Led · Series E · Dec 2023

VAST Data offers an AI operating system that unifies foundational data, compute services, and agentic execution into a single scalable software infrastructure stack. Its platform is positioned to enable organizations to deploy and coordinate AI agents, reason over real-time data, and automate complex workflows at scale. The company is led by founder and CEO Renen Hallak and is based in New York City. With the announced Series F, VAST reached an implied valuation of $30 billion after raising approximately $1 billion in primary and secondary capital. VAST intends to use the proceeds to consolidate its position, accelerate global growth, and pursue strategic transactions to expand its technology footprint and partnerships. The article does not disclose revenue, user, or other operating metrics.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2023

Tenstorrent is a Toronto-based AI hardware startup that develops AI processors and training servers. The company plans to use its new funding to build out its engineering team and to build artificial-intelligence training servers to demonstrate its technology. CEO Jim Keller, a famed microprocessor engineer, said Tenstorrent plans to release a new AI processor every two years. The company has signed customer contracts totaling nearly $150 million. Tenstorrent was founded in 2016 and is one of several startups aiming to chip away at Nvidia’s dominant AI chip market share. Other startups mentioned alongside Tenstorrent include Axelera, Etched and Groq. The company recently closed a large financing that values it at more than $2.6 billion. Tenstorrent is a Toronto, Canada–based computing company that designs and sells AI processors and licenses AI and RISC‑V IP to customers who want to own and customize their silicon. Led by CEO Jim Keller, the company brings together experts in computer architecture, ASIC design, advanced systems, and neural network compilers. It operates U.S. offices in Austin and Silicon Valley and has global offices in Belgrade, Tokyo, and Bangalore. Tenstorrent closed a $100M strategic financing up‑round. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate product development, design and development of AI chiplets, and advance its ML software roadmap. Tenstorrent is a hardware startup developing next-generation computers and AI-focused processors. Its flagship Grayskull processor was slated to go to market in the second half of 2021. The company is also launching DevCloud to let developers run models without purchasing hardware. Larger systems using Tenstorrent’s technology will be available through partners. The company said it will use the new funding to continue creating AI-focused hardware for developers. Tenstorrent is headquartered in Toronto and maintains U.S. offices in Austin and Silicon Valley. Leadership includes CEO Ljubisa Bajic and CTO Jim Keller. Tenstorrent develops Grayskull, an all-in-one AI compute system designed to accelerate model training and inference using a novel architecture that eliminates unnecessary computation. Grayskull implements conditional execution and packs 120 proprietary Tensix cores stitched with a custom torus interconnect, 120MB of local SRAM and up to 16GB external LPDDR4 across PCIe Gen4. The Tensix core combines a packet processor, a programmable SIMD processor, a dense math block, and five RISC cores to drive high utilization. In preliminary tests the system reportedly hit 368 TOPs at a 75W PCIe-card TDP and processed 23,345 sentences/sec on BERT-Base (SQuAD 1.1), a claimed 26x advantage versus competing solutions. Tenstorrent is sampling Grayskull with partners and expected the system to be production-ready in fall 2020, and plans to target datacenters, public and private cloud servers, on-premises and edge servers, and automotive markets. The company is headquartered in Toronto with offices in Austin and Silicon Valley and has raised over $34 million to date.

Participated · Series E · Aug 2021

Rapyd provides a broad suite of financial services—payments, mobile wallets, money transfers, card issuing, fraud protection and more—exposed via an API for third parties to integrate. Its platform comprises roughly 900 services covering 100 countries and is positioned as embedded fintech infrastructure that bridges local payment services. Rapyd is experiencing rapid growth: total payment volume is on target to surpass $20 billion this year (up fourfold from $5 billion in 2020), and it serves about 12,000 small and medium-sized businesses plus roughly 650 large enterprise clients. Management says revenues have grown 3.5x since its Series D seven months earlier. The company plans to deploy new capital toward acquisitions and R&D, has already acquired Valitor for $100 million, and launched Rapyd Ventures to pursue further M&A. Product priorities include expanding identity management, KYC and fraud/compliance capabilities to accelerate customer onboarding. Rapyd offers an API-based fintech-as-a-service platform that bundles payments, banking services, fraud protection and a wide array of financial features into a single integration. The company says it has loaded hundreds (even thousands) of features and serves about 5,000 business customers, onboarding roughly 500 new customers each week. Rapyd was hatched in Israel and opened for business in 2017. The startup plans to use new funding to expand its team, build additional technology including expanded fraud ID services and a wider marketplace, and pursue selected acquisitions. CEO Arik Shtilman positions Rapyd as a global infrastructure player that abstracts local payment complexity for customers and aims to become the AWS of this space. The company has seen accelerated growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and raised capital at a higher valuation compared with its $1.2 billion valuation in December 2019. Rapyd provides a single API that lets customers access a broad set of financial services including payments, checkout, funds collection, fund disbursements, compliance-as-a-service, foreign exchange and card issuing, with logistics planned. The platform serves e-commerce merchants, gig-economy platforms (including Uber), financial institutions and technology providers. Rapyd has focused on expansion in Asia Pacific and Latin America and signed 20 additional large-scale companies in the last three months. Much of the company’s technology has been built in-house, though management is pursuing acquisitions to add capabilities faster. The company is piloting logistics in Indonesia as part of a roadmap to offer logistics-as-a-service and is discussing further integrations with partners. Rapyd recently reached a $1.2 billion valuation following new funding. Rapyd is a London-based "fintech as a service" platform that offers a single API enabling checkout, funds collection, disbursements, compliance-as-a-service, foreign exchange, card issuing and integrations. The platform supports acceptance of cash, bank transfers, e-wallets and local debit in more than 100 countries, disbursements in over 170 countries, and multi-currency settlement in 65 currencies. Rapyd counts customers such as Uber, large marketplaces, and digital and brick-and-mortar merchants. The company reports its total payments volume on the platform grew more than fivefold this year and it forecasts its revenue run rate will triple compared to 2019, though it does not disclose current revenue figures. Rapyd has expanded marketplace features like escrow management and compliance capabilities and says Asia Pacific and Latin America are its fastest-growing regions. The company plans to use new capital to expand the platform, pursue acquisitions, grow the team, and is working on initial logistics partnerships that will likely launch in Asia Pacific. Rapyd positions its single, expanding API as a differentiated offering versus competitors including Adyen, PayPal, WorldPay and Stripe. Rapyd offers a single API that bundles payments, funds collection and payouts, currency transfers, ID verification and card issuing into a unified "fintech as a service" platform. The company plans to use new funding to add more platform functions, hire additional staff, and expand its customer base. Rapyd says it works with about 100 banks (targeting 150), can handle payments and transfers in 65 currencies, and can pay out funds in more than 170 countries. It currently serves roughly 50 customers across e-commerce, gig-economy and similar businesses. Rapyd opened for business at the end of 2017 and is based in Silicon Valley with R&D offices in Tel Aviv. The CEO says the company is on track to make "tens of millions" in revenues this year.

