Participated · Series B · Aug 2021

Nifty Games develops quick-session competitive mobile sports games, holding licenses from the NFL, NFLPA, NBA and NBPA. Its premier title, NFL Clash, is available in select markets worldwide and is slated to launch in the United States this year. The company plans to use new funding to expand its sports games lineup and to invest in top-tier development staff. Financially, Nifty Games has raised over $50M since 2018 and completed a new financing in 2021. Founded by gaming veterans Jon Middleton and Pete Wanat in 2018, the company operates from Lafayette, California. The new capital and debt facility are intended to accelerate product development for global sports fans. Nifty Games is a Bay Area games publisher focused on developing officially licensed mobile sports titles in partnership with national leagues. The studio emphasizes quick, head-to-head mobile experiences rather than full-console simulations, aiming for short sessions and modern mobile monetization. It has partnerships with the NFL and NBA and plans to release an NFL Clash football title and an NBA head-to-head mobile game later this year. The company closed a $12M Series A earlier this year and previously raised a $3M seed in late 2018. Co-founders Jon Middleton and Pete Wanat leverage decades of games industry experience and extensive networks to secure league and development partnerships. Early investors reportedly include owners from MLB, MLS, NHL and eSports leagues, and the team aims to offer more varied official mobile experiences for fans during the pandemic. Nifty Games is a brand-new video game publisher based in San Francisco, CA. It was formed to deliver head-to-head free-to-play sports games on mobile and digital platforms for a large global audience. The company raised $3M in seed funding from aXiomatic Gaming, Defy.VC and March Capital Partners. Founders are Jon Middleton and Pete Wanat. The early team includes Dan Wasson (Head of Production), Jenny Lin (Head of Marketing) and Kathy McElwee (Interim CFO). The company is hiring.

Participated · Series A · Dec 2020

Beta Hatch farms mealworms as an alternative protein source targeted primarily at livestock and pet feed. The company describes its farming process as “virtually zero-waste.” It is St. Louis-based and is expanding its flagship farm in Cashmere, Washington. Beta Hatch announced $10 million in funding as it eyes that expansion. The new facility is slated to be the largest of its kind in North America and the company expects to increase output 10x over the next year. The Cashmere location is currently powered by renewably sourced energy. Founder and CEO Virginia Emery said the company plans to grow its presence in rural America and employ and partner with local communities to help feed a growing global population. Beta Hatch is a five-year-old startup led by founder and CEO Virginia Emery, a PhD entomologist, that builds insect-rearing technology to convert organic waste into proteins, oils and nutrients for poultry and aquaculture. The company operates a SeaTac, Washington facility and is building a 42,000-square-foot flagship mealworm production facility in Cashmere, Wash., by converting a former juice factory. Beta Hatch is deploying a hub-and-spoke model with hatchery hubs producing eggs and ranching spokes growing product to scale mealworm production. The new Cashmere site will be powered in part by renewable sources, including waste heat from a neighboring data center, to lower energy needs. Beta Hatch expects the expansion to create 20–30 new operating, engineering and R&D jobs and will keep its SeaTac operation running into 2021 as a support and transition facility. The company has positioned its technology as a sustainable protein source for animal feed and continues to scale its distributed production model. Beta Hatch develops insect-rearing technology to convert organic waste into proteins, oils and nutrients for poultry and aquaculture. Founded in 2015 by PhD entomologist Virginia Emery, the company currently operates out of a facility in SeaTac and plans to move to a flagship facility in Cashmere, Wash. that will be the largest mealworm production facility for animal feed in North America, with capacity to produce a ton of insect protein per day. That Cashmere facility is scheduled to be operational in early 2021 and will be partially powered by waste heat from a neighboring data center. The company has completed the first published assembly of the yellow mealworm genome and will publish it in an open source article to support further research. Beta Hatch currently employs 14 people and plans to add 10–20 more once the Cashmere operation is complete. Beta Hatch was founded by Virginia Emery three years ago to address high costs of animal feed by raising mealworms as an alternative protein. The company currently operates in SeaTac and plans to relocate to the Wenatchee area this summer to lower operating costs and improve employee lifestyle. In Chelan County it is gearing up to build its first commercial flagship facility that expects to produce about 1 ton of insect biomass daily. The planned facility will take advantage of very low electricity costs (as cheap as 3¢/kWh) and will use waste heat from an adjacent data center to reduce energy use. Beta Hatch has a track record of non-dilutive and investor funding, having raised $4.8 million via grants and investment from parties including Cavallo Ventures. The company recently won a $135,000 prize at the Flywheel Investment Conference to help with its move and scale-up. Beta Hatch is a Seattle-based company industrializing the production of insects as a sustainable protein source for animal feed. The company is developing tools and processes to grow insects at industrial scale and has focused work around black soldier fly technology. It closed a $2.1M seed funding round to build a precommercial facility and continue refining its technology and process. Beta Hatch has partnered with Texas-based EVO Conversion Systems and joined The EVO Consortium to access fundamental BSF technologies and collaborate with other insect-rearing developers. The company plans to offer a comprehensive rearing workshop through the consortium to help establish production standards for American producers. Virginia Emery is Founder and CEO.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2007

Inventure Renewables is a Tuscaloosa, Alabama-based renewable process technology developer led by CEO Mark Tegen and located at the Alabama Innovation and Mentoring of Entrepreneur Center at The University of Alabama. The company develops patented and patent-pending chemical catalytic process technology to produce third-generation green chemicals, synthetic jet fuel, biodiesel, and green gasoline from biomass. It processes feedstocks such as palm waste, algae, corn stover and cobs, cane bagasse, switch grass, wood fiber, rice husk and rice straw to generate fuels, fuel intermediates, chemicals and chemical intermediates. Inventure has closed a $5m financing with an option to increase funding in a second tranche to a total of $12m. The round was led by Wilmar International, which has taken an equity stake in both companies, with participation from CMEA Capital and several other investors. The company intends to use a portion of the funds to build and operate a pilot plant to convert palm fiber waste and sugar cane bagasse into mixed sugars for fermentation into ethanol, butanol, and carbon-neutral building blocks for industrial chemicals. The pilot plant will be operated by its sister company, Inventure International (Pte) Limited, incorporated in Singapore. Inventure Chemical processes algae so it can be converted into biofuel. The company operates a test production site and plans to use new funding to expand that facility. It is developing processes to convert algae into jet fuel. The company raised $2 million in a first round of funding and said the capital will be used to expand the test site and further develop its algae-to-jet-fuel processes. Inventure Chemical is based in Gig Harbor, Washington, and disclosed the raise in a statement on its Flash-based website. VentureWire later listed the investors as Cedar Grove Investments, Brighton Jones Wealth Management and undisclosed angel investors.