Participated · Series C · Dec 2024

xAI develops state-of-the-art artificial-intelligence models and related platform technology, positioning itself as a frontier provider of advanced AI capabilities. The company’s Grok models are slated for deployment in Saudi Arabia through a 500 MW joint data-center and compute-infrastructure initiative with strategic partner HUMAIN. xAI is on the cusp of being acquired by SpaceX, a transaction that will marry its AI expertise with SpaceX’s global scale and engineering resources. The merger is expected to accelerate product integration and platform expansion across both terrestrial and space-oriented applications. Financially, xAI just closed a multi-billion-dollar Series E round, its final fundraising before the SpaceX acquisition, reinforcing investor confidence in its technology and growth trajectory. HUMAIN’s investment converts into SpaceX equity upon completion of the merger, providing continuity of long-term capital support for xAI’s roadmap.

Participated · Series F · Oct 2018

Careem Technologies is the super app business spun out from Careem to operate food delivery, bike rentals, financial services, third-party services like cleaning and other verticals in a single platform. The Super App is available in 10 countries and combines Careem’s products such as food delivery, bike rentals and payments. Following the transaction, Careem was split into Careem Rides (focused on core ride-hailing) and Careem Technologies (the Super App); Careem Technologies will have about 1,400 employees and be led by co‑founder and CEO Mudassir Sheikha. Careem Rides will be fully owned by Uber, staffed by roughly 260 people, and led by Ashish Labroo reporting into Uber’s Rides leadership. The company plans to use the $400 million investment to scale the Super App and build category‑leading verticals in its key markets. Careem was founded in 2012 and was acquired by Uber in 2019 for $3.1 billion. Careem is a ride-hailing company founded in 2012 that operates an internet platform for transport and related services across the greater Middle East. The company serves 30 million users and is present in 120+ cities across Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Turkey, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, KSA, Lebanon, and Kuwait. Co-founded by Mudassir Sheikha and Magnus Olsson and later joined by Abdulla Elyas, Careem has expanded its product set to include mass-transport services and deliveries. In February 2018 the company acquired Dubai-based RoundMenu to expand its delivery services, and in October 2018 it launched a mass transportation service in Egypt. Careem intends to use newly raised funds to accelerate expansion of its internet platform across the region, including growth of mass transportation, deliveries, and payments. Careem operates a ride‑hailing platform across 80 cities in 13 MENA countries, claiming over 12 million registered customers and more than 250,000 drivers. The company started about five years ago and is headquartered in Dubai. Careem has raised just shy of $570 million to date, including a $500 million financing that valued the company at $1.2 billion. Its backers include Daimler, Rakuten and Saudi Telecom Company (STC). Management says partnerships such as the one with Didi Chuxing will bring AI capabilities and expertise to support continued growth, innovation and sustainability. Careem has also made strategic investments itself, for example into Egypt‑based Swvl. Careem operates a ride‑hailing platform across 80 cities in 13 countries in the Middle East, serving about 10 million registered users and roughly 250,000 drivers. Its core product is app‑based ride booking with tailored payments solutions — including a virtual in‑app wallet and local cash-collection networks — to address low card penetration in its markets. The company reports revenues and trip volumes growing 20–25% month on month. Careem has focused on expanding supply in under‑served cities and plans strategic partnerships to access next‑generation vehicle technology rather than develop costly autonomous systems in‑house. The business recently completed a large equity raise that materially increased its valuation to over $1 billion (sources cite ≈$1.2B). Prior to this round Careem had raised about $72 million in earlier funding. Careem is an app-based car service that allows users to order chauffeur-driven cars via mobile apps, the website, or by calling a call center. Founded in 2012 by Magnus Olsson, Mudassir Sheikha and Dr. Abdulla Elyas, the company is based in Dubai, UAE. It operates in 20 cities across the Middle East and North Africa, including Abu Dhabi, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Casablanca, Karachi, Kuwait and others. Careem secured $60M in a Series C financing led by The Abraaj Group. Participants in the round included Al Tayyar, STC Ventures, Beco Capital, Impulse (a subsidiary of the Kuwait Investment Authority), Lumia Capital and Wamda Capital. The company intends to use the proceeds to accelerate market expansion and drive innovation across its core markets in MENA, Pakistan and the wider region.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2018