Led · Series D · Feb 2019

Lime operates shared electric micromobility services, primarily e-scooters and Gen4 e-bikes, used for commuting and tourism. The company plans to refresh a significant portion of its fleet, scale into more cities (targeting North America, Europe and potentially the Middle East) and develop new technologies to win city RFPs. Lime is dedicating capital toward decarbonization, including $20 million from the latest raise and commitments to supplier emissions targets; its carbon targets were validated by the Science-Based Targets Initiative and it is working toward net-zero by 2030. CEO Wayne Ting said the company has achieved third-quarter EBITDA profitability for the second time and expects 2021 revenue to return to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Lime has launched roughly 80 contracts this year and plans to deepen relationships in existing cities as part of its pre-IPO roadmap. Lime builds and operates shared electric bikes and scooters with GPS-enabled, self-locking vehicles and a mobile app. The company is launching a new generation e-bike this summer featuring a swappable battery interoperable with its Gen4 scooter, increased motor power, a phone holder, a standardized handlebar display, and an automatic two-speed transmission. Lime says the swappable battery will streamline operations, reduce charging and rebalancing frequency, and increase vehicle availability. The company plans to expand service to 25 additional cities this year, primarily across Europe and North America, with a handful in Australia and New Zealand. Lime reported riders took more than three million rides through the platform last year and sees e-bikes as key for medium-length trips under five miles. It has also announced partnerships and sustainability commitments, including work with the League of American Bicyclists and a pledge to be carbon negative by 2025 and net-zero by 2030. Lime operates shared electric scooters and bikes and announced a $170 million funding round alongside the acquisition of Uber’s micromobility unit, Jump. The company plans deeper integrations with Uber and Jump while keeping both apps active for now. Lime paused operations in 99% of its markets during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently laid off about 13% of its workforce (roughly 80 employees). The Information reports the company’s valuation fell 79% to $510 million with this round; in April 2019 Lime had been valued at $2.4 billion. Leadership has shifted: Wayne Ting was promoted to CEO and co-founder Brad Bao will remain chairman. The deal is expected to yield operating-cost savings as Jump employees transition to Lime. Lime provides shared electric scooters and bikes deployed across cities. The company has deployed scooters and bikes in more than 100 U.S. cities and 27 international cities, and since June has more than doubled the number of U.S. cities where it operates. Lime began as a bike-share company and has partnered with Segway to launch a next generation of Segway-powered scooters. The company has faced safety challenges, including a scooter recall over battery fire concerns and a fatal scooter accident; it also put $3 million toward a safety initiative called “Respect the Ride.” Lime has integrated with Uber to offer Lime scooters within the Uber app. Management says new funding will be used to expand into new markets, enhance technology, strengthen the team, pilot new opportunities, and invest in rider safety and city collaboration. Lime operates a fleet-based electric scooter rental service that users unlock via mobile app. The company has entered a strategic relationship with Uber, which invested as part of a $335 million financing and will promote Lime within its app and place Uber branding on Lime scooters. The deal is not an outright acquisition, though the arrangement has drawn comparisons to Uber’s earlier tie-up with JUMP bikes that preceded a $200 million purchase. Lime’s newest round also included GV, Alphabet’s venture arm. The partnership is intended to extend Lime’s distribution and brand reach but comes with risks, including potential brand dilution and dependence on how prominently Uber features Lime in its crowded app. Observers noted the tie-up could be double-edged given Uber’s operational ups and downs and uncertainty over future prominence in Uber’s product.

Led · Series E · Oct 2013

North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity manages a family of venture-capital and growth-equity funds focused on technology businesses. The firm targets privately held startups that have achieved significant revenue traction—typically in the tens of millions of dollars—while taking little outside capital. To date, North Bridge has invested in more than 170 companies. With the closing of its newest vehicle, the firm now oversees more than $1.1 billion in capital under management. North Bridge positions its growth-equity strategy to provide expansion capital that accelerates market penetration and infrastructure build-out for its portfolio companies. The latest fund underscores the firm’s continued commitment to later-stage technology investments that have already proven product-market fit. The organization’s operational support and capital aim to help founders scale efficiently without excessive dilution.