It’s always the new generation that offers exciting approaches. Now that the VC winter is over and more deals are being made than the year prior, it’s time to recognize outstanding active investors that are making an impact on the startup ecosystem and working with projects in the most promising sectors.
Here are 5 cases worth keeping an eye on in the venture capital market this year.
Artem Sokolov and SKL.vc
Artem Sokolov, Founder and General Partner at SKL.vc, an investor and serial entrepreneur recognized as the EY Entrepreneur Of the Year, has been active in the VC market for over a decade, investing in more than 40 tech companies. Among them are such successful exits as Asana, Coursera, Palantir, American Well, Lemonade, Digital Ocean, SoFi, and Auto1.
In 2019 he founded a venture studio SKL.vc, which brings seed and pre-seed projects to the global market. The studio doesn’t just invest in projects: it manages and co-founds them “in every sense”, which encompasses marketing, idea testing, team building, business model development, financing, and scaling.
Focused on generative AI, consumer APPs, BCI, and blockchain, the studio is actively supporting new startups and founders through various activities for startup founders (accelerators, hackathons, meetups, and more) bringing together advisors with unparalleled experience in their respective fields from all over the globe.
Another obvious SKL.vc advantage lies in its front-rank investment fund which allows it to put in its capital, not being dependent on any other venture players.
With the company’s portfolio already including 7 international startups working in generative AI and the team’s strong expertise in the industries in which it invests, SKL.vc may well be on the way to its first unicorn.
Kevin Hartz and A* Capital
Back in 2001, Kevin Hartz co-founded Xoom, an international money transfer company that went public in 2012, and three years later was acquired by PayPal for $1.09 billion. Besides Xoom, Hartz is co-founder of Eventbrite, the global ticketing and event technology platform, which went public in 2018 with a valuation of $1.8 billion, where he currently serves as the Chairman.
Kevin successfully invested in seed and early stages in notable companies such as PayPal, Airbnb, Uber, SpaceX, Pinterest, Reddit, and Trulia.
In 2021, with Gautam Gupta and Bennett Siegel, he launched A* Capital, a debut generalist fund worth $300 million. A* Capital specializes in investing in tech companies from the seed stage onward. Among its recent investments are Munch, an AI-powered automation platform for social media, which secured $7.2 million in funding, and EyeTell, an AI startup founded by YouTube co-founder Hurley.
Alana Goyal and Basecase Capital
Alana Goyal, founder and managing partner of Basecase Capital, ranked first on the Forbes list 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital for 2024.
Alana, a former product manager at trucking software company Samsara, founded Basecase Capital in May 2021. The initial capital of $600,000 to launch her early-stage venture capital firm focused on the next generation of enterprise software was provided by Elad Gil, a prolific angel investor. Since then, she has raised three funds totaling $99 million and invested in more than 30 businesses including Supabase IT service, Census data warehouse startup, Orb billing engine, and Cycle unified customer feedback and user research platform.
As Basecase Capital’s motto states: “We help founders nail their “base case”—recruiting their first engineers, securing their first customers, and raising their first institutional round—and “recurse” onwards.”
Planet A Ventures
Greentech tech is one of the most resilient sectors amid the crisis that attracts acute VC interest.
The founders of Planet A are former Angle investors Tobias Seikel and Nick de la Forge, former entrepreneurs Fridtjof Detzner and Christian Schad, and Christoph Gras, who previously co-founded the Tomorrow Bank. Additionally, Lena Thiede is an expert in climate and biodiversity research and policy.
Planet A Ventures is the first European fund focused on European greentech startups with an in-house science team. Their work with startups is not limited to investments: Planet A experts help founders develop their businesses, including with the help of their scientific expertise.
Their inaugural fund closed at the beginning of 2023, and secured a substantial €160 million from notable investors, including BMW, REWE (one of Germany’s largest retailers), a Danish pension fund, and the founders of HelloFresh and Zalando.
At the beginning of 2023, they closed their first fund at €160 million from such investors as BMW, one of the largest German retailers REWE, the Danish pension fund, and the founders of HelloFresh and Zalando.
The current portfolio includes Makersite (decarbonization tech), GA Drilling (plasma drills), C1 (green methanol production), and 44.01 (carbon storage technology). The fund has also recently invested in The Landbanking Group, which is developing methods to enable landowners to generate income from nature restoration, and Good Carbon, a digital platform dealing with resource-based carbon credits.
Wiktor Namysł and Orbit Capital
In February 2023, it was announced that a former McKinsey executive had joined Orbit Capital, intending to elevate it into one of central-eastern Europe’s most significant VC funds to date. Orbit Capital is an investment firm focused on the technology and software ScaleUps: a new category between venture capital and private equity worlds.
With plans to invest in 12–14 companies, initial ticket sizes are set between €6–15 million. This is particularly noteworthy as most late-stage startups in Central and Eastern Europe typically seek funding from Western Europe and the USA, as regional funds seldom allocate more than €100 million.
Prioritizing regional development the fund has already made strategic investments in some of the region’s most successful startups, including Ukrainian ed-tech Preply, Czech hotel management platform Mews, Czech grocery delivery service Rohlik, and Polish booking system Booksy.
