{"id":3777,"date":"2017-02-28T17:02:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T17:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/lux-capital-closes-400-million-fund-to-back-startups-inventing-the-future.html"},"modified":"2017-02-28T17:02:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T17:02:57","slug":"lux-capital-closes-400-million-fund-to-back-startups-inventing-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/lux-capital-closes-400-million-fund-to-back-startups-inventing-the-future.html","title":{"rendered":"Lux Capital closes $400 million fund to back startups \u201cinventing the future\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Lux Capital\u2019s portfolio companies sound like they ripped their product concepts from the pages of science fiction. Among these are self-driving car startup Zoox<\/a>, a company gathering oceanographic data from fleets of autonomously operating boats called Saildrone<\/a>, Desktop Metal<\/a> whose 3-D printers that can make objects out of alloys on the spot, and 3Scan<\/a>, a startup that makes detailed 3-D models of human tissue to help doctors better diagnose diseases, and several neuroscience startups including Kallyope, Halo Neuroscience and Cala Health.<\/p>\n

Today Lux Capital <\/a>partners revealed that they have closed their fifth fund at $400 million to continue investing in the startups that are \u201cinventing the future without destroying humanity.\u201d Lux Capital also announced that long-time venture investor, attorney (and karate black belt) Renata Quintini <\/a>is also joining the firm as a partner. She previously worked at Felicis Ventures, was an investment manager for Stanford\u2019s endowment, and was an investor in Cruise Automation<\/a> and Dollar Shave Club<\/a>, among others.<\/p>\n

Lux\u2019s Josh Wolfe told TechCrunch, limited partners in the new fund were a mix of new and prior backers who are high net-worth indviduals, endowments, family offices and foundations. He declined to name LP\u2019s, however. The fund, which brings Lux\u2019s assets under management to $1.1 billion, closed within several weeks of announcing, he said.<\/p>\n

While Lux had the option to raise a larger fund, it decided to stick to a fund-size that would enable it to focus on early stage deals with some capital for later rounds to support portfolio companies\u2019 growth. Wolfe said, \u201cWhen funds get too big the number of things they can allocate capital to will shrink. We invest out on the edges. The idea is the next great thing comes from the last one.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an example, Wolfe pointed to the firm\u2019s investment in Zoox, a company working on self-driving cars. On a visit to the startup\u2019s offices years ago, he saw engineers sitting around \u201cplaying games,\u201d he said. There he learned that \u201cin silico\u201d they were test-driving vehicles, running them through scenarios in simulation before testing them on the track or the open road. \u201cI asked what are these simulations running on, and they said GPUs, from Nvidia. Then we got excited about GPUs totally displacing CPUs, and that led to us investing in Nervana Systems.\u201d Nervana Systems and its AI-ready chip technology were acquired by Intel acquired for $350 million, a nice exit for Lux.<\/p>\n

Lux\u2019s newest partner, Renata Quintini, said she was drawn to Lux\u2019s emphasis on big, scientific and technological breakthroughs. She said her own interests are currently around \u201ceverything tied to health and happiness,\u201d and technology that enables different types of creative expression. \u201cPeople are worried about longevity, trying to live longer. I think the more interesting opportunity is how to make people live healthier with greater cognition, happiness and mindfulness,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Sebastian Kaulitzki<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/42MdXwrjTaM\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lux Capital\u2019s portfolio companies sound like they ripped their product concepts from the pages of science fiction. Among these are self-driving car startup Zoox, a company gathering oceanographic data from <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-3777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t