the same old homogenous places, top-down into society, but also from every place within our society.” 

H/L was founded in 2009 by Eric Hatzimemos and Libby. Fund II will be deployed over a four-year period, the firm said. In the end, it hopes to back a diverse group of founders “with a positive mission” that can “lead to great financial success and good for society and the world.”

This story was updated to clarify the average check size of Fund II.

Kevin Hartz's A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years

by with No Comment Tech

A-Star Capital founding partners

Image Credits: A*

Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the fundraising market’s frost the most, some emerging VCs like A* have enough name recognition, and a good enough track record, to still find success.

A*, led by former Eventbrite founder Kevin Hartz, former Coatue partner Bennett Siegel and former Opendoor and Uber operator Gautam Gupta, raised $315 million for its oversubscribed Fund II. The firm plans to continue its focus of leading seed rounds and doubling down on portfolio companies at the Series A, in addition to making select new investments at the Series B stage.

“We found our product market fit is really at the seed and inception stage, partnering with founders on zero to one while continuing to back the breakouts in our portfolio,” Siegel said. “That’s where we have been the most successful.”

Zero to one is a reference to Peter Thiel’s book of the same name. It is VC parlance that means turning a new, unproven concept into a company with a product and customers, as opposed to a startup that mimics or expands on an existing idea.

The fund will continue to be generalist and invest across different industries. Gupta said that they like to find the right founders and follow them to whichever industry they are building in. Right now, that means the firm is spending a lot of time in AI and the resurgence of consumer tech.

“Everything takes care of itself when you back the right people” Gupta said.

The one noticeable change between Fund I and Fund II is the vehicle’s LP base. Fund II was raised entirely from institutional investors whereas Fund I was backed by many well-known VCs and former operators. Max Levchin, David Sacks and Peter Thiel of former PayPal fame were all Fund I backers in addition to the co-founder and CEO of DoorDash, Tony Xu, and the co-founder and president of Opendoor, Eric Wu, among others.

Switching to institutional investors is not uncommon at the Fund II stage, another VC firm just told me this week after doing the same thing. This is because firms have enough of a track record to attract institutional investors and these deep-pocketed investors become necessary as firms look to grow their fund sizes down the road.

A* isn’t looking to raise as much money as it can though. It intentionally kept Fund II at just a modest step up from the firm’s first fund — Fund I raised $300 million, surpassed its $250 million target, and closed in 2021.

“Fund size is strategy and strategy is fund size,” Siegel said. “We want to be the preferred partner but small enough that we can focus on generating incredible returns for our investors. We wanted to focus on mentorship and not necessarily just deploying large funds of capital.”

The company backed 35 startups in Fund I, including fintech startup Ramp, workflow tool Notion and wholesale marketplace Faire, all at Series B or beyond. It also led the seed rounds for companies like AI startup EyeTell, recruiting marketplace Paraform and primary care startup Aligned Marketplace. The firm incubated three companies as well, which are still in stealth.

The firm thinks it stands out from the very crowded seed market because of its three founding partners and their vast set of experience across industries and three different decades.

Hartz’s name recognition in the tech space probably doesn’t hurt either. Hartz launched and scaled both Eventbrite and Xoom through their respective exits before serving a stint at Founders Fund and angel investing into companies including Gusto, Pinterest and Reddit. Gupta was the former head of finance at Uber and COO and CFO at Opendoor. As an investor at Coatue, Siegel backed Peloton, Instacart and DoorDash, among others.

The group had known each other for years before they started talking about launching a fund in late 2020. Now they are looking to use this latest fund to continue finding and backing great early-stage founders in a very different market than the firm initially launched in.

“The challenge of our era is companies don’t die from starvation but instead indigestion,” Hartz said. “We can really help these companies that are hungry for the insights and want all that assistance to get from zero to one where capital is a plenty.”

