PALO ALTO – AV8 Ventures has launched its second fund with $180 million backed by German financial services giant Allianz. AV8 is an early-stage investor that funds entrepreneurs who are commercializing emerging technologies in AI-driven health, mobility and enterprise. AV8 Ventures has invested in 20 companies with a focus on the US since its launch in 2018 and is based in Palo Alto.
George Ugras, Managing Director at AV8 said: “We are humbled by the continued support from Allianz and our founders who have chosen to partner with us. We will continue to focus on funding seed-stage start-ups modernizing enterprise, healthcare and financial services with deep technology. The additions to our team since the launch of our first fund with Baris Aksoy joining us from Google and Ruchita Sinha from Sanofi have brought us tremendous domain knowledge augmented by our venture advisors.”
“AV8 complements Allianz’s digital investment activities and plays an important role in our investment strategy by bringing insights into emerging, early-stage technologies in areas such as cybersecurity, healthcare and digitization. We look forward to deepening our partnership with AV8 and are excited about the start-ups this new fund will support,” said Ivan de la Sota, Chief Business Transformation Officer, Allianz SE.
Co-founder and CEO of Delfi Diagnostics Victor Velculescu stated, “Early diagnosis is the best way to beat cancer. We spun out Delfi to commercialize the first affordable and most accurate technology to meet this ambitious goal. We met AV8 early in our formation stages and have been impressed with the depth and sincerity of their engagement. They have helped us with our strategy, and have been true partners who share our vision for beating cancer.”
Chris McCormick, Founder and Chairman of PlanetIQ added, “We founded PlanetIQ to bring the most precise and abundant global data to date into weather and climate forecasting models. The team at AV8 understood our technology and value proposition of the impact in creating weather forecasts that are accurate days further into the future than currently capable, and in creating new applications that are not possible without our data. We’ve benefited greatly from having chosen them as one of our early investors and look forward to working closely with them as we commercialize our technology and bring precision to all things related to weather and climate.”