NFX, the seed-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco and Israel, announced on Tuesday that it has closed its third fund at USD 450 million. The company believes the fund, which is dedicated to seed and pre-seed startups, is the largest fund of its kind to date.
NFX was founded in 2015 by Gigi Levy-Weiss, Pete Flint, and James Currier, who are serial entrepreneurs who founded and built ten companies that exited for more than a cumulative USD 10 billion. The co-founders also have invested in companies like Lyft, Doordash, Patreon, Poshmark, Mammoth Biosciences, Twist, Trulia, Lastminute.com, and others.
NFX invests in businesses driven by network effects and manages USD 875 million in total assets, the company said.
The fund, dubbed Fund III, is projected to support an additional 70 companies whose founders specialize in fintech, marketplaces, gaming, and proptech sectors, and will increase NFX’s investment in biotech and crypto.
Fund III is the firm’s largest to date. NFX raised USD 275 million for Fund II in 2019 and USD 150 million for Fund I in 2017. NFX leads or co-leads investments and is the first institutional investor in 95% of the companies it backs and roughly 15–20% of their investments are in the pre-seed stage.
“At NFX, we lead with a founder-first mindset because we were founders ourselves. The early days of a company are many of the most critical and challenging. Founders not only need smart support from those who’ve lived this life, they need access to a robust network, practical tools, and a highly sought-after and engaged community. We see so many exciting opportunities ahead and are now looking forward to continuing to support even more founders in the future,” said Pete Flint, NFX general partner.
As part of NFX’s commitment to growing its biotech portfolio, Omri Amirav-Drory, founder of NFX-backed Genome Compiler and VC fund Tech.bio, is being promoted to general partner of NFX, leading the firm’s division dedicated to biotech companies.
“Now is the time to back scientist-founders at the intersection of biology and technology solving our civilization’s most pressing challenges in health, sustainability, food, and the environment. We at the NFX Bio team are scientist-founders, so we understand the science quickly and have experience in starting and scaling tech-bio companies. We back founders at the pre-seed and seed stages. We lead rounds and we make decisions quickly,” said Amirav-Drory, “Tech-bio platform companies will be exceptionally impactful for the future of humanity.”
Since Fund I, NFX has grown from three general partners to five, from 16 employees to 45, and has opened offices in San Francisco, Israel, and Palo Alto.
“Coupled with our dedicated staff in recruiting, publicity, marketing, HR, and legal, we’re in a unique position to support founders at the earliest stages and help them in scaling their business. Having Omri on the ground in Israel part of the time shows our ongoing commitment to the Israeli tech ecosystem,” said Gigi Levy-Weiss, NFX general partner.
“NFX is focused on providing the single best support for a small group of founders at the earliest stage of their development,” added James Currier, another NFX general partner.
Read this: Indonesian biotech startups introduce saliva-based COVID-19 test kits as infections soar
The article was originally published by NoCamels, a leading news website covering breakthrough innovation from Israel for a global audience.