Uncork Capital
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Venture Capital |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto |
Key people | Jeff Clavier, Founder |
| Products | Investments |
| Website | www.uncorkcapital.com |
Uncork Capital (formerly known as SoftTech VC) is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California founded by Jeff Clavier. Considered one of the most active established seed funds in Silicon Valley,[1] it has invested in companies such as Postmates, Eventbrite, Fitbit, SendGrid, Vungle, ClassDojo, Front, Shippo, LaunchDarkly, and Human Interest.
History
The firm was founded in 2004 by angel investor Jeff Clavier when he transitioned his portfolio into a formal venture firm.[2] Partners include Andy McLoughlin (formerly of Huddle), Susan Liu (formerly of Scale Venture Partners) and Tripp Jones (formerly of August Capital)[3]. As of 2022, the firm had invested in over 240 early stage start-ups.[4]
In 2017, the firm changed its name from SoftTech VC to Uncork Capital.[5]
Investments
The firm primarily invests in SaaS (software as a service), marketplaces, consumer services and "frontier technology" ventures[6]. With a focus on seed-stage funding, the firm generally aims to secure between 8-12% ownership of the companies it invests in.[7][8]
The firm's first fund raised less than $1 million,[9] while the second fund raised $15 million in 2007, including exits in Milo, Tapulous and Goodrec. In 2012, Fund III oversubscribed at $55 million,[10] and in 2014 they closed their fourth fund at $85 million, bringing their capital under management to $155 million.[11][12] In 2016, the firm raised $100 million for SoftTechVC V and $50 million for a breakout fund.[8] In 2019, the firm raised $100M for Uncork VI and $100 for their second breakout find, Plus II.[13]
Notable investments have included Eventbrite, Fitbit, Postmates, SendGrid, Survata, Gnip, BrightRoll, Vidyard and LiveRamp.[14][8]
- about.me (acquired by Broadly)[15]
- August Home (acquired by Assa Abloy)[16]
- BetterDoctor (acquired by Quest Analytics)
- Bitly (acquired by Spectrum Equity)[17]
- Bleacher Report (acquired by Time Warner)
- Blekko (acquired by IBM)[18]
- Blink Booking (acquired by Groupon)
- Brightroll (acquired by Yahoo)
- Britley (acquired by Groupon)
- Buysight (acquired by AOL
- card.io (acquired by PayPal)[19]
- Chariot (acquired by Ford)[20]
- Coin Inc. (acquired by Fitbit)
- Curse LLC (acquired by Twitch (service))[21]
- Dashbase (acquired by Cisco)
- Escher Reality (acquired by Niantic, Inc.)[22]
- Eventbrite (IPO in Sep 2018)
- Fitbit (IPO in June 2015)
- Freshplanet (acquired by Gameloft)
- Friend.ly (acquired by Facebook)[23]
- Gnip (acquired by Twitter)[24]
- Handshake (acquired by Shopify)[25]
- Kaboodle (acquired by Hearst Communications)
- Kongregate (acquired by Gamestop)
- Mashery (acquired by Intel)[26]
- Milo Com (acquired by eBay)
- Mint.com (acquired by Intuit)
- Mob.ly (acquired by Groupon)
- Mybloglog (acquired by Yahoo)
- Next Big Sound (acquired by Pandora (streaming service))
- Niche (acquired by Twitter)[27]
References
- ^ Rampton, John (22 February 2017). "Meet the Angels: Silicon Valley's Most Well-Known Investors of 2016". Business Insider. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ Schonfeld, Erick (26 January 2012). "Jeff Clavier's SoftTech VC Raises $55 Million For Fund III". TechCrunch.
- ^ Konrad, Alex. "Seed-Stage VC Firm Uncork Capital Taps Under 30 Alum Susan Liu And Veteran Investor Tripp Jones As Partners". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-01-13.
- ^ Volpicelli, Anna (1 August 2014). "The 20 Hottest Bay Area Fintech Investors and 20 Bay Area Fintech Startups To Keep Your Eye On". Huffington Post. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ "SoftTech VC rebrands as Uncork Capital". Pitchbook. 8 November 2017. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ "Uncork Capital - About". Uncork Capital. Retrieved 2022-01-13.
- ^ Garland, Russ (27 June 2014). "SoftTech VC Boosts Its Reserves With $85 Million Fourth Fund". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
- ^ a b c Loizos, Connie (8 June 2016). "SoftTech VC goes big, raising $150 million across two new funds". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
- ^ Taylor, Colleen (26 January 2012). "How Jeff Clavier will spend SoftTech's biggest VC fund yet". GigaOM.
- ^ Geron, Tomio (26 January 2012). "SoftTech VC Closes Oversubscribed $55 Million Third Fund". Forbes.
- ^ Volpicelli, Anna (1 August 2014). "Meet The Bay Area's Top Female Venture Capitalists". 7x7. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ "The Daily Startup: SoftTech VC Aims at $75M for Fund IV". Wall Street Journal. 12 July 2013.
- ^ Clavier, Jeff (2019-08-19). "Uncork raises $200M to support the next generation of seed-stage startups". Uncork Capital. Retrieved 2022-01-13.
- ^ "Survata Announces $6 Million in Series A Funding | Survata Blog". www.survata.com. Retrieved 2015-07-20.
- ^ Perez, Sarah (February 21, 2019). "About.me acquired by mobile first small business startup Broadly". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Heather, Lunden, Brian, Ingrid (October 19, 2017). "Swedish lock giant Assa Abloy acquires lock maker August Home". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Ha, Anthony (July 12, 2017). "Bitly sells a majority stake to Spectrum Equity for $63M". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Kriel, Collen (March 30, 2015). "IBM acquires technology from curated search engine Blekko to Bolster Watson". Silicon Angle. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Rodgers, Evan (July 17, 2012). "Paypal acquires Card.io mobile payment service". The Verge. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Goodwin, Antuan (September 10, 2016). "Ford Mobility to acquire Chariot shuttle service, launch GoBike sharing in San Francisco". CNET. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Dillet, Romain (August 16, 2016). "Twitch is acquiring popular video game community and software maker Curse". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Matney, Lucas (February 1, 2018). "Pokémon GO creator Niantic buys Escher Reality AR startup". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Siegler, MG (October 10, 2011). "Facebook acquires Social Q&A Service Friend.ly-Team to work on new things, But service will stay open". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Etherington, Darrell (April 15, 2014). "Twitter acquires longtime partner and Social Media Provider Gnip". TechCruch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Lunden, Ingrid (May 23, 2019). "Shopify quietly acquired Handshake, an e-commerce platform for B2B whole purchasing". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Jackson, Jacob (April 17, 2013). "Intel acquires Mashery for planned services suite". PC World. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
- ^ Ha, Anthony (February 11, 2015). "Twitter acquires Niche, a startup that helps advertisers work with Social Media Celebrities". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
External links
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