We’re excited to announce the close of Two Sigma Ventures III, a $288M fund that we’ll use to continue backing early-stage technology companies (primarily Series A, plus Seed and Series B) pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with data science and advanced computing across all industries. We’re incredibly grateful to the investors backing us in this new fund, which is the first Two Sigma Ventures fund in which the majority (80%) of the capital comes from outside investors.
We started Two Sigma Ventures in 2012 with a simple belief: that some of the most important companies of our time would be created by founders and teams tapping into the exponentially increasing availability of information and the inexorable advances in the science of computing. We believed then – and do so even more today – that we are in the midst of a data revolution that will affect every conceivable industry and category. Whether you look at the unprecedented rate of growth and explosion of unstructured data, the precipitous drop in the cost to sequence a genome, or how machines have begun to best humans not just in games but in real-world challenges, it’s not hard to see how we’re living through one of the greatest transformational ages in history (and how these trends are only accelerating). Since then, we’ve seen firsthand how our thesis of data + computing + human ingenuity has touched every industry—perhaps even faster than we expected. Along the way, we’ve been fortunate to partner with remarkable founders building revolutionary businesses in everything from enterprise technology (Enigma, Gitlab, Kasisto, NewtonX, NS1, SecurityScorecard, Radar, and more) to consumer technology (Bark, Spruce Up, WHOOP, and more) and data-driven drug discovery (Insitro, Terray Therapeutics, Kallyope, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, and more).1
Looking back, we’ve worked hard over the last 8 years to build our team, grow our strategy, and develop our capabilities, which is why we couldn’t be more excited to start this next chapter. We started investing Two Sigma Ventures I in 2012, through which we backed our first 20 companies, with the capital and support of Two Sigma’s founders and senior employees to test our initial thesis. Building on what we learned in those early years, in 2014 we launched Two Sigma Ventures II, with 1/3 of the capital coming from a very small group of external investors. Today, Two Sigma Ventures comprises a team of 16 dedicated professionals, led by four partners, plus 10 Venture Partners and Advisors, with a diverse set of backgrounds across investing, portfolio company support, and operations (and a shared dedication to doing whatever it takes to help our portfolio companies succeed). We’ve been fortunate to have made over 70 investments. And now with the support of an amazing and diverse investor base representing endowments, foundations, pensions, and others, we begin investing our third fund, Two Sigma Ventures III.
Through the years, one thing has remained constant: our team has always believed we could do VC differently, and this new fund will enable us to continue our journey. We’ve always felt that we were uniquely positioned to offer support across the areas that fueled the growth of Two Sigma from three people to 1,700 over 19 years: (i) rigorous data science, (ii) product and engineering expertise, and (iii) talent and leadership development. And whether it’s helping founders tap into our extensive technical network of PhDs within Two Sigma for model reviews on the data science side, connecting teams with senior technologists for architecture advice on the engineering side, or building tools that allow portfolio companies to tap into the 100,000 job applicants to Two Sigma every year, we look forward to continuing to support the next generation of data-driven founders and technical teams through every phase of their growth.
Moving forward, we’ll be targeting 8-10 core early-stage investments (Series A, plus Seed and Series B) per year across the many categories we invest in, including enterprise and consumer software, AI-powered applications, infrastructure and developer tools, and data-driven biotech and healthcare. If you are an entrepreneur and would like to learn more about Two Sigma Ventures, make sure to shoot us a note here; we’re always more than happy to connect. Until then, onwards & upwards!