Dear Investors and Friends:
We hope you had a great summer. We at Fitz Gate have lots of good news to report. Over the summer we invested in 3 new companies, leading two of the rounds and co-investing in the third (Spruce, Nomad, and Blockapps — see “New Fitz Gate Investments” below). We also made follow-on investments in 3 of our portfolio companies at increased valuations from that at which we originally invested:(i) Paravel ($3M additional raised with Vanterra Capital, experts in direct to consumer brands, leading the round), (ii) Predata ($2M-$5M additional raised with new investor James Murdoch and others), and (iii) Pledgeling ($1M seed extension round, Fitz Gate investment is pending). Another of our portfolio companies, Newsguard, also raised a follow-on round at a substantially higher valuation from where we invested originally. Of our 14 Fund I portfolio companies, all that have attempted to raise follow-on financing (7 in total so far) did so at premiums to the valuation at which Fitz Gate invested. This has resulted in a significant increase in the valuation of the Fitz Gate I portfolio.
There has also been lots of positive PR for our existing portfolio companies (links below), including Predata CEO Hazem Dawani receiving the Tech-X Emerging Leader Award, Overtime being featured in Sports Illustrated and the New Yorker magazine, Newsguard rolling out its “news trust” ratings in Europe, Blockapps announcing a partnership with Tech Mahindra, a $21B Indian conglomerate, and Paravel appearing in numerous leading fashion blogs and websites. Please see the links below as well as our website for more portfolio company news.
In other news Dean Sarah-Jane Leslie of the Princeton University Graduate School invited us back to teach our seminar series on venture capital again this year. We are also excited to continue teaching our venture capital class to both undergraduates and MBA students at Rice University next semester.
Finally, we’re continuing to accept new investors into Fund II which held its initial close in March 2019. If you are interested in reviewing the Fitz Gate II investor deck, please contact us at info@fitzgate.com — we’re excited to discuss our strategy and plans with all of our investors and friends.
As always, please feel free to contact us directly if you have any questions or have come across an interesting company from the Princeton ecosystem.
Jim Cohen and Mark Poag
