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The Venture Codex

Hearst Ventures

300 W 57th St, New York, NY, 10019, United States

Overview

Hearst Ventures makes strategic investments in companies operating at the intersection of media, information, and technology.

Total investments
89
Lead investments
13
Investments · 12mo
5
Active investors
8

Sector focus

  • Information Services
  • Media and Entertainment
  • Software
  • Venture Capital
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Investment portfolio

  • Seat Unique

    Participated · Equity · Jun 2026

    Seat Unique operates a premium ticketing and hospitality platform that markets original ticketing inventory and provides hospitality and travel packages for rights-holders, venues, artists, sports teams and fans. The company has expanded via acquisitions including P1 Travel and Circuit Hospitality to broaden its capabilities and relationships, notably with venues such as Wembley Stadium, Manchester's Co-op Live and the 16 racecourses run by Arena Racing. Circuit Hospitality strengthened its foothold in Premier League football through agreements with Arsenal and Everton, and Seat Unique has been involved in high-profile events such as former US President Barack Obama's speaking tour. The business is run by co-founder Robin Sherry and chaired by Richard Flint. Seat Unique said it is on course to record £175m in sales this year and aims to double that over the next three years. It is pursuing further acquisitions and international expansion as part of a strategy to scale toward an ambition of a £500m-plus business valuation.

  • Stepful

    Participated · Series C · Jun 2026

    Stepful offers a vertically integrated, AI-enabled training platform that delivers school-as-a-service to health systems, covering instruction, simulation, assessment, and workforce planning. The platform provides employer-sponsored, debt-free pathways enabling learners to move from a high school diploma to healthcare careers while remaining in the workforce and avoiding traditional trade-school debt. Stepful connects graduates directly to job opportunities after certification and reports graduating more than 32,000 practice-ready healthcare workers. The company serves 35+ major healthcare system clients, including Mount Sinai, Ochsner, and Providence, and has seen meaningful revenue growth. Stepful plans to expand partnerships with hospitals and health systems and to launch advanced degree programs in nursing, respiratory therapy, and imaging while accelerating its AI capabilities. The company was founded by Carl Madi, Tressia Hobeika, and Edoardo Serra.

  • Knox

    Participated · Series A · Mar 2026

    Knox operates the largest managed federal cloud and a multi-cloud federal boundary across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to enable SaaS vendors to obtain FedRAMP authorization rapidly. The company offers a pre-authorized environment that it says reduces first-year FedRAMP costs by about 90% and can achieve authorization in 90 days. Knox holds Authorizations to Operate (ATOs) across 15 federal civilian and defense agencies and serves customers including Adobe, Celonis, OutSystems, Armis, and BigID. Its platform targets both federal and commercial production environments by applying government-grade security and compliance at scale. The company intends to use the Series A proceeds to expand federal authorization capacity and accelerate customer onboarding into authorized environments.

  • Kargo

    Participated · Series B · Dec 2025

    Founded in 2019, San-Francisco-based Kargo offers an integrated solution of computer-vision "towers" and lifts that automatically inspect freight, verify shipments against Bills of Lading, and stream inventory data into customers’ systems without manual scanning. The platform flags damage, manages OS&D claims with visual evidence, and coordinates scheduling, driver check-in and dock allocation in one workflow. Since its 2022 Series A the company has grown its enterprise customer count from three to more than 45, including Fortune 500 players such as Wayne-Sanderson, Aurobindo, Tillamook and Mercedes-Benz, and has deployed over 1,000 towers nationwide. Kargo reports tripling annual revenue from 2024 to 2025, driven by rapid follow-on orders once initial hardware is installed. Building on its proprietary data layer, the firm is now launching “Kargo Intelligence,” an agentic-AI suite that automates back-office tasks like invoicing, claims disputes and financial reconciliation. Management positions the product as a “universal interpreter” for supply chains, aiming to embed at every node for compounding data network effects.

  • Sees.ai

    Participated · Equity · Oct 2025

    Founded in 2018, Chichester-based Sees.ai has built a software and control platform that lets industrial drones fly complex missions – including take-off and landing – without direct human input. Its system combines autonomous flight control, collision avoidance and full vehicle management, enabling routine BVLOS operations that replace expensive and risky helicopter inspections. The company is the first in the UK to receive Civil Aviation Authority approval for routine BVLOS flights and has already completed a world-first large-scale deployment with National Grid to inspect live power infrastructure. Sees.ai’s technology is also being applied to offshore wind, oil-and-gas methane monitoring, logistics and emergency response. With competitors such as Civ Robotics, Percepto and Cyberhawk, the startup positions its offering as safer, cheaper and lower-emission. Fresh funding brings total capital raised to at least £3.65 million, supporting expansion across the UK and Europe, added AI for predictive maintenance and new partnerships with utilities and infrastructure operators.

Team

  • William Randolph Hearst

    Founder

  • Megumi Ikeda

    Managing Director, Europe

    LinkedIn
  • Edward P. Zebrowski

    Finance Director

    LinkedIn
  • Katie Hu

    Managing Director & General Manager

    LinkedIn