With the close of its $53 million Fund IV, Durham-based Bull City Venture Partners (BCVP) is poised to help keep the “flywheel” of local tech successes going.
The team has been investing in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic region over the last decade, having backed startups like Get Spiffy, Spoonflower, and Adwerx out of North Carolina.
The influx of investors and entrepreneurs into the region, the top research universities, and the “important flywheel effect of having startups grow and exit” have created unique new local opportunities, says general partner David Jones.
The fund, investing in seed and early-stage companies, was oversubscribed and will look for startups in the software, e-commerce, fintech, mobile, and healthcare IT space primarily across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
A Look at BCVP’s Portfolio
Bull City’s portfolio has seen five successful exits over the last month from previous funds, including North Carolina-based startups like Spoonflower (acquired by Shutterfly), ReverbNation (acquired by Bandlab), and ServiceTrade.
Existing portfolio companies have raised over $160 million in follow-on capital in the last 12 months. Its Fund III totaled $26 million.
They have already deployed capital out of Fund IV into five deals, and Jones told Hypepotamus that three out of those deals were “true seed (or maybe pre-seed) deals.”
Those investments include collaboration software LaunchNotes, subscription service Tiny Earth Toys, and CRM software Levitate, the full-stack tech-enabled title and escrow provider Blueprint Title.
Co-founder Jason Caplain said Fund IV “intends to mirror the proven strategies from its previous funds, but with greater impact and firepower. Building strong partnerships with entrepreneurs is of paramount importance to how our firm operates. The growth of the firm and each of our portfolio companies over the past decades speaks to just how impactful a shared vision between investors and founders can be.”
While Bull City has investments across the region, it has naturally tapped into the unique tech opportunities across North Carolina, where pre-seed to Series A companies have raised well over $370 million over the last twelve months, according to available Crunchbase data.
