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Founded in 2003, Bezos Expeditions is a family investment office based in Mercer Island in the US. The firm was originally set up to manage the personal investments of Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.The Bezos fund owns the Washington Post, Blue Origin space projects and the Bezos family foundation. The fund has also backed early tech startups like Twitter, Airbnb and Uber. Today, Bezos Expeditions also supports non-profit projects. In 2013, it helped to recover parts of two engines from the Atlantic Ocean that were later identified as belonging to Apollo 11, the first space mission that successfully landed humans on the moon in 1969. The crew of the ship Seabed Worker spent three weeks at sea pulling up pieces of the Apollo F1 engines.

Launched in 2015 in Brussels, EIT Food was established by the not-for-profit European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) and funded by the European Union as an investor and accelerator. Its aim is to support mainly European startups in foodtech areas ranging from traceability to alternative proteins, with sustainability a key deciding factor in the startups it backs from pre-seed to Series-B level. The organization currently has 55 startups in its portfolio, which raised more than €91m in investments in 2020. Its most recent investments include 700,000 Swiss francs (€637,000) in the seed round in January 2021 of Swiss biotech SwissDeCode, a company that applies DNA testing to food traceability. Another investment was the December 2020 €900,000 seed round of Spanish compostable-packaging tech Food Sourcing Specialists.

Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest investment banking and financial services group in the world. The firm went public in 1999 under the ticker NYSE:GS. To date, Goldman Sachs has raised seven funds, their latest in May 2019 for a total of $4.4bn. Based in New York, the private banking group has made 788 investments with 256 exits. Investments include tech unicorns such as Spotify, Square, Zipline, Xiaomi and the Alibaba Group.Its 2019 annual report showed that Goldman Sachs generated over $36.55 bn in net revenues, with 10% ROE and 10.6% ROTE. As of mid-July 2020, the firm has a market capitalization of $74.33 bn. Goldman Sachs has offices in over 30 countries with major operations in four sectors: investment banking, global markets, asset management and consumer & wealth management.

Based in San Mateo California, KBW Ventures was founded by HRH Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud. The asset management firm’s CEO is also the chairman of KBW Investments that was founded in 2013 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).KBW Ventures is part of the KBW Group and mainly invests in companies involved in sustainable food, artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies and fintech. In 2019, the VC had already invested in 24 companies in sectors like e-gaming, drones, e-commerce and plant-based proteins. Recently, it also increased its stakes in two Californian biotechs BlueNalu and TurtleTree Labs. The aim is to open up the Middle East markets to global tech companies.

San Francisco-based BOND is a spinoff of Kleiner Perkins and its original digital growth fund. BOND was launched in 2019, investing across market segments and geographies. To date, it has raised two funds totaling $3.3bn and currently has 32 portfolio companies. Its recent investments include Portuguese home physiotherapy tech SWORD, the world’s fastest-growing musculoskeletal solution, in June 2021 in a $85m Series C funding round; and co-leading the July 2021 $50m Series B round of US fungi-based alt-protein startup Meati Foods. 

Kaszek Ventures is an Argentinian VC co-founded in 2011 by Hernan Kazah and Nicolas Szekasy, both hailing from Latin America’s e-commerce success story MercadoLibre. Starting with $95m, the VC made its first investment in Brazilian fintech, Nubank. The VC now has over 159 investments and has managed 21 exits. It mainly focuses on B2C solutions, mobile, healthcare technology, retail and media.The most recent Kaszek investment is in Latin America’s leading crypto platform Bitso, co-leading Bitso’s $62m Series B round with QED Investors. Managing partner Szekasy has also joined Bitso’s board. Existing shareholders Coinbase Ventures and Pantera Capital joined the Bitso round.In 2019, Kaszek raised two new funds securing a total of $600m to invest in later-growth stage companies to tap into Latin America’s rapidly maturing tech ecosystems. The rollout of 4G has also helped to speed up the adoption of new technologies across the region, according to Kazah.

Founded over 110 years ago from several small agricultural cooperative banks, the Dutch commercial banking group Rabobank has over 10m customers across 47 countries. The banking group’s Rabo Investments vehicle manages Rabo Ventures with a €120m fund investing globally in early-stage fintech and agtech startups. There is also a €30m fund-of-funds to partner with leading VCs in other funding rounds like the $12m funding round of Dutch e-scooter company GO Sharing.The Rabobank Food & Agri Innovation Fund specializes in supporting enterprises involved in creating sustainable solutions for diverse food and agricultural sectors including livestock farms. Rabo F&A Innovation Fund currently has 11 agri-foodtech startups in its portfolio, including participation in a $12m Series A round of Vence, US-based virtual fencing tech company for livestock management.

Born in 1973, Li graduated from the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China in 1997. After graduating, he worked as an IT journalist for China Youth Daily, where he interviewed tech giants such as Jack Ma. In early 2003, Li became chief editor of the IT section of web portal Sohu and then joined web portal NetEase as chief editor of its IT section later that year. In 2005, he resigned from NetEase and founded gaming portal Duowan. In 2008, Li founded YY Inc., a live streaming social media platform that went public on Nasdaq in 2012.

VNV Global was originally founded as Vostok Nafta in 1996, with its first investment in Russia. The investment vehicle initially focused on investments in agriculture and natural resources, but began to diversify into early consumer internet companies like Avito and Tinkoff Bank. Shares were listed on NASDAQ OMX and the VC pivoted to high-growth tech investments in 2007. In 2015, the name was changed to Vostok New Ventures and shortened to VNV Global in 2020 to reflect its international strategy to expand outside Europe.The mid-cap NASDAQ Stockholm exchange-listed VNV mainly invests in mobility, medtech and marketplaces. It currently has 31 startups in its portfolio and six exits managed to date. Recent investments led by VNV include the $43m Series B funding of London-based food waste app OLIO in September 2021 and the $1.6m seed round of Vietnamese dating app Fika in October 2021. 