CityRock launches second fund to back founders from diverse backgrounds

by with No Comment Tech

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 17: Oliver Libby attends Resolve 2013 fundraising gala at The Harvard Club on October 17, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/WireImage)

Image Credits: Oliver Libby by John Lamparski / Contributor / Getty Images

CityRock announced on Wednesday the close of a $24 million Fund II to invest in founders from diverse backgrounds. The fund, which is part of H/L Ventures, will seek to back companies in areas such as climate, healthcare and the future of work.

The firm has numerous legs to it, ranging from a venture studio to standard funds, where it does everything from co-founding companies to deploying capital. It has three funds within its venture studio and now two CityRock funds, which will focus on investing in Series A. It also has a seed program that supports pre-Series A companies within the wider H/L portfolio. 

The CityRock Funds focus on Series A investments, with CityRock Fund launching in late 2019. “It is part of H/L Ventures’ mission to provide a holistic platform of support and investment for our portfolio companies,” Oliver Libby, co-founder and managing partner of H/L Ventures, told TechCrunch. The average check size for CityRock Fund II will be $1 million, with a reserve for follow-on investments in the companies that were backed in CityRock Fund I. The fund is currently being deployed and expects to invest in 14 Series A companies and a similar amount of seed-stage companies through its seed program. 

Fund I was $17 million and closed in 2021. It is fully deployed and has backed 15 companies, including AndieSwim, Group Black and Aunt Flow. The firm says nearly 85% of the founders in the CityRock portfolio hail from what the firm describes as underrepresented backgrounds, but the firm defines it quite broadly, including identifiers like gender, race, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, and military services. “Diversity is a strong preference for the fund, not a requirement, but the vast majority of our founding teams have underrepresented founder-CEO,” Libby said. 

He says that fundraising was challenging for the firm’s general partners. “Sufficient LPs did indeed back our strategy, which is to invest at the nexus of growth, impact and diversity,” he said, adding that there still seems to be an appetite for diversity within an investment strategy — especially with research showing that diverse founding teams lead to strong outcomes. “The situation has gotten more difficult, both because of the polarized climate and also because in challenging economic times, support for impact and diversity always tends to retreat.”

The firm remains focused on its commitment, though, saying that supporting diverse founders within the areas the fund wants to focus on — like healthcare and climate — is important for innovation. “Diverse founders often come from backgrounds that allow them to see or understand solutions that sometimes more privileged founders might miss,” Libby said, citing topics like energy efficiency in certain communities and health disparities. “We need innovations not just coming from the same old homogenous places, top-down into society, but also from every place within our society.” 

H/L was founded in 2009 by Eric Hatzimemos and Libby. Fund II will be deployed over a four-year period, the firm said. In the end, it hopes to back a diverse group of founders “with a positive mission” that can “lead to great financial success and good for society and the world.”

This story was updated to clarify the average check size of Fund II.

CityRock launches second fund to back founders from diverse backgrounds

by with No Comment Tech

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 17: Oliver Libby attends Resolve 2013 fundraising gala at The Harvard Club on October 17, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/WireImage)

Image Credits: John Lamparski / Contributor / Getty Images

CityRock announced on Wednesday the close of a $24 million Fund II to invest in founders from diverse backgrounds. The fund, which is part of H/L Ventures, will seek to back companies in areas such as climate, healthcare and the future of work.

The firm has numerous legs to it, ranging from a venture studio to standard funds, where it does everything from co-founding companies to deploying capital. It has three funds within its venture studio and now two CityRock funds, which will focus on investing in Series A. It also has a seed program that supports pre-Series A companies within the wider H/L portfolio. 

The CityRock Funds focus on Series A investments, with CityRock Fund launching in late 2019. “It is part of H/L Ventures’ mission to provide a holistic platform of support and investment for our portfolio companies,” Oliver Libby, co-founder and managing partner of H/L Ventures, told TechCrunch. The average check size for CityRock Fund II will be $1 million, with a reserve for follow-on investments in the companies that were backed in CityRock Fund I. The fund is currently being deployed and expects to invest in 14 Series A companies and a similar amount of seed-stage companies through its seed program. 

