INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
March Capital Partners, the Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, has raised $300 million for its latest fund.
It another indicator that
the Los Angeles technology ecosystem is coming of age, but also a sign that March core investment strategies — to invest in companies
applying artificial intelligence to business use cases and investing in the next wave transforming computing infrastructure — are paying
off.
&We have two major areas and a couple of minor areas,& said Sumant Mandal, a managing director with the firm
&We like data-driven business and two-thirds of our portfolio are AI driven
We also like infrastructure for the internet… the majority of the portfolio will be around those two themes.&
Those two themes are borne
out in the support March Capital has provided for The Hive, an artificial intelligence-focused incubator, and The Fabric, an infrastructure
and internet of things-focused incubator
Those two San Francisco-based operations have been a pipeline for interesting startups that have become March portfolio companies.
And the
firm is also looking at other opportunities
Given its home in Los Angeles, the company is also placing bets around the rise of e-sports and gaming as a new pillar of entertainment and
it looking abroad at opportunities in India, according to Mandal and managing partner, Jamie Montgomery.
In India, a massive demand for new
financial services, coupled with a technology-forward government leadership that embracing controversial policies like demonetization, is
creating incredible market tailwinds for startup tech businesses, according to Mandal.
Portfolio successes with investments in companies
like CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company which was founded in Irvine, Calif.; EarnIn, the financial services startup obviating the need
for payday lenders; VeloCloud, the networking infrastructure and cloud management business sold to VMware for $449 million; and CarTrade,
an Indian used car marketplace, all seem to validate the firm approach.
&We are three to four years into a 20-year cycle,& says Montgomery
&We&re making sure that we are doing stuff that will survive in an economic downturn.&
Primarily that means focusing mainly on enterprise
software businesses,& Montgomery said
Companies like Microsoft, Salesforce and others are arguably better positioned to survive the economic slowdown that Montgomery expects to
hit in the next year or two
Montgomery believes there no business that won&t require information technology services, and he and his partners are building a portfolio
that he thinks is designed to provide them.
