Thomvest Ventures closes $250 million fund investing in fintech, cybersecurity and AI

Image credits: Thomvest Ventures / Thomvest Ventures Managing Directors, from left: Don Butler, Umesh Padval, Nima Wedlake

Thomvest Ventures launches a new $250 million fund and promotes Umesh Padval and Nima Wedlake to managing directors, coming in 2024.

The Bay Area venture capital firm was founded nearly 25 years ago by Peter Thomson, whose family is majority owner of Thomson Reuters.

“Peter has always had a very strong interest in technology and what it can do to shape society and the future,” Don Butler, managing director at Thomvest Ventures, told TechCrunch. He met Thomson in his 1999 year and joined the company in 2000.

As we’ve seen over the past few years, the venture capital industry is inevitably cyclical. Butler said Tombest had been watching this situation for decades and decided in 2010 to leave the generalist world and specialize in investing in a few key industries.

“For example, every time a cybersecurity expert speaks, you know this is someone who knows the market, knows the competitors, knows the customers, knows the market demands,” Butler said. Told. “And we were like, ‘Okay, we want to be like them.'”

Thomvest Ventures currently deploys capital in the areas of financial and real estate technology, cybersecurity, cloud, and AI/data infrastructure.

The new $250 million capital commitment brings the company’s total assets under management to $750 million.

Butler expects to invest in 25 to 30 companies from the new fund. Check sizes range from $5 million to $15 million in early stages and $7 million to $25 million in later stages. Mr. Thomson has made several investments so far, but none have been made public.

“The last two quarters have generated a record number of new leads for our company,” Butler said. “At later stages, blue-chip companies were somehow able to secure profitability and avoid re-pricing through the market. Internal investors knew what they had and I said, “We’ll deal with this.” We are now starting to see some late-stage companies that have achieved some level of ambition and want to restore their growth rates. ”

Tomvest raised its last fund in 2017 and has made over 75 investments in total. Notable companies include Blend Labs, Carta, Cohere, Kabbage, LendingClub, SoFi, and Vungle.

Meanwhile, Umesh Padval, currently managing director, will continue to lead investments in cybersecurity, cloud, and AI/data infrastructure, while Nima Wedrake will lead investments in real estate technology.