The Hive, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture fund and co-creation studio that builds and grows startups focused on AI-powered applications in the enterprise, closed its third fund, with $26.5M in capital commitments.
Investors in The Hive III include Verizon Ventures, Software AG, GE, Rockwell Automation, March Capital Partners and a number of prominent individual investors.
The fund is focused on early-stage companies creating value and driving disruption using AI in the enterprise and key industry segments. To date, The Hive III has co-created two startups, Decision Engines and Live Objects.
Led by Co-Founder and Managing Director, T. M. Ravi, the team provides initial seed capital of $1.5M to $2M, provides follow-on capital, and helps syndicate future rounds of financing with venture capitalists. In addition to funding, The Hive guides entrepreneurs to help early startups move through company building, business design, go-to-market strategy and introduction to early customers and partners. To this end, the firm partners with corporations including GE, Cisco, Verizon, Software AG, SAP and eBay to build and launch startups.
Since late 2012, The Hive has co-created and invested in 24 companies, with six of those companies having been acquired:
– Nurego co-created with EMC & Paul Maritz by GE;
– Kosei by Pinterest;
– Perspica by Cisco;
– Jobr by Monster Worldwide;
– Deep Forest Media by Rakuten and
– E8 Security by VMware.
The firm also hosts The Hive Think Tank, a thought leadership forum consisting of an event and content platform focused on ‘All Things AI’ with a community of over 10,000 members.
The Hive also has presence with separate entities in India and Brazil.
FinSMEs
30/04/2018