- Utah-based venture capital firm Album VC announced it rebranded from Peak Ventures and raised $75 million
Album VC, a Utah-based venture capital firm, announced it has rebranded from Peak Ventures. And the venture firm also launched a new $75 million fund. Some of the Album VC team members that will be involved in the fund include general partners Sid Krommenhoek, John Mayfield, and Diogo Myrrha and engagement head Lisa Thomas and operations head Steve Hale.
One of the biggest reasons why the rebranding happened is due to another venture capital firm having the word “Peak” in the name. And the new name was inspired by the creative processes involving musicians creating new albums.
“Album pointed to what we like most about the job and where we think we’ve been most successful,” said Mayfield via BYU.edu.
With the new $75 million fund, it will enable Album to help startups and early-stage investments inside and outside of Utah.
“We will continue to invest in Utah, but I would say this fund we will continue to fund some outside of Utah,” added Mayfield.
The last two Album VC funds also focused on Utah-based companies. Some of the companies in the Silicon Slopes area that Album VC invested in include Podium, Owlet, and Jolt.
According to BYU entrepreneurship professor Michael Hendron, many of the businesses that Album VC’s new fund will invest in will be technology companies.
“They’re often software or tech ideas because they take quite a bit of investment to develop and often they have a really large potential market if they succeed,” Hendron explained.
An example of this is a company that is called Neighbor — which is an Airbnb-like service for affordable and secure storage. Neighbor started at BYU and it caught the attention of Album VC as the company competed at BYU business competitions.
The Album VC team invested in Neighbor and also offered the company space at their office so it could be easily mentored.
“They understand very well what it takes to build a company and how to support a company from a capital perspective,” commented Neighbor.com chief executive officer Joseph Woodbury.