Fund I was $17 million and closed in 2021. It is fully deployed and has backed 15 companies, including AndieSwim, Group Black and Aunt Flow. The firm says nearly 85% of the founders in the CityRock portfolio hail from what the firm describes as underrepresented backgrounds, but the firm defines it quite broadly, including identifiers like gender, race, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, and military services. “Diversity is a strong preference for the fund, not a requirement, but the vast majority of our founding teams have underrepresented founder-CEO,” Libby said. 

He says that fundraising was challenging for the firm’s general partners. “Sufficient LPs did indeed back our strategy, which is to invest at the nexus of growth, impact and diversity,” he said, adding that there still seems to be an appetite for diversity within an investment strategy — especially with research showing that diverse founding teams lead to strong outcomes. “The situation has gotten more difficult, both because of the polarized climate and also because in challenging economic times, support for impact and diversity always tends to retreat.”

The firm remains focused on its commitment, though, saying that supporting diverse founders within the areas the fund wants to focus on — like healthcare and climate — is important for innovation. “Diverse founders often come from backgrounds that allow them to see or understand solutions that sometimes more privileged founders might miss,” Libby said, citing topics like energy efficiency in certain communities and health disparities. “We need innovations not just coming from the same old homogenous places, top-down into society, but also from every place within our society.” 

H/L was founded in 2009 by Eric Hatzimemos and Libby. Fund II will be deployed over a four-year period, the firm said. In the end, it hopes to back a diverse group of founders “with a positive mission” that can “lead to great financial success and good for society and the world.”

This story was updated to clarify the average check size of Fund II.

Kevin Hartz's A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years

by with No Comment Tech

A*, venture capital, startups

Image Credits: A*

Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the fundraising market’s frost the most, some emerging VCs like A* have enough name recognition, and a good enough track record, to still find success.

A*, led by former Eventbrite founder Kevin Hartz, former Coatue partner Bennett Siegel and former Opendoor and Uber operator Gautam Gupta, raised $315 million for its oversubscribed Fund II. The firm plans to continue its focus of leading seed rounds and doubling down on portfolio companies at the Series A, in addition to making select new investments at the Series B stage.

“We found our product market fit is really at the seed and inception stage, partnering with founders on zero to one while continuing to back the breakouts in our portfolio,” Siegel said. “That’s where we have been the most successful.”

Zero to One is a reference to Peter Thiel’s book of the same name. It is VC parlance that means turning a new, unproven concept into a company with a product and customers, as opposed to a startup that mimics or expands on an existing idea.

The fund will continue to be generalist and invest across different industries. Gupta said that they like to find the right founders and follow them to whichever industry they are building in. Right now, that means the firm is spending a lot of time in AI and the resurgence of consumer tech.

“Everything takes care of itself when you back the right people” Gupta said.

The one noticeable change between Fund I and Fund II is the vehicle’s LP base. Fund II was raised entirely from institutional investors whereas Fund I was backed by many well-known VCs and former operators. Max Levchin, David Sacks and Peter Thiel of former PayPal fame were all Fund I backers in addition to the co-founder and CEO of DoorDash, Tony Xu, and the co-founder and president of Opendoor, Eric Wu, among others.

Switching to institutional investors is not uncommon at the Fund II stage, another VC firm just told me this week after doing the same thing. This is because firms have enough of a track record to attract institutional investors and these deep-pocketed investors become necessary as firms look to grow their fund sizes down the road.

A* isn’t looking to raise as much money as it can though. It intentionally kept Fund II at just a modest step up from the firm’s first fund — Fund I raised $300 million, surpassed its $250 million target, and closed in 2021.

“Fund size is strategy and strategy is fund size,” Siegel said. “We want to be the preferred partner but small enough that we can focus on generating incredible returns for our investors. We wanted to focus on mentorship and not necessarily just deploying large funds of capital.”

The company backed 35 startups in Fund I including fintech startup Ramp, workflow tool Notion, and wholesale marketplace Faire, all at Series B or beyond. It also led the seed rounds for companies like AI startup EyeTell, recruiting marketplace Paraform, and primary care startup Aligned Marketplace. The firm incubated three companies as well which are still in stealth.

The firm thinks it stands out from the very crowded seed market because of its three founding partners and their vast set of experience across industries and three different decades.

