- Palm Drive Capital announced it has raised $45.35 million for its third fund out of a targeted $100 million as part of a first fundraising round
Palm Drive Capital announced it raised $45.35 million for its third fund out of a targeted $100 million. This amount far exceeds the typical amount for a first fundraising round. Palm Drive’s third fund will be for investing in early-stage deep tech and enterprise software companies.
Palm Drive is also on track to raise almost double the amount of its previous fund called Fund II (February 2018) — which had a fund size of $53 million and $58 million in co-investments. And in the past year, Palm Drive has made 13 new investments. Plus Palm Drive also recently led a $15.2 million funding round for its portfolio company Datacubes — which is a leading underwriting decision platform for US commercial property and casualty insurers.
Palm Drive raised $19 million ford Fund I (April 2016) with $67 million in co-investments and six exits. And across its three funds, the largest proportion of investments are in enterprise software with (44%), followed by e-commerce (12%), healthcare tech (9%), insurance tech (9%), blockchain (8%), and fintech (4%). Of these investments, eight are unicorns including Clover Health, Carta, Bitmain, Magic Leap, Zenefits, Jet.com, Rappi, and WeLab.
Palm also primarily invests in the U.S. and the company has a rapidly growing presence in emerging tech centers throughout the northeast, midwest, and south. Plus the firm also looks beyond the United States for investment opportunities. And by leveraging its expansive network, Palm Drive has invested in entrepreneurs and companies throughout Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia.
“We make it our mission to identify high-growth technology companies early on, regardless of their location, and conduct a rigorous diligence process that includes proprietary competitive benchmarking,” said Seamon Chan, co-founder and managing partner of Palm Drive Capital.
One of the key elements of Palm Drive’s investment approach is to target underserved markets, sectors, and founders. Female founders have been a major focus of the firm — which has pledged a seven-figure amount to non-profit organization The Billion Dollar Fund for Women.
“Since our launch in 2014, we’ve made sure to embrace the notion that innovators are anywhere and everywhere,” added Chan. “Our core business belief is that the most successful founders are principled, visionary and mission-driven. We’re proud of our track record of recognizing and investing in high-potential founders from across five continents, and we are excited to see what new opportunities this funding round will bring.”