Deezer is a global music streaming service that provides access to a catalog of 53 million tracks across smartphones, tablets, PCs, home sound systems, connected cars and smart TVs. Founded in 2007 and led by CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht, the service is available in over 180 countries and reports 14 million monthly active users. The company completed a €160m capital increase that valued it at €1 billion. Backers in the placement included Kingdom Holding Company, Rotana Group, Access Industries, Orange and LBO France. Alongside the financing, Deezer signed an exclusive long-term agreement with Rotana to distribute Rotana’s digital audio and video content across the Middle East and North Africa, covering Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE. The company says the funding will enable it to accelerate growth and expand content distribution in key markets; it also maintains offices in Berlin, London, Moscow, Miami and São Paulo. Deezer operates a music and audio streaming service offering personalized radio, high-definition audio, lyrics and podcast content; it has expanded its catalogue to about 40 million songs and hosts roughly 40,000 podcasts after acquiring Stitcher. The company operates in 180 countries and during its IPO roadshow reported 6.3 million customers, of which 1.5 million are paying subscribers and roughly 4.8 million are bundled subscribers through partners such as carriers. Deezer is not currently profitable by choice; management says it could become profitable quickly if it reduced marketing and customer-acquisition spend. The business plans to use capital to fund operations, execution and marketing to grow users and may also use funds to pay rights holders. Management has indicated partnerships and bundled offers (for example with video services) as potential future strategic moves, while declining to comment on M&A. Deezer cancelled a planned IPO last year and says the new funding lets it delay an IPO until the company chooses to pursue one. Deezer is a streaming music service offering a catalogue of around 30 million songs. The company reports 5 million paid users and 16 million monthly active users across 180 countries, with about 75% of listening occurring on mobile devices. Deezer has pursued growth via partnerships and capital raises, having raised nearly $150 million in total, including a $130 million injection last year from Access Industries. Germany's ProSiebenSat.1 is taking a stake in Deezer and is merging its AMPYA music effort into Deezer. Under the deal AMPYA's operational business will be merged into Deezer while the AMPYA portal will continue to operate under the MyVideo brand, and Deezer will assume AMPYA's music-supply deal with Vodafone Germany. Michael Krause, AMPYA's managing director, will become Deezer's managing director for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the partnership aims to use ProSiebenSat.1's reach to expand Deezer's audience. Founded in 2006 in France, Deezer operates a music-streaming service built around a freemium model and carrier partnerships. The company reports 26 million registered users, 7 million active monthly users and 2 million paying subscribers, and hosts about 20 million tracks. Deezer has been profitable since the end of 2010 and had previously raised about $15 million in funding. It leverages carrier licensing deals and a Facebook partnership to grow paid subscriptions and recurring revenue. Product features include a country-specific recommendation engine and integration with Echo Nest’s Rosetta Stone; the company says today’s work will boost discovery and curation. Management is preparing to unveil a new user interface and other features and is exploring expansion into the U.S. market. Deezer aims to capture roughly 5% of the global music market by 2016. Deezer is a music search and discovery engine that pairs comprehensive discovery tools with social features to build a vibrant community of music fans. Formerly known as BlogMusik, the service ran into legal trouble at launch but reached agreements with copyright associations and relaunched as a legitimate free music search engine in August 2007. The company claims over 10 million users across Europe, with more than half located in France, and more than one million mobile app downloads. Deezer is described as one of the most popular music services in Europe and has been linked to rumors of a paid 'Deezer Premium' tier at €9.99 per month. To date the startup has raised approximately €12.2 million in total financing. The additional funding is intended to help strengthen its foothold in Europe and more effectively rival competitors like Spotify.

