Santa Monica-based venture outfit March Capital announced Feb. 3 that it raised its largest fund to date, a $650 million investment vehicle that will be used to back up to 15 startups focused on delivering new uses of artificial intelligence.
In addition, the VC said it plans to deploy the capital across 12-15 investments. These will likely be startups approaching or in their growth stage; since March Capital typically backs later stage rounds after Series B. That said, March Capital did make some investments into seed-stage startups in late 2022, including backing a nearly $11 million seed round for Los Angeles-based game studio Playgig, so it’s possible some of the fund will be deployed to companies not quite at growth stage.
Worth noting: March Capital didn’t say it would exclusively deploy this fund to AI-focused companies, especially since the VC oversees around $1.6 billion in managed assets.
In a press release Friday, March Capital said it “sees enormous opportunity in the use of Artificial Intelligence for intelligent business applications.” The company has already backed several startups focused heavily on AI, including Sunnyvale-based network security outfit CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is one of March Capital’s most valuable IPOs to date – it raised over $700 million when it went public in 2019, per funding database PitchBook Data Inc.
Some of March’s largest local exits include the sale of Marina del Rey-based communications software company TeleSign, which sold for $230 million in 2017. The company also has logged some profitable IPOs in more recent years, including security startup KnowBe4, which executed a $152 million public offering in April 2021; and Indian used car seller CarTrade, which had a $403 million IPO in August 2021, per Pitchbook.
March Capital co-founder and managing partner Jamie Montgomery said in the release, “the close of March Capital’s largest fundraise reinforces our differentiated investment thesis and strong track record of identifying and scaling companies that are powering the innovation economy.”
He added, “there will be tremendous investment opportunities emerging within our focus areas and we look forward to continuing to inspire and accelerate extraordinary companies poised for hyper-growth in the years ahead.”
Editor’s note: Jamie Montgomery is an investor in dot.LA.