• NextVR

  Participated · Series A · Nov 2015

  NextVR builds a virtual reality platform focused on live sports and music content, notably live-streaming sporting events and concerts. With the new financing the company plans to expand beyond U.S. markets into Asia, targeting China, Korea, and Japan. The startup has raised over $135 million to date, including a $30.5 million Series A last November led by Formation 8. Regulatory filings show $20 million of the Series B came from CITIC Group at a reported $800 million valuation. NextVR says support from Asia’s largest players will provide significant resources for creating and distributing both local and international content in those markets. NextVR builds a VR live-event streaming platform designed to give consumers rich, immersive experiences of sporting events and concerts. The company emphasizes delivering a high-quality virtual reality experience and says content is key to that mission. Its fundraising attracted strategic media and entertainment partners, indicating growing interest from major corporate TV and live-entertainment players. NextVR highlights relationships with marquee content providers as part of its go-to-market approach. The company is six years old and has previously secured $5 million in venture funding last year. Management framed the new investment as validation of its technology platform and content relationships.

• Jaunt

  Participated · Series C · Sep 2015

  Jaunt provides an end-to-end solution for creating and distributing premium live-action cinematic virtual reality, including professional-grade camera hardware, software, and production tools. The company recently announced its 5th generation patent-pending camera system, Jaunt ONE, and operates a studio arm, Jaunt Studios, focused on live-action VR. Jaunt plans to scale up VR production and expand delivery across mobile devices and VR hardware while significantly growing teams in its Palo Alto headquarters and new Los Angeles studio. The company works with brands and creative partners such as The North Face, Rebecca Minkoff, Condé Nast and ABC News to produce branded and original VR content. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Palo Alto with a presence in Los Angeles, Jaunt positions itself as a leading, well-capitalized player in cinematic VR. Jaunt builds a full-stack hardware and software platform for cinematic virtual reality, using proprietary algorithms and computational photography to produce seamless omnidirectional 3D experiences. The company develops hardware, software, tools, and applications that integrate with existing production workflows to enable immersive cinematic VR. Since launching earlier this year, Jaunt is in production on a wide range of cinematic VR experiences for creators across Hollywood, travel, sports, and live events. The company plans to use new funding to scale its technology and meet growing demand from content creators and deliver VR experiences to mass audiences. Jaunt announced a $27.8 million Series B and has raised more than $34 million in total to date. The company is supported by advisors from Amazon, IMAX, film and academia and is based in Palo Alto, Calif. Jaunt develops hardware and software tools around computational photography to enable filmmakers to produce cinematic experiences for VR headsets. The company built a special spherical camera with 32 lenses and complementary post-production, editing and rendering software to recompose multi-lens video for headsets like the Oculus Rift. Jaunt positions itself as a studio offering end-to-end VR production solutions and says it has no immediate plans to sell its hardware or software. The team previously sold Ellerdale to Flipboard and has assembled advisers including Peter Gotcher, Stuart Murphy, Babak Parviz and Brad Wechsler. Jaunt is Palo Alto–based and has raised $6.8 million in funding from investors including Redpoint Ventures, Peter Gotcher, Blake Krikorian, SV Angel and British Sky Broadcasting. The company is targeting filmmakers and Hollywood creatives to produce immersive, film-like VR content as consumer VR platforms gain attention. Jaunt is an early-stage Palo Alto startup that captures and displays 360-degree video and immersive content. Its technology, per the company LinkedIn, combines computational photography, statistical algorithms, massively parallel processing, cutting-edge hardware and virtual reality. The company’s placeholder site currently offers only a "stayed tune" message while it builds out its engineering team. Jaunt’s leadership includes CEO Jens Christensen, CTO Arthur van Hoff and VP of engineering Tom Annau, all with notable prior roles at Flipboard and Google. The startup has secured strategic industry interest as part of a partnership with BSkyB, which the broadcaster says will give it additional insight into developments in the field. No revenue or user metrics are disclosed in the article.

• DraftKings

  Participated · Series D · Jul 2015

  DraftKings operates daily fantasy sports contests and builds its business around professional sports advertising and partnerships. The company spends heavily on marketing — it spent $156M on TV ads last year — and concentrates ad spend around the NFL season. DraftKings has spent the past year fighting dozens of state legislatures and courts to get daily fantasy sports legalized, a legislative battle that has consumed resources. The company hasn’t said how it will use the new funding, though the article notes the timing aligns with the NFL advertising season. Having team and league owners involved on the cap table (the article cites investors such as Robert Kraft and the MLB) is framed as helpful for maintaining relationships with professional leagues. Recent regulatory pressure and legal costs have pressured the company and its valuation over the past 12 months. DraftKings, founded in 2012 by Jason Robins, Matt Kalish and Paul Liberman, is a Boston, Mass.-based skill-based Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) gaming platform. It enables North American fans to compete in single-day online games for cash and prizes across a wide variety of professional and collegiate sports. The company is the exclusive DFS partner of Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, NASCAR, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Major League Soccer. DraftKings plans to use the new capital to continue building out its web and mobile products, launch internationally, and explore new vertical expansion opportunities. The article reports a $300M Series D raise to support those initiatives. DraftKings operates daily fantasy sports contests that let users enter new lineups frequently rather than committing to season-long leagues. Founded just two years ago, the company has grown rapidly and expects to pay out about $200 million in prizes this year, including four monthly $1 million prizes during the NFL season. DraftKings has raised nearly $75 million in outside financing to date, including a $41 million Series C led by The Raine Group and a prior $25 million round last November. The company has pursued user growth through acquisitions, buying DraftStreet (retaining much of the team and its New York City office) and acquiring StarStreet's assets and migrating those users to its platform. It plans to use the latest funding to accelerate customer acquisition ahead of the NFL season via TV, radio, digital and mobile channels and to invest in product development with a focus on mobile. DraftKings describes its business as seasonal for customer acquisition and aims to leverage The Raine Group's media, entertainment, and gaming connections to drive growth. DraftKings facilitates fantasy baseball, football, basketball and hockey matchups online and through a series of mobile apps. The company is 18 months old and has seen rapid user and revenue growth. Since August it has tripled its customer base and reported revenue growth of 10x year‑over‑year. About three-quarters of users who signed up in 2012 returned this year, and average users spend more than five hours per week on its site and mobile apps. DraftKings raised $24 million in a Series B led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from GGV Capital, Atlas Venture, and BDS Ventures. The new funding follows a $7 million Series A raised six months earlier. DraftKings is a Boston-based provider of daily fantasy sports accessible online and via mobile, offering contests across fantasy baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. The company features daily contests with same-day settlement and salary-cap formatted games, and it offers both free and paid contests that pay cash prizes. Launched April 28, 2012, DraftKings has grown rapidly in its first year, becoming the #1 daily fantasy sports mobile app provider and launching contests in six sports. It has surpassed 1 million users across web and mobile, with the average user spending over three hours per week and playing 2.6 different sports. For the 2013 fantasy baseball season the company will award over $20M in cash prizes, including a currently running $5 Million Chase for the Crown tournament. DraftKings plans to use new funding to continue to perfect the customer experience and broadly market its online and mobile short-term fantasy sports offerings.

No current team members are available.