Participated · Series F · Jan 2016

Lyft is a ride-hailing company offering on-demand passenger transportation via its platform. Over the past 18 months it has aggressively expanded into new U.S. cities and into Canada and is pursuing autonomous vehicle ambitions. The company has grown U.S. market share to 35 percent (up from 22 percent in January 2017). Scaling that growth has been costly, and Lyft has been seeking investor capital over the past year. Since April 2017 Lyft has raised $2.9 billion in primary capital (including the $600M announced) and $5.1 billion in total since inception. Its value has more than doubled in the past 14 months, and the latest funding pushed its post-money valuation to $15.1 billion. Lyft is partnering with Magna to co-develop an autonomous driving platform, with Lyft leading development from its Level 5 engineering center in Palo Alto and Magna taking point on manufacturing. Magna is investing $200 million in exchange for an equity stake in Lyft. The collaboration will produce joint intellectual property and teams from both companies will work on site at Lyft’s facilities. Initially the partners aim to deploy SAE Level 4 technology and ultimately pursue a Level 5 system, and Magna said the solution could be market-ready over the next few years if plans proceed. Lyft plans to integrate direct access to its hailing platform into future autonomous vehicles and will leverage data from testing and use of the AV platform. Lyft is already testing vehicles at the GoMentum autonomous-vehicle proving ground in California. Lyft is a ride-hailing company offering on-demand passenger transportation across the United States. The company has run over 500 million rides to date and expanded coverage in the U.S. to 95% of the population, up from 54% at the start of 2017. Lyft has a self-driving partnership with Waymo and announced the alliance around its open platform for autonomous vehicle technology. The company disclosed a new $1 billion funding round that values it at $11 billion post-money. Earlier in the year Lyft raised $600 million at a $7.5 billion valuation with participation from new partners including Canada’s public employee pension fund. Lyft continues to scale its coverage and pursue autonomous-vehicle integrations as part of its growth strategy. Lyft operates a ride-hailing platform that connects riders with drivers. The company has been aggressively expanding in the U.S., adding over 100 new markets so far in 2017. Lyft has seen strong demand growth: rides jumped 34% sequentially to 70.4 million and were up 142% year-over-year, and new user registration rose over 60% week-over-week after the #DeleteUber campaign. Financially, Lyft announced $600 million in new funding at a $7.5 billion post-money valuation, bringing total funding to $2.61 billion. The capital comes as Lyft seeks to capitalize on rival Uber’s recent cultural and legal challenges. Lyft operates an on-demand ride-sharing platform that competes directly with Uber. The company has entered a long-term strategic alliance with General Motors, which invested $500 million and will collaborate to create an integrated network of on-demand vehicles. As part of the partnership, GM will become a preferred provider of short-term use vehicles to Lyft drivers through rental hubs in various U.S. cities and will make its portfolio of cars and OnStar services available to drivers and customers. Lyft’s leadership framed the collaboration as a step toward redefining traditional car ownership and advancing connected, seamless and autonomous mobility. The investment values Lyft at approximately $5.5 billion, up from a $2.5 billion valuation reported last March. The article also notes a limited crowdfunding entry in May 2015 when Waverley offered 25,587 shares via a fund.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2013

360Buy is a Beijing-based quick-delivery shopping site often likened to a mashup of Amazon and Fresh Direct and is China’s second-largest e-tailer after Alibaba. The company focuses on rapid online retail and has been building significant cash reserves through consecutive financings. CEO Richard Liu said proceeds will be used for strategic investments while the company remains focused on profitability. After the latest round 360Buy reports current cash flow of 15 billion yuan and a valuation of about $7.25 billion, up roughly 20% from $6 billion. The firm plans to deploy funds into IT, its cloud-computing network, and logistics to accelerate delivery capabilities and better compete with Alibaba. 360Buy raised $400 million only three months earlier, giving it flexibility to delay an IPO though some investors favor public offerings within a few years.