Unlock Venture Partners, a Seattle- and Los Angeles-focused venture capital firm investing in seed-stage startups, unveiled a new $60 million-plus fund on Monday.
Unlock has closed on roughly $62 million for its second fund and is aiming to raise more with a target of $75 million, co-founding partner Sanjay Reddy told dot.LA. In addition to startups in its hometown of Seattle, the firm is eyeing ventures in the L.A. region, its second core market.
While just announced, the fund isn’t brand new; Unlock has been “deploying [the fund] for close to a year,” Reddy said, citing 16 investments to date out of the vehicle. Those deals include L.A.-based “meta-fashion” company DressX, Seoul- and Santa Monica-based esports group Gen.G and Pasadena-based Continuum Space Systems, which sells software for space missions.
The investments speak to Unlock’s specific interest in metaverse, Web3 and gaming companies within the L.A. and Seattle markets. (The firm is also an active investor in fintech startups like North Hollywood-based UNest.) When asked about the ever-growing backlash to the metaverse, Reddy said Unlock is unfazed by doubters and remains bullish on the emerging space.
“The problem with capitalism is you require continued growth, but our environment has finite resources,” he noted. “If you look at the metaverse, theoretically you can accommodate infinite growth… Where does it go? We don’t know. But the metaverse is real, as an opportunity.”
Including its first $22 million fund, which launched in 2018, Unlock has raised over $85 million in capital to date.
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