Founded by pioneering tech investor Ozi Amanat in 2015, K2 Global is a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley and Singapore. Amanat, who moved to Singapore in 2012, is one of Twitter’s early backers, raising $25m to invest in the social media startup that later went public in 2013. The Harvard graduate in psychology and economics also invested in Uber, Spotify and Alibaba during his career as a venture capitalist. Amanat is the chief investment officer of K2 VC, K2 Global and Singapore-based Spice Global controlled by Indian billionaire B K Modi.In 2017, K2 also announced a $183m VC fund focusing on early-stage startups that aim to address global challenges. The majority of K2 limited partners are based outside the US in countries like Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Based in New York City, Lerer Hippeau mainly invests in seed and early-stage startups based in the US. Founded in 2010 by managing partners Kenneth Lerer, Ben Lerer and Eric Hippeau, the VC operates several funds offering initial investments of $1m per startup. Kenneth Lerer is the co-founder of Huffington Post and longtime chairman of BuzzFeed. Hippeau was the CEO of Huffington Post and ex-managing partner of Softbank Capital that invested in Huffington Post.Its 400+ startups also get support for business growth by tapping into tech ecosystems like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Its 80+ exits include Giphy (GIF) that was acquired by Facebook and home-fitness studio Mirror acquired by Lululemon. However, the IPO by portfolio company Bed-in-a-box online retailer Casper was below market expectations. The loss-making e-commerce unicorn went public at $12 a share in February 2020, closing at $13.50 on its first day out, for a market capitalization of less than half the $1.1 billion Casper was valued at in a private funding round in 2019.

Founded in 2013 by Ramanan Raghavendran and John Kim, Amasia is a venture capital investment firm based in San Francisco and Singapore. The VC promotes environmental and sustainable innovations that help to reduce consumption, boost recycling and upcycling. Eco-investments include Finch, Treedots and Joro. Finch provides information about a product’s environmental impact to consumers while TreeDots connects grocery suppliers directly with businesses and households. Joro advises users on actionable steps to reduce their carbon footprints.Amasia primarily invests in startups from seed stage up to Series B, but it has also participated in later-stage investments. The VC also aims to encourage conventional offline businesses to go online and optimize supply chain activities. In October 2020, Amasia participated in a $100m Series E round raised by Dialpad, a remote working communication software firm. In September 2021, the VC took a stake in Indonesian fintech Xendit’s $150m Series C round. Tokopedia also joined the Amasia stable in 2016 when the e-commerce platform became Indonesia’s first tech unicorn after the $147m funding round.Other investments include Super, a social commerce platform that improves FMCG distribution to tier-2 and tier-3 cities in Indonesia, online education firm SkillShare and Rainforest Life that acquires and aggregates direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands.

Capricorn Investment Group is one of the world’s largest mission-aligned investment companies, managing more than $6bn in multi-asset class portfolios for families, foundations and institutional investors.  Notably, it manages the investment portfolio of Jeff Skoll, the first President of eBay, and his charitable organization. The company has offices in Silicon Valley and New York. It has invested in 63 companies to date, many aimed at tackling key challenges facing our world today. It has managed 14 exits to date, including Tesla. Its main focus is on technology and sustainability, with a particular interest in deeptech, aerospace, transport, agtech, healthcare and energy. The firm’s most recent disclosed investments were in May 2021, via participation in the $100m Series B round of Canadian quantum computing startup Xanadu and the $28m Series B round of US geothermal tech company Fervo Energy.

Co-founded by Fabrice Grinder, a French tech entrepreneur and former consultant at McKinsey & Company, FJ Labs is a New York-based VC firm focused on online marketplaces. Co-founder Jose Marin is based in London. With the mantra “Entrepreneurs funding entrepreneurs,” FJ Labs does not take board seats. It has backed over 500 entrepreneurs, built over 20 companies and managed dozens of exits.To date, 58% of its investment portfolio companies are based in the US and Canada (mostly the US), 25% in Europe, 6% in Brazil, 2% in India and 9% in other countries. The VC is also increasing its presence in Brazil and India, as well as looking at smaller markets in Columbia, Algeria and Kenya. FJ Labs currently has 488 active investments, mainly at seed and pre-seed level, typically investing $390,000 at seed level and $220,000 at pre-seed level. Recent investments in August 2021 include participation in the $8m Series A round of Brazilian corporate benefits marketplace Caju and the $23m funding round of Nigerian vehicle marketplace and financing startup Moove.

The European Investment Bank is a pan-European investor based in Luxembourg, and the only bank owned by European Union member states. Founded in 1958, the banks has invested in thousands of businesses and public and private infrastructure projects. It is the largest multilateral borrower and lender by volume and also now has an SME tech focus, with recipients needing to have sustainable business model and, usually, a European focus. In December 2020, the EIB launched a new €150m co-investment fund to support startups leveraging AI across Europe to address what it called “the multibillion-euro funding gap compared with the United States and China.” Its most recent investments include a €20m investment in the €32m Series C round of Portuguese international online print store 360imprimir (BIZAY) and its first spacetech investment, €20m in venture debt investment to Luxembourg-based Spire Global that is building a satellite constellation, both in December 2020.In 4Q 2020, it also invested €10m in Spanish industrial IoT startup Worldsensing, €15m in German identity verification platform IDnow and €15 in German sportstech platform KINEXON.

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