Gabi Lewis

If you’re fundraising right now, this one’s for you. Here are a few firms that just launched or added fresh capital. 🔴 North Carolina-based GEM closed $82M to invest in early-stage funds. 🔴 New York-based Floating Point raised $125M for its third fund to tackle “real world” businesses. 🔴 Tel Aviv-based Team8 raised $265M for its third enterprise AI fund and an additional $100M for follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies. 🔴 Bengaluru-based Bluehill(dot)vc closed its maiden fund at $42M, including a $5.25 greenshoe option. The fund will invest in semiconductors, defense, space, energy, and more. 🔴 San Francisco-based Reach Capital closed its fifth $265M fund to back AI founders. 🔴 Rhode Island-based Teknor Apex Company, launched its corporate venture and innovation arm, TekVentures. TekVentures will invest in early-stage founders focusing on next-generation materials, manufacturing, and industrial intelligence. 🔴 US and UK-based EMERGING and Promethean announced $300M for its Experience Fund. The fund will invest in AI for hospitality and experiential entertainment. 🔴 Germany-based EIT Culture & Creativity raised a $9.9M fund to support creative tech startups and scale-ups across Europe. 🔴 Brussels-based European Commission announced its $5.7B Scaleup Europe Fund to back AI and technology companies across Europe. 🔴 Singapore-based K2 Global raised $200M for its AI fund. 🔴 Beanstalk Agtech launched Monsoon Ventures, a Singapore-based venture studio that will support Southeast Asian founders to commercialize agtech solutions. 🔴 Toronto-based Ripple Ventures closed its fourth fund to invest in early-stage frontier technologies. The fund amount was undisclosed. Check out the full list of latest VC funds closed on our website: https://lnkd.in/eWCmpB8C

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Fundraising often appears chaotic, when it lacks structure and intentionality. Travis Kalanick, understood early on that successful seed rounds are not driven by chance or emotion, they are built as disciplined systems. He broke down seed fundraising down to principles, which remain highly relevant today: 1️⃣ Treat seed fundraising like a sales pipeline, not a passion pitch. Set up structures for meetings, follow ups, referrals, and closes. Keep pitches between 5 to 10 minutes. Clarity and competence beats charisma, and scrappiness builds trust. 2️⃣ Relentlessly prime the investor network. Go to events where investors gather and capital resides. Warm intros beat cold ones. Every meeting should lead to one or two referrals. 3️⃣ Seek to always close by forcing decisions. Ensure every conversation ends with clear next moves. Request for circumstantial commitments which moves the investor from interest to intent. 4️⃣ Pick advisors like co-founders. Advisors should invest. Quality outperforms quantity, and their capital merges motivation and effort. A trusted, steady second brain is critical to navigate the fundraising journey. 5️⃣ Credibilty is critical, and investors dislike dishonesty. Name your strengths and weaknesses. Show you’re thinking into the future. Clarity builds confidence, and wise mitigation beats false assurance. 6️⃣ Urgency wins rounds, as time works against you. Create real urgency through effort and short processes. Keep updates brief and directional. Build momentum intentionally through hustle. 7️⃣ Secure one credible lead investor quickly, as social proof reprices immediately a strong lead commits. Request for terms, and push the conversation from interest to action. Second term sheets creates FOMO. 8️⃣ Maintain control as you push to a close. Deliberately herd investors, as visibility of demand builds confidence. Don’t allow term drift, and hold the line under pressure, until capital hits the bank. Early-stage capital isn’t raised by perfect decks or good storytelling. It’s raised through speed, structure, and disciplined execution. Clarity forces speedy decisions. Urgency and momentum creates conviction and FOMO. Continue selling until capital is in the bank. If you’re raising (or planning to), stop romanticizing it. Design the process. Run it like a system. Close with intentionality. Question for founders: What part of seed fundraising do you think is most underestimated and why?

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Over the past few years, fundraising has become significantly tougher, especially for smaller funds. This, unfortunately, is the case even for VCs delivering solid returns. In my recent Crunchbase piece, I talk about how emerging managers can survive (and even thrive!) in a challenging fundraising environment. I discuss why the process today is more about familiarity than performance, and highlight places where managers should look for capital that others ignore. Check out the full column via link in comments. Curious to hear from other managers who have recently raised successfully. Which part of this rings true?

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Monochrome Capital is proud to be investing alongside Slow Ventures, Blitzscaling Ventures, and Jim Messina in Ando - a significant increase in our stake following the initial pre-seed check we wrote to help get the business off the ground in 2024. I’ve spent a significant portion of my career in the "pre-AI" era of logistics digitization - from the early days of Uber to working closely with Paul Wellons at Jyve. While we solved massive problems back then, the frontline workforce was often left behind by the technology meant to manage them. Having seen Paul’s leadership firsthand at Jyve, we knew early on that he was the right person to tackle the 'last broken supply chain': labor. What is Ando? They are building the world’s first AI infrastructure for the global hourly workforce. By using high-accuracy demand forecasting and intelligent staffing tools, they match the right people to the right shifts at the right time - turning a chaotic scheduling process into a precise, stable system. As our industry moves toward an AI-driven future, I am especially focused on what happens to blue-collar and hourly workers. I’ve always believed a "win/win" is possible where optimization for the employer also means better, more predictable lives for the workers. Paul is charting that course responsibly, and I believe Ando will lead to better outcomes for everyone involved than a world without it. Excited to continue our partnership with this additional financing! #FutureOfWork #AI #Logistics #HourlyWorkforce #ResponsibleAI #VentureCapital

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If your fundraising round feels slower than it should, there is a common “responsible” move that often makes it worse. Founders sense hesitation and decide to clean things up. They renegotiate SAFEs. They adjust governance. They restructure the cap table. From the founder’s perspective, this reduces risk. From the investor’s perspective, it introduces movement. And investors do not like underwriting moving targets. In the middle of a round, stability matters more than optimisation. I wrote about this in today’s HealthVC. If you are actively raising, this is the phase where sequencing matters more than effort.

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