Glasswing Ventures recently made headlines after it closed its first fund with a staggering $112 million.
This piece of news comes one year down the line after getting $75 million commitment for investing in early-stage entities, particularly those applying artificial intelligence (AI) to various sectors.
By doing so, the Boston-based venture capital company claimed the title of the biggest investor of artificial intelligence companies focused fund on the East Coast.
The recent achievement by Glasswing Ventures marks a huge milestone for the firm, which prides itself on being the biggest early-stage investor on machine learning technology on the East Coast as well as one of the largest women-led early-stage funds.
Rudina Seseri established Glasswing Ventures in conjunction with Rick Grinnell, who is her longtime investing partner. However, it is the inclusion of Sarah Fay, a former portfolio executive that catalyzed the growth of the venture capital firm.
In fact, Glasswing currently boasts investments in about three startups including Allure Security, a threat detection company, Terbium Labs, a startup whose service warns companies when their stolen or sensitive information appears on the Internet, and Botchain, which is a company that emerged from Glasswing’s early investment in Talla, an AI management company.
Glasswing Venture’s managing partner and founder, Rudina Seseri, asserted that the recent fundraising serves as a testament to the firm’s strategy. She also said that it marks an important step in the right direction as far as transforming Boston into a hub for artificial intelligence (AI) companies is concerned.
Rudina Seseri also acknowledged that she currently has a more high-quality flow of deals than she has ever witnessed in her illustrious career. She added that there seems to be a wealth of both talented entrepreneurs and founders at Glasswing that could greatly benefit from the burgeoning capital in the market.
For Glasswing and Seseri, the fundraising for an AI-focused fund is just the start. The venture capital’s founder echoed her remarks by saying that Glasswing is laser-focused when it comes to investing in extraordinary founders who utilize artificial intelligence (AI) transforming markets and building disruptive companies. Aside from offering smart capital, the firm is strongly dedicated to supporting its entrepreneurs with all the aspects of creating and expanding their enterprises.
Seseri and Grinnell, her co-founder, met about a decade back at a venture capital firm known as Fairhaven Capital, which is TD Bank Group’s rebranded investment subsidiary. Through Glasswing, they invest money into startups that apply artificial intelligence in industries such as business software and cybersecurity.
The firm started investing a year back when it led an $8 million round of funding into Talla Inc. During this period, Glasswing had managed to secure nearly $75 million, which its partners viewed as the least amount needed for their investment strategy to succeed.
Glasswing certainly takes advantage of its proximity to some of Boston’s leading universities. Seseri, a Harvard University alumnus, maintains a close relationship with the research community not only at Harvard but also at MIT. This attribute allows the firm to tap personalities such as Tim Berners – Lee who currently sits on its advisory council for networking.
Source Bizjournals
