SWAN Venture Fund 2 has made its last investment in the last month of our investment period. Our second fund began investing in January 2018 and made 8 investments through the end of 2020. Six companies are based in the greater Seattle area and two are in based in British Columbia. Our goal for portfolio 2 was to diversify into PNW companies which we believed could return our fund.

The portfolio for SWAN Venture Fund 2:

Cloudneeti – Our second fund invested into the company in January 2020. Cloudneeti provided an automated cloud security configuration tool for the enterprise. They were acquired by ZScalar in April 2020.

Curvafix – an FDA-approved medical device company that manufactures and sells a minimally invasive pelvic implants to secure fractured and broken pelvis. In 2019, our second fund participated in a Medical Device follow-on opportunity on an investment made by our first fund. By the end of 2020, Curvafix had reached milestones to land $10.75M in series B funding

Defined.ai – Our second fund participated in a follow-on opportunity on an investment made by our first fund. They are aiming to be the “github for AI.” We invested in December 2018. By the end of 2020, their realized annual revenues grew from a healthy 7 figures in 2018 to 10x that number in 2020 (8 figures). They closed their $50.5M Series B in May 2020.

Niricson – In an age where our infrastructure (bridges and dams) is getting older, and in an age where most infrastructure inspections are still manual, Niricson is a British Columbia enterprise SaaS company that is using AI, drones, and sensor data to assist infrastructure owners in evaluating the health of their assets more effectively.

Opticyte – Opticyte is a medical device company that is building a better blood oximetry device. Their device helps to capture critical real-time patient cellular oxygen data to help minimize the leading causes of organ failure, including sepsis.

SiDx – A parallel medical diagnostics company. The company’s silicon photonics chip uses over 60 sensors to determine blood-type and to sense blood-borne diseases, in a few minutes, all at the same time.

SST Wireless – An Industrial Internet of things sensor company based in BC, Canada. They manufacture and sell rugged sensors to industrial manufacturing companies to handle high temperature, high pressure, and caustic environments commonly found in industrial settings.

TransformativeMED – An enterprise B2B software company in the
Health IT space. They are integrating with physicians existing EHR
systems and improving the physician’s workflow and decision-making experience.

This April 2018, thirty-five investors and I came together to form the second SWAN Venture Fund on the premise that entrepreneurs still need funding in the Pacific NW. That hasn’t changed much since my last announcement for our first fund.

For Fund 2, we are diversifying our investments into 9-10 companies. We are stage-focused, not industry-focused. We invest based upon the expertise of our team, when entrepreneurs are a fit with us, and when we have reviewed and formed our own independent exit hypothesis for a company. Diversification for us means that we consider companies from different industries and different business models.

We like to find interesting opportunities in unexpected places. We pay attention to traction and how entrepreneurs interact with us. We move faster than most angel groups in the region and do a better job of due diligence. We know that the quality of the relationships we have with our entrepreneurs comes from our process; we make better investments as a result, but we say “no” more. When we do say no, it is often because of fit or something doesn’t quite meet our strategy.

There are more opportunities to find capital in the Pacific Northwest since 2015. Few if any are investing purely in Pacific Northwest seed-stage companies like we are, and fewer are investing as broadly as we are.

 

 

 

 

SWAN Venture Fund 1 has made its last investment in the last month of our investment period. We began funding companies in August 2015 and have made 9 investments: Seven companies are based in the greater Seattle Area and two are in California. We’ve looked at Portland and Vancouver BC companies. Our goal for portfolio 1 was to diversify into 9 companies which we believed could return our fund.

The portfolio for SWAN Venture Fund 1:

Accrualify – A one-stop application solution for efficient procure-to-pay management.

Curvafix – they are an emerging medical device company based in the Seattle area. They are developing a novel solution for an unmet need in orthopedic trauma.

Defined.ai – they offer an intelligent data infrastructure for AI that provides high-quality training data to help machine learning oriented products reach market quicker and with better quality. It offers efficient data workflows that enable data scientists to collect, synthesize, enrich and structure training data by combining human intelligence and machine learning capabilities to accelerate enterprise AI initiatives.

Heroclip – they offer a specialty outdoor consumer product, which they launched with overwhelming support from Kickstarter and Indiegogo backers, Heroclip is now at retailers like Brookstone and Ace Hardware Stores and has been touted by numerous media outlets.

Utrip – they are a free travel planning technology company that bring together the best in artificial intelligence and human experience, making it easy for travelers to quickly create their perfect trip. They increase engagement, loyalty and conversion rates by providing a white labeled offering of the Utrip platform to hospitality brands, cruise lines, points of interest, airlines, and Destination Marketing Organizations.

Sharkbite Games – Founded in 2016, Sharkbite Games is focused on delivering “Best in class” gaming experiences, regardless of the platform. I can attest to that. Their game Beswitched, is an addictive and free switching game available on the Google Play store and on the Apple store.

ShotTek –  is a group of passionate innovators with a love for basketball. They have designed a device that helps even the most hopeless free-throwers develop their technique. Truly a better experience for kids, coaches and athletes.

OmniM2M (acquired by TraqIQ) – an internet of things company selling connected software and hardware solutions to enterprise clients.