November's most active US investor is General Catalyst

 November's most active US investor is General Catalyst

This is a monthly feature that offers a look at some of the most intriguing investments made by some of the most active investors in U.S.-based firms, along with some random information about who spent what. View the entry from last month here.

As the year draws to a close, news and investment activity usually slow down, and this is definitely the case in November.

This month, there were just eight agreements signed by venture firms involving U.S.-based entrepreneurs, which is the lowest amount in a few months.

With eight agreements announced, General Catalyst was first, followed by three firms that tied for second place on the list: Alumni Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Soma Capital.

The firms' figures are very low; last month, Khosla Ventures, which had been closing a lot of acquisitions in the US, was only able to conclude four.

We'll have to wait and see what December delivers, but it's reasonable to assume that the low totals will continue.

Overall Enabler, 8 Transactions

In fact, the investor from Cambridge, Massachusetts closed more agreements with American businesses this year than the seven that were disclosed in September.

An experienced company's investments are distributed over a number of areas, including some agreements involving AI businesses, as could be anticipated. This included taking part in a sizable $60 million seed round for the AI-powered financial services startup Black Ore Technologies, situated in Austin, Texas.

To demonstrate its versatility, however, it also took part in a $6 million seed round for Kraftwerk, a full-service house painting business located in Charlotte that leverages software to provide simple scheduling, rapid estimates, and open pricing. Applications.

Seven transactions from Soma Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Alumni Ventures

As Alumni, Lightspeed, and Soma all came together in November, it was evident that seven deals was a popular number.

Out of the three, Alumni has shown the highest level of activity in US investments, having completed over 100 agreements with domestic entrepreneurs so far this year, highlighted by a stellar 22-deal January. Did. Less than 50 of these transactions have been made this year by Lightspeed and Soma combined.

But for a while now, alumni involvement has also been slowing down. Only 37 of the 78 transactions the business executed with US-based companies in the previous five months were done during the period of September to January of last year.

All of these businesses struck intriguing transactions in November, but because AI is a hot topic right now, Lightspeed led a round that drew our attention. The $35 million Series A has been secured by Palo Alto, California-based Pika, an AI platform for video and editing. Only six months have passed since the firm came out of stealth. Pika provides a host of intriguing new video editing features, such as the ability to enlarge already-existing films and alter their aesthetic—for example, turning a video into an animation.

Six transactions in Craft Ventures

Based in San Francisco Although it may never appear on this list, Craft Ventures has been quite active recently. From January to July, the business only made nine transactions with US companies; but, in the last four months, 19 deals have been disclosed.

The company's primary focus is developing and growing SaaS businesses, and it stayed true to that approach last month when it raised $20 million in venture funding for San Francisco-based collaborative coding Had led the round and $6.6 million for San Francisco-based inbound lead platform Default. Launch Repl.

Notable also were Menlo Ventures and Insight Partners, which each had five transactions at the top of the list.

With three transactions, Menlo Ventures led or co-led every company.

Thanks to a single transaction, AE Industrial Partners and Mitsui & Co., Ltd. are at the top of the list of rounds led or co-led with the greatest dollar amount for the month. Both led the $300 million Series C round for Firefly Aerospace.

Techstars, with twelve transactions, and Y Combinator, with nine agreements, were the leading investment incubators and accelerators in November.

Techniques

The investors on this list have taken part in the majority of rounds in which U.S.-based companies have been involved. As their funding amounts are subject to change, incubators and accelerators are not included in this.