BGV, an early-stage venture capital firm with deep Silicon Valley roots and an exclusive focus on enterprise 4.0 startups in global markets, today announced the close of its Opportunity Fund, a $70 million investment vehicle. The Opportunity Fund is designed to make expansion stage investments in successful portfolio companies that emerge from BGV II and BGV III, both early-stage funds.
Earlier this year BGV made two Opportunity Fund investments in the enterprise 4.0 category including:
a) Totango – Deploys the most comprehensive Customer Data Platform (CDP) into global enterprises to transform the customer success process, increase customer growth and reduce churn; and
b) Virtual Instruments – AIOps for the scale-out data center, redefining IT operations, reducing costs and making infrastructure and applications work better together. BGV also made an Opportunity Fund investment in Grid Dynamics; the company focuses on accelerating enterprise transition to the cloud by developing and operating next generation cloud applications.
In May 2019, Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA) announced the acquisition of BGV Fund II company Profitect, Inc., a leading provider of prescriptive analytics for the retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries. BGV returned 6.8X their investment to BGV Fund II limited partners.
“This sale showcases BGV’s thesis-driven approach of investing in Enterprise 4.0 startups solving business problems in specific vertical industries — in this case retail,” said Eric Buatois, general partner at BGV and chairman of Profitect.
Profitect has many of the attributes of Enterprise 4.0 startups that BGV seeks in its investments:
- A cross-border company (founded in Israel) where BGV added value through early strategic partnerships, improved board governance and assembling a U.S. investor syndicate
- Well-aligned with BGV’s investment thesis around the omni-channel digital transformation of retail
- Differentiated technology solution powered by AI applied to a novel data set along with intelligent automation to deliver a compelling value proposition
- A CEO with substantial expertise in a specific industry
- A strong beachhead use case and value proposition with CIOs that had been referenced extensively
Using machine learning and prescriptive analytics, Profitect’s solution identifies opportunities to positively impact sales and margin for some of the most recognized retail and CPG brands in the world across both online and brick and mortar stores. Profitect applies advanced analytics to data across the value chain to improve inventory and pricing accuracy as well as optimize out of stock and assortment discrepancies. By democratizing AI, Profitect enables store level employees to understand and act on profit improvement actions. Zebra will leverage the investment to accelerate the development of its Savanna platform through the acquisition of Profitect’s technology, talent, and skill sets. Combining the real-time data that Zebra solutions capture, with Profitect’s access to operational data, machine learning, and prescriptive analytics, Zebra will work with its partners to empower front-line workers even more – across all verticals – with the insights they need to make better, faster, smarter decisions.
ABOUT BGV
BGV, is an early-stage venture capital firm with deep Silicon Valley roots, with an exclusive focus on enterprise 4.0 opportunities in global markets. BGV currently has 30 active companies in its portfolio. The BGV team has successfully built and implemented a cross-border venture investing model with companies from Israel, Europe and Asia. The fund was founded by Eric Benhamou, former chairman and CEO of 3Com, Palm and co-founder of Bridge Communications. Comprised of an experienced partnership team of global operating executives and investors, BGV is often the first and most active institutional investor in a company and has a powerful network of technical advisors, executives and functional experts who actively engage with its portfolio companies. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and Tel Aviv, Israel.
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