“I think this is the largest fund of its kind dedicated to this sector,” Levy-Weiss told CalCalc. Most seed funds in Israel and globally raise funds of up to $100 million, primarily due to the fact that they are concerned that they will not be able to meet the returns of a larger fund.
NFX was founded in 2015 by Gigi Levy-Weiss, Pete Flint and James Currier, serial entrepreneurs who founded and built 10 companies that turned out for a cumulative over $10 billion. He has also invested in companies such as Lyft, Doordash, Patreon, Poshmark, Mammoth Biosciences, Twist, Trulia, lastminute.com, and others. NFX manages $875 million in total assets.
The NFX Team (from right), Pete Flint, Gigi Levy-Weiss, James Currier, Morgan Baylor and Omri Amirav Drori. Photo: NFX
In recent months, companies in which Levi-Weiss has invested privately include Optimov, Global-E and Beach Bomb. “This good period is the result of years of work,” Levy-Weiss said. “We will be investing in 70 new companies from the new fund. We have brought on two new partners, Omri Amirav Drori and Morgan Beller, for the new fund, who will lead the crypto investment.”
“There has been a significant increase in seed rounds in recent years,” Levi-Weiss said. “A seed round these days can be $4-5 million. Sometimes there are great teams with big ideas that need more substantial funding, over $10 million at the seed level.”
Levy-Weiss said the new fund consists mainly of institutional US investors, as well as three local investors and prominent entrepreneurs who have made small investments. “We have already started investing from new funds and will continue to do so for the next two years. Half of the fund will be invested in new companies and the rest will be used for follow-up investments in Series A and B rounds Will go,” he said.
Levi-Weiss said gaming companies will also get investment from the new fund. Levy commented, “My most successful company is Moon Active and it’s probably also my best investment ever. It’s the one area that makes the most success and does so quickly. We each fund a certain percentage Will continue to invest in gaming companies.” Twenty.
Fund III is projected to support an additional 70 companies whose founders specialize in the fintech, marketplace, gaming and proptech sectors, and increase investments in tech-bio and crypto. At $450 million, Fund III ranks as the firm’s largest ever, raising $275 million for Fund II in 2019 and $150 million for Fund I in 2017. NFX leads or co-led the investment and is the first institutional investor in 95%. Companies support this and around 15-20% of their investments are in pre-seeds.
As part of NFX’s commitment to growing its techno-bio portfolio, Omri Amirav-Drori, Ph.D. and founder of NFX-backed Gnome Compiler and VC fund Tech.Bio is being promoted to General Partner of NFX, making the firm’s division dedicated to companies at the intersection of biology and technology. Amirav-Drory divides his time between the SF Bay Area and Israel. Emily Leproust, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Twist Bioscience, is also part of the NFX Bio Investment Committee.
“Now is the time to return the scientist-founders at the intersection of biology and technology to solve our civilization’s most pressing challenges in health, sustainability, food and the environment. We at the NFX Bio team are the scientist-founders, therefore We understand the science quickly and have experience starting and growing tech-bio companies. We support founders in the pre-seed and seed stages, we lead the rounds and we make decisions quickly, Amirav-Drory said. “Tech-bio platform companies will be extraordinarily influential for the future of humanity.”
NFX Fund III also expanded its crypto expertise, adding Morgan Beller as General Partner last year. Balor is the co-creator of Facebook-launched cryptocurrency effort Diem (fka Libra), previously worked in corporate development at Medium, and was a former partner of Andreessen Horowitz. “You can’t have crypto without network effects. Understanding network effects – and the ability to bake in some theory from the pre-seed/seed stage – gives crypto founders a real advantage. Better than the NFX team at understanding it There is none,” Beller said.
Since Fund I, NFX has grown from three GPs to five, from 16 employees to 42, and has opened offices in San Francisco, Israel and Palo Alto.