Participated · Equity · Nov 2018

Hydrofarm is a leading independent wholesaler and manufacturer of hydroponics equipment and commercial horticultural products with a 40-year operating history. The company offers one of the largest product assortments in the industry with over 5,000 SKUs including lighting solutions, nutrients and grow media, and sells primarily through 1,500+ hydroponic and lawn & garden retailers across North America. Hydrofarm operates nine distribution centers across North America. The company completed a $55 million equity financing to provide financial flexibility to grow the business both organically and through acquisitions. Management said the capital will be used to expand distribution capabilities and to enhance product offerings and service capabilities to meet the needs of a growing customer base. A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners and SternAegis Ventures acted as placement agents and financial advisors on the transaction.

Participated · Series C · Jul 2018

Founded in June 2014 by Wang Xueji and Chen Liaohan, Tuya Smart is a technology‑driven global intelligent platform offering one‑stop AI+IoT solutions including smart module integration, IoT cloud services and app development. The company develops an IoT OS with Plug‑and‑Play capabilities intended to accelerate product development and global deployment, and reports dramatically shortened development cycles for certain lighting/electrical solutions (from months to as little as one hour). Tuya builds localization across product, channel, supply and after‑sales to support market entry (example: Japan) and operates an ecosystem that invites partners onto its platform and provides talent and capital programs. As of its 2017 B round disclosures, the platform reached nearly 200 countries/regions, sold smart products to 100+ countries, served over 10,000 customers, supported ~11,000 smart products, processed over 20 billion device requests per day, handled 6 million daily voice AI interactions and accumulated ~1 PB of data. The company plans to leverage its AI+IoT technology and data to deepen deployment in three verticals—Smart Home, Smart Business and Smart City—and to continue enabling B2B and public‑sector smartization.

Led · Series A · Apr 2017

Kyligence builds a cloud-native analytics performance layer (Kyligence Cloud) that sits between data sources and BI tools, offering AI-augmented operations and automated data processing to deliver sub-second query response even on petabyte-scale data. The platform provides a unified semantic layer and automated aggregation to simplify deployment of interactive analytics across on-premises and cloud environments. The company says its AI-Augmented engine optimizes data for high performance and concurrency while controlling cost for cloud analytics. Kyligence serves large enterprise customers and Trusted by Global Fortune 500 companies, including UBS, which uses Kyligence to process close to a billion new records every day and update models every few hours. With the new funding the company plans to further invest in R&D to support cloud-native and machine-learning advances and to fuel global expansion and rapid customer adoption. Kyligence was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in San Jose, California and Shanghai, China. Kyligence builds a machine-learning powered analytics platform that automates data discovery, interactive analysis and insights at web scale. The company was founded in 2016 by CEO Luke Han and is based in Shanghai, China. Its global customer base includes China Unionpay, China Telecom, Huawei, OPPO, SAIC, CPIC and Lenovo, among others. Kyligence graduated from Microsoft Accelerator Shanghai Batch #1 in June 2017. The company will use the new funds for product research and expansion in overseas markets. The article reports a US$15M funding event described as the company’s third funding. Kyligence builds enterprise-grade OLAP and data-warehouse solutions based on the open-source Apache Kylin project, offering products such as KAP (Kyligence Analytics Platform), KyBot, Kylin-as-a-Service, Kyligence Copilot and KE5. The company originated from Apache Kylin core members and its team includes engineers and managers with backgrounds at eBay, IBM, Microsoft, Ctrip and Teradata. Kyligence has signed multiple large customers across industries including OPPO, Guotai Junan, Huatai Securities, Lenovo and China Mobile. The underlying Apache Kylin project already has over 200 enterprise users globally and Kyligence continues to contribute to and commercialize that technology. The company plans to use the new funding to increase investment in technology and product R&D, expand marketing and sales, and accelerate international expansion.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2014

Aphria, founded in 2013, is a medical marijuana company based in Leamington, Ontario. It grows and supplies medical cannabis using science-driven greenhouse cultivation methods. The company says it grows all plants without the use of pesticides and employs a computerized drip irrigation system to deliver precise water and nutrients to each individual plant. Aphria positions its product as a natural alternative healthcare solution. In June 2014 it raised $6.2M from The Delavaco Group, and previous backers include Front St. Capital, York Plains and Broadband Capital. Vic Neufeld, a founding investor, was named CEO.