Hartz’s name recognition in the tech space probably doesn’t hurt either. Hartz launched and scaled both Eventbrite and Xoom through their respective exits before serving a stint at Founders Fund and angel investing into companies including Gusto, Pinterest and Reddit. Gupta was the former head of finance at Uber and COO and CFO at OpenDoor. As an investor at Coatue, Siegel backed Peloton, Instacart, and DoorDash, among others.

The group had known each other for years before they started talking about launching a fund in late 2020. Now they are looking to use this latest fund to continue finding and backing great early-stage founders in a very different market than the firm initially launched in.

“The challenge of our era is companies don’t die from starvation but instead indigestion,” Hartz said. “We can really help these companies that are hungry for the insights and want all that assistance to get from zero to one where capital is a plenty.”

interior (dash) of Waymo robotaxi

Waymo issues second recall after robotaxi hit telephone pole

by with No Comment Tech

interior (dash) of Waymo robotaxi

Image Credits: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance / Getty Images

Waymo has voluntarily issued a software recall to all 672 of its Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis after one of them collided with a telephone pole. This is Waymo’s second recall. The Alphabet-owned company recalled previous software in February after two of its robotaxis crashed into the same pickup truck that was being towed by a tow truck.

The Verge first published the news after Waymo alerted the publication to its recall remedy — a sign that the robotaxi company’s taking a proactive approach amid increased scrutiny from regulators and the general public. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is currently investigating Waymo’s autonomous vehicle software after receiving 31 reports of robotaxis crashing or potentially violating traffic safety laws. 

NHTSA confirmed to TechCrunch that it has received Waymo’s recall documents and is processing them for publication on its website.

“This is our second voluntary recall,” Katherine Barna, a Waymo spokesperson, told TechCrunch. “This reflects how seriously we take our responsibility to safely deploy our technology and to transparently communicate with the public.”

Transparency is top of mind for most autonomous vehicle companies following the disarray at GM’s Cruise in October and November 2023. While Cruise is slowly making its way back into markets, the company lost its permits to operate in California and grounded its entire fleet last year after one of its robotaxis ran over and dragged a pedestrian for 20 feet. The company’s reputation took a hit less so for the nature of the incident — a human-driven vehicle hit the pedestrian first, throwing them into the path of the Cruise robotaxi — and more because Cruise executives withheld key details of the incident from regulators. 

The accident that prompted Waymo’s second recall happened on May 21 when a Waymo vehicle in Phoenix, driving without a human safety operator, collided with a telephone pole in an alley during a low-speed pullover maneuver.  

Local reports say the Waymo was driving to pick up a passenger through an alley lined on both sides by wooden telephone poles that were level with the road and surrounded by yellow lines to define a path for vehicles. The Waymo vehicle slowed down to pull over and struck a pole at a speed of eight miles per hour. Video of the crashed vehicle shows that it appears to have driven right into the pole. Waymo’s robotaxi sustained some damage, but there were no passengers or pedestrians injured. 

“We went to work immediately and determined that, in certain situations, our vehicles had an insufficient ability to avoid collisions with on-road narrow, permanent objects within the drivable surface,” said Barna. “We have since implemented mapping and software updates.”

The passenger told 12News that the Waymo — which would have been her first ride — never made it to pick her up.

interior (dash) of Waymo robotaxi

Waymo issues second recall after robotaxi hit telephone pole

by with No Comment Tech

interior (dash) of Waymo robotaxi

Image Credits: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance / Getty Images

Waymo has voluntarily issued a software recall to all 672 of its Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis after one of them collided with a telephone pole. This is Waymo’s second recall. The Alphabet-owned company recalled previous software in February after two of its robotaxis crashed into the same pickup truck that was being towed by a tow truck.

The Verge first published the news after Waymo alerted the publication to its recall remedy — a sign that the robotaxi company’s taking a proactive approach amid increased scrutiny from regulators and the general public. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is currently investigating Waymo’s autonomous vehicle software after receiving 31 reports of robotaxis crashing or potentially violating traffic safety laws. 

