Valia Ventures Closes Fund II, a $50M Seed Stage Fund
Early stage venture capital firm to use new funds to continue backing ambitious founders from all backgrounds
NEW YORK & SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Valia Ventures (“Valia”), an early stage venture capital firm, today announced it has closed on $50M in commitments for an oversubscribed second fund (“Valia Ventures II”) to continue backing ambitious companies such as Humane, Lendtable, Relativity Space, Selfbook, and System.
Valia Ventures II brings together a strategic group of limited partners including experienced startup founders, leading technology executives, international family offices, and reputable institutional investors such as Tiger Global Management. Valia’s latest fund represents a significant step-up from their debut fund from 2018 whose current performance ranks in the top 5% of all funds in its vintage, according to data from Cambridge Associates. Although the firm isn’t expressly diversity focused, the majority of their investments have been in women or BIPOC/AAPI founded companies.
“With our first fund, we’ve been fortunate to support a diverse group of world-class founders in bringing big, bold ideas to life,” said Khaled Jalanbo, Managing Partner at Valia. “Our team feels privileged to be able to continue to do what we love on a larger scale, something that simply wouldn’t be possible without the founders which inspire us and the limited partners who have entrusted us.”
Valia Ventures II will be initially investing up to $1M at the pre-seed and seed stages, while reserving additional capital for follow-on rounds. The firm will maintain its generalist approach, keeping a learner’s mindset to investing across sectors including, but not limited to; fintech, healthcare, consumer, and enterprise software. Valia also runs an active co-investment program, investing $2M to $10M in growth stage rounds of its existing portfolio companies and in select new opportunities.
The four investments Valia Ventures II has made to date have already raised over $150M in follow-on funding from the likes of Bond Capital, Forerunner Ventures, Sam Altman, SoftBank Group, and Tiger Global. Several of those companies are experiencing remarkable growth, including Selfbook — a software solution that empowers hotels to accept one-click payments and digital wallets. Participating in its last three rounds, Valia has contributed to Selfbook’s growth not only by providing capital, guidance, and key introductions, but also by “supporting the personal and human demands of building a company,” says Khalid Meniri, Co-Founder and CEO of Selfbook.
Notably, Valia was also the first institutional investor in the stealthy software and hardware startup Humane, founded by ex-Apple icons Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri. “Khaled and the team at Valia are our sounding boards, our thought partners, our guides, our motivators. They are all the things we need as founders – exactly when we need it. This to us is an invaluable partnership. One that is firmly rooted in our first and most important value, trust,” says Bethany Bongiorno, Co-Founder and CEO of Humane.
For more on Valia Ventures, please visit www.valia.vc or follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, or Instagram.
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ABOUT VALIA VENTURES
Valia Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm based between New York, San Francisco, and London. We support visionary entrepreneurs as they turn big, bold ideas into market-leading businesses. Portfolio companies include Humane, Legacy, Lendtable, Relativity Space, Selfbook, and System, among others. For more information, please visit www.valia.vc or follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, or Instagram.
Contacts
Caroline Quinn
[email protected]
