Cadenza, an early-stage VC firm with offices in San Francisco and New York City, has closed a $50 million early-stage AI Venture Fund. This fund targets pre-seed and seed opportunities within the AI space, focusing on infrastructure and enterprise applications across relevant verticals.
Cadenza has built a solid track record by investing in sophisticated technologies. It has been active in AI since 2022 when it pre-seeded Together.ai, now recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies of all time.
Utilizing this experience, Cadenza has added world-class Venture Partners to the team, including Vipul Ved Prakash (CEO of Together.ai), Charles Srisuwananukorn (Founding Engineer at Together.ai), and Alex Acero (former Distinguished Scientist at Apple). Cadenza will continue to invest in early-stage companies through these relationships and its deal-sourcing systems.
So far, the fund has made ten investments, with noteworthy traction in Nous Research, Tensorwave, Jericho Security, and Axolotl. The Fund’s success continues to be further bolstered by a world-class investor syndicate, including VanEck Associates, Aros Capital (Denmark), private wealth managers, US endowments and RIAs, and top single- and multi-family offices across the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Cadenza’s Managing Partners, Kumar Dandapani and Max Shapiro have invested in emerging technologies since 2018, achieving multiple unicorn exits.
KEY QUOTES:
“The continued advancements in AI models have the potential to dramatically transform businesses to a magnitude that has not been seen since the commercialization of the Internet. Through our expert network, we will continue to identify opportunities in which the effective deployment of AI solutions allows startups to displace incumbent enterprise software providers and create workforce efficiencies.”
- Cadenza Managing Partner Kumar Dandapani
“As with our existing venture funds, we will continue to provide our investors with access to high quality, early stage companies while adhering to valuation discipline and efficient use of our investors’ working capital.”
- Cadenza Managing Partner Max Shapiro