NHTSA confirmed to TechCrunch that it has received Waymo’s recall documents and is processing them for publication on its website.

“This is our second voluntary recall,” Katherine Barna, a Waymo spokesperson, told TechCrunch. “This reflects how seriously we take our responsibility to safely deploy our technology and to transparently communicate with the public.”

Transparency is top of mind for most autonomous vehicle companies following the disarray at GM’s Cruise in October and November 2023. While Cruise is slowly making its way back into markets, the company lost its permits to operate in California and grounded its entire fleet last year after one of its robotaxis ran over and dragged a pedestrian for 20 feet. The company’s reputation took a hit less so for the nature of the incident — a human-driven vehicle hit the pedestrian first, throwing them into the path of the Cruise robotaxi — and more because Cruise executives withheld key details of the incident from regulators. 

The accident that prompted Waymo’s second recall happened on May 21 when a Waymo vehicle in Phoenix, driving without a human safety operator, collided with a telephone pole in an alley during a low-speed pullover maneuver.  

Local reports say the Waymo was driving to pick up a passenger through an alley lined on both sides by wooden telephone poles that were level with the road and surrounded by yellow lines to define a path for vehicles. The Waymo vehicle slowed down to pull over and struck a pole at a speed of eight miles per hour. Video of the crashed vehicle shows that it appears to have driven right into the pole. Waymo’s robotaxi sustained some damage, but there were no passengers or pedestrians injured. 

“We went to work immediately and determined that, in certain situations, our vehicles had an insufficient ability to avoid collisions with on-road narrow, permanent objects within the drivable surface,” said Barna. “We have since implemented mapping and software updates.”

The passenger told 12News that the Waymo — which would have been her first ride — never made it to pick her up.

Solana Mobile's Chapter 2 image of the number 2 and a green and purple border on a black background

Buying frenzy for Solana Mobile’s second phone drives preorders sky-high

by with No Comment Tech

Solana Mobile's Chapter 2 image of the number 2 and a green and purple border on a black background

Image Credits: Solana Mobile (opens in a new window)

Solana Mobile is swinging for the stars after it announced a second, cheaper web3 phone phone dubbed “Chapter 2” earlier this week. While its first handset, Saga, sold out like a budding avalanche — slow at first, then all at once in the U.S. and European Union — its second device is selling out much faster to begin with.

Demand for the Chapter 2 is apparently so high, Solana Mobile hit its seven-day sales goal within the first 24 hours, Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana and president of Solana Labs, exclusively told TechCrunch.

In the first 24 hours after the phone was announced, Solana Mobile saw over 25,000 preorders, and by the 30-hour mark, it had 30,000 preorders, Gokal said. At those numbers, this new device has already eclipsed 12 months’ worth of sales of Solana’s first handset, Saga.

The new phone will have similar features as its predecessor: It’s based on Android, has a built-in crypto wallet, a Seed Vault and a “dApp store” for decentralized crypto applications. It is initially being offered at $450, less than the $599 the Saga is sold for. Chapter 2 will ship in the first half of 2025, a Solana spokesperson said.

“For developers, Solana Mobile is creating a massive opportunity for crypto app teams looking to incentivize their users,” Gokal said. “It gives them a concentrated distribution channel to die-hard, dedicated users. It allows them to do this without any prohibitive app store fees.”

Gokal added that the device represents what’s possible with crypto, providing value in incentivizing apps to users.

Saga’s climb

Solana’s first smartphone didn’t see much demand when it was first launched in mid-2023 for $1,000. But the company soon lowered the price to $599 in light of weak demand. YouTuber Marques Brownlee even called Saga the “worst new phone of 2023” and said it was a “bust.”

