Seven Peaks Ventures has raised $28 million for its second fund and will continue investing in early-stage startups across the Pacific Northwest and surrounding states.
The Bend, Ore.-based venture capital firm will invest in 20-to-25 companies as part of Fund II, said Dino Vendetti, general partner at Seven Peaks. Its average investment size is $500,000 for seed stage startups, and $1 million for Series A.
The firm will focus on B2B tech startups working in industries such as digital health, artificial intelligence, finance, real estate, human resources, security, and cloud infrastructure.
Seven Peaks is also bullish about regional markets outside of Silicon Valley — places such as Seattle, Portland, Bend, Salt Lake City, Boulder, and Phoenix. That’s a bet Vendetti made when he helped start the firm in 2013.
“When we launched Fund I in 2013, we were on the early part of this trend,” he told GeekWire. “But today my VC friends from Silicon Valley don’t say we are crazy nearly as often — I take that as progress.”
A recent Economist story highlighted how startups are beginning to shift away from the Bay Area due to high cost of living, among other reasons. GeekWire also examined how Silicon Valley investors are also looking elsewhere to make their bets.
Startups in the Seven Peaks portfolio include Portland-based Opal, Bend-based Manzama, Seattle-based Amplero, and several others. Newer investments include Trusona, Matcherino, MetricStory, Owl Insights, Cricket Health, Torch3D and ZapInfo.
Investors in Fund II include institutions, family offices, return limited partners, the State of Oregon, and the OSU Foundation. Vendetti added that the firm is actively looking for founding teams with diverse backgrounds.
Seven Peaks, which opened a Seattle office last year, also runs a bi-annual conference called Bonfire Collective and recently launched an advisor and corporate resources platform for its entrepreneurs.
