- New York-based venture capital company Tusk Ventures announced it has raised $70 million for its second flagship fund
New York-based venture capital company Tusk Ventures — which is led by managing partners Bradley Tusk and Jordan Nof— announced it held its final close of TVP II LP with a fund size of $70 million, which is more than two times the size of the firm’s first fund.
Tusk Ventures communications head Rachel Livingston told Pulse 2.0 that Tusk Ventures invested in 18 startups from Fund I and already saw some grow into transformational companies. Those investments include Lemonade, Bird, Roman, Care/Of, Lyric, and Kodiak.
The firm started raising investments for the fund back in January. Prior to launching Tusk Ventures, Bradley Tusk worked as a campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg, the deputy governor of Illinois, and as a communications director for Senator Chuck Schumer. Bradley Tusk has also published a book last year called “The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics.”
“The thesis of Tusk Venture Partners is simple, but unique: regulated markets are starved for innovation. The most ambitious, transformative companies are tackling complex problems and often creating new markets altogether, where no regulatory framework likely exists (yet). We invest in early stage startups operating in highly regulated sectors. We understand regulatory risk in a way that no other venture firm does, and we help our portfolio companies execute against it like no other venture firm can. That’s our superpower,” said Tusk Ventures in a blog post. “That means investing in Bird and helping launch scooters in cities across the U.S. It means investing in Lemonade and helping them get insurance carrier licenses in each major state. It means investing in Roman and helping ensure telemedicine regulations allow them to create the novel healthcare model they envision.”
In terms of the numbers, the firm’s first fund saw a net internal rate of return (IRR) of 64.6% and a Total Value to Paid in Multiple (TVPI) of 2.3x.