Initially, it seemed the lackluster sales were because the phone went unnoticed in the crowded smartphone market. But the crypto-savvy crowd’s ears perked up when dog-focused memecoin BONK’s decentralized application (dApp) announced that it was providing 30 million BONK tokens to Saga owners for free. The Saga then sold out almost overnight.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/21/dog-themed-memecoins-are-pawing-their-way-back-into-investors-hearts/

At the time, 30 million BONK tokens were worth more than the cost of the phone, so users basically got the device (or the tokens, depending on how you look at it) for free. Before then, Saga owners received other crypto rewards, like the mint for the Claynosaurz NFT collection, but those promotions didn’t garner as much attention. Following the BONK hype, though, other dApps began offering similar rewards, which resulted in even more people wanting to buy the phone to get their hands on its offered value.

“As the market rebounded in Q4 of last year, the Saga sold out, with the large majority of those sales taking place over just two days in December,” Gokal said. “Since then, we’ve been inundated daily with thousands of requests for more.”

Now Solana is hoping to re-create the same magic with Chapter 2. The Saga genesis token, the non-transferrable NFT that came with every Saga and helped owners redeem rewards, will not be available to owners of the new devices, but the company plans on “building on this experience in Chapter 2,” according to its FAQ.

“Giving back to the community has a snowball effect: As more developers start releasing crypto-incentivized apps to Solana Mobile users, we’ll see even greater adoption,” Gokal said. The Chapter 2 has launched with sponsors, including Backpack, Tensor, Phantom, Solflare, Magic Eden and Drip, which plan to reward owners, he added.

“Chapter 2 is focused on wider distribution, greater accessibility, and uses learnings from the last two years to enable greater flexibility for developers and users,” Gokal said.

The new device has “been in the works” for over a year, Gokal said, as the company wanted to give “complete freedom for crypto developers and users,” by having no restrictions on tokens or NFTs, and no prohibitive fees.

Earlybird Health team

Earlybird Health closes twice-larger second fund, will write bigger checks

by with No Comment Tech

Earlybird Health team

Image Credits: STUDIO44 Strausberg

Germany-based Earlybird Health announced the final closing of its second fund of €173 million (around $185 million). This is more than twice the size of Earlybird‘s first healthcare-focused fund, Health I, which reached €85 million at final closing.

While both funds are similar in investment thesis and stage, this will enable Earlybird Health to write larger checks. Since it plans to predominantly invest in Europe, including the U.K., this could be good news for health tech startups in the region, many of which are running out of cash after the fall of telehealth company Babylon.

However, there’s a lot more to health and better patient outcomes than digitalization. Earlybird Health’s focus encompasses medical devices, diagnostics solutions, R&D tools and biopharma. The latter already resulted in an IPO for Earlybird Health’s first fund when eye care company Oculis went public on Nasdaq in March 2023.

Earlybird Health’s existing portfolio also comprises Priothera, whose co-founder Florent Gros joined the fund as a partner in 2022.

Another newcomer in Earlybird Health’s world is limited partner British Patient Capital, a subsidiary of state-owned British Business Bank. It joins a range of LPs that also includes Barmer, one of Germany’s largest public health insurance providers. According to Earlybird Health, it was the first of such insurers to invest in a VC fund when it backed Health I.

“Having health insurers as cornerstone investors enables us to understand and address key patient needs by supporting innovative healthcare,” said Thom Rasche, a partner at Earlybird Health.

For portfolio companies, this type of LP also opens the door to “insights into the most promising angles for commercialization and potential direct endorsement,” Rasche said, citing the collaboration between Barmer and portfolio companies iStar Medical, Noscendo and Wellabe.

While Earlybird Health has its own team of 10 people, it also has access to Eagle Eye, an in-house AI tool shared across Earlybird and its other independently managed funds. From uncovering stealth mode companies to other opportunities, Earlybird Health principal Christoph Massner expects it will help the fund’s deal sourcing and due-diligence process be more efficient and more inclusive.

5 key questions climate tech founders should ask impact investors

Inclusion is part of the ESG goals that Earlybird Health committed to, as detailed in its inaugural 2022 impact and ESG report. As an article 8 fund under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), it sees these efforts as a “core part” of its daily activities, “whether investing or general operations,” partner Lionel Carnot said. Ahead of the release of the fund’s 2023 report, he disclosed that two portfolio companies also “developed and implemented an ESG strategy in 2023” as a result of its push.