AAL VC September 2024 Update
We're excited to share the latest developments from AAL VC and our portfolio companies for the first half of 2024.
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π’ Weβve secured 80% of our target capital and are currently onboarding our final 10-12 LPs. We expect to complete our fundraising by the end of the year.
AAL VC WELCOMES EIGHT NEW INNOVATORS TO OUR PORTFOLIO
In the first 8 months of 2024, we've expanded our portfolio by investing in eight groundbreaking startups, bringing our total to 17 companies. We've allocated ~$1.4 million across these new ventures, focusing on areas such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, cloud infrastructure, developer tools, and open-source tech.
SPOTLIGHT ON OUR NEW INVESTMENTS
Artificial Agencyπ¨π¦, our first AI x Gaming investment. Ex-DeepMind founders are building an infrastructure layer to enable agentic AI in gaming. Backed by Radical Ventures, Toyota Ventures, Flying Fish, Kaya, BDC Deep Tech, and TIRTA Ventures. πTechCrunch
Cube.devπΊπΈ, one of our later stage deals, where we participated in a $25M Series B round alongside Databricks Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Decibel Partners. The company has a significant traction and is on the way to transform how data teams unify their BI and power AI with a context π More on the round
ActiveloopπΊπΈ, a database for AI, where we participated in a $11M Series A led by Streamlined Ventures. The company is one of the pioneers in the Deep Cloud and Vector DB space. They're now well-funded to facilitate the use of multimodal data and accelerate the development of multimodal AI capabilities. πVenturebeat
Iterative.ai / DVC.aiπΊπΈ β a post-Series A Silicon Valley-based company behind DVC, the popular open-source MLOps library that's become a household name in the field. Backed by 468 Capital, True Ventures, Afore Capital. They recently launched "AI Data Chain," a new product that earned a mention in πForbes
PodcastleπΊπΈ, an end-to-end AI podcasting software, where we participated in a $13M Series A round. Led by Arto Yeritsyan, former VPE of Sequoia-backed unicorn Picsart, Podcastle has received support from an impressive pack of investors including Mosaic Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Andrew Ng's AI fund, RTP Global, Point Nine Ventures, and SmartGate πTechcrunch
Emmaπ±πΊ, a Luxembourg-based company, caught our attention back in 2023 with their wildly popular multi-cloud management platform. Their triple-digit growth and eight-figure ARR were incredibly promising, prompting us to invest. Backed by RTP Global and Altair Capital.
Prog.aiπΊπΈ, a Seed-stage company that builds data platform for recruiting engineering talent. Indeed.com and Linux Foundation are among customers. Backed by Aloniq VC (Mark Shmulevich), AndreasΒ Ehn (ex-CTO Spotify) and others. Repeat founder with 3 exits Maria Grineva.
GPU AudioπΊπΈ, a Seed+ company building a digital sound processing platform that offloads audio processing tasks from a computer's CPU to its GPU. Their audio plugins and software running on GPUs dramatically enhance audio processing performance. The company is targeting the automotive sector. Backed among others by RTP Global.
PORTFOLIO HIGHLIGHTS
Donβt forget to check our open positions at our portfolio companies below π
Higgsfield AI successfully trained its proprietary video generation model and launched the app Diffuse, attracting 1 million users globally and generating over $1 million in annual revenue.
Recraft hit a major milestone in 2024 by launching out of stealth and hitting 1 MILLION users. Their proprietary SOTA model delivers consistent AI-generated visuals (success), putting them on track to become a leader in the space.
Activeloop has been recognized by Gartner as a "cool vendor" in Gartner's latest report "Cool Vendors in Data Management: GenAI Disrupts Traditional Technologies". The company targets clients in autonomous systems and healthcare in the US. Ping us if you have relevant contacts.
Cattle Care continues its unstoppable growth, doubling its customer count and revenue since our investment a little more than a year ago. They're now gearing up for a new fundraising round in 2025.
10Web.io grew >5x since we invested in early 2023 and is making millions in ARR while enjoying cash positivity. Stay tuned for their next major move.
Deskree, our Toronto-based portco that simplifies cloud infrastructure building with its open-source, Atomic architecture is currently raising an extension round after impressive growth from $0 to hundreds of thousands in ARR in just a few months. Also, this December, they're hosting an exclusive event for 300 founders on a Caribbean private island. Interested? Ping us
DltHub became the most popular Python library for ETL over 500k downloads per month. Check out all the stars their repo is getting π
Iterative.ai β launched new product Datachain for curating messy data in multi-modal models that quickly caught up attention of the developer community. Got featured in Forbes.
COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS
Our community has grown to over 300 members, including 45+ limited partners (LPs), and we continue to expand and nurture connections that contribute to our deal flow and support our portfolio companies.
We are infinitely grateful to our community members, partners, and friends who helped us during this period. Special thanks to:
Formula VC and Grigor Hovanisyan for assisting us in securing allocations in several deals and providing valuable introductions.
Alex Gorodilov for his continuous dedication and involvement with the fund.
Andrew Verbitsky, Alex Shamis, and Alex Alpern for introducing us to valuable investment opportunities.
Finsight Ventures and Max Nazarov for connecting us with Cube.dev and numerous other companies.
Daniel Mulet of Radical Ventures for the introduction to Artificial Agency.
Vlad Rannik of CM Games and Victor Erukhimov for their insights that helped us make informed decisions about the Artificial Agency deal.
Dima Firskin of Altair Capital for introducing us to Emma and several other promising companies.
Artem Timanov for assisting us in securing an allocation in Cube.dev.
Anton Slesarev and Yan Babitski for participating in expert calls and providing valuable feedback.
PRIORITIES FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2024
Portfolio growth: aim to invest in 24 companies by the end of the year.
Wrap up fundraising
Community building: focus on expanding our community of engineers and strengthening relationships with later-stage venture capital firms to support our companies' future funding rounds.
BE A PART OF OUR JOURNEY
We invite you to join us as a expert/mentor, scout, LP or just a friend of a fund.
Eugene, Dmitry, Roman
The AAL VC Team
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