Floodgate Fund is a venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investments in technology companies. It was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Floodgate

Spark Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in exceptional products and the creative individuals behind them. Known for embracing risk and a unique approach, Spark Capital has backed companies like Twitter, Discord, Anthropic, Cruise, Niantic, Oculus, Warby Parker, and Tumblr. Recognizing that there are no set playbooks or formulas for success, the firm supports founders in achieving success on their own terms. Spark Capital invests across all sectors and stages, operating out of San Francisco, Boston, and New York City.

Spark Capital

Bezos Expeditions manages Jeff Bezos' personal venture capital investments.

Bezos Expeditions

Union Square Ventures is a private equity and venture capital firm focused on early-stage, growth capital, late-stage, and startup financing. The USV portfolio companies create services that have the potential to fundamentally transform important markets.  It exclusively invests in the internet world, focusing on the applications layer of the web, internet services, and web services that create large networks as well as the mobile sector. Some of its invested companies are based in New York, San Francisco, London, Berlin, and places in between. It typically makes a starting investment in portfolio companies of $1 million. In certain Series Around cases, the firm may make a starting investment between $2.5 million to $3 million. It typically invests up to $20 million in any single company. Union Square Ventures was founded in 2003 and is based in New York, United States.

Union Square Ventures

Digital Garage provides ''new contexts'' through the Internet by implementing three core technologies: IT (Information Technology), MT (Marketing Technology), FT (Financial Technology). Their core competence is the ability to integrate these multi-disciplinary technologies together into a one-stop seamless solution.  As a ''context company'', Digital Garage combines events occurring in different business fields by using the three technologies IT, MT and FT, in order to complete a new ''context.''  The seeds of business nurtured by Digital Garage are flourishing under the three business segments. The ''Incubation Segment'' invests in prospective startups and develops media business, the ''Marketing Segment'' provides advertising/promotion solutions that reach each consumer and the ''Payment Segment'' offers payment solutions crucial for monetizing on the Internet. These business segments and the subsidiaries are on the verge of bearing fruit as their branches and leaves continue to grow. Digital Garage's management practice enables different corporate entities to operate independently, while acting and resonating in union at the same time.  Digital Garage will continue to place emphasis on the power of group collaboration. Please pay attention to Digital Garage as they make progress and pioneer the future of the Internet.

Digital Garage

Lowercase Capital is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in investments in seed/startups, mature, and acquisition of later-stage companies. The firm typically invests in wireless, media, commerce, infrastructure, energy, and transportation sectors. It also advises businesses and funds.  Lowercase Capital was founded in 2010 and is based in New York, New York.

Lowercase Capital

Quixotic Ventures is an active investor in early stage companies.

Quixotic Ventures

CRV has been an investor in technology companies for almost half a century. The firm has backed nearly 400 startups in its 47-year history, including foundational companies like Twitter, Zendesk, Amgen, Hubspot, Parametric Technologies, Yammer, EqualLogic, and Sonus Networks. Half of the companies CRV has backed have gone public or been acquired. The firm focuses on enterprise, consumer, and deep-insight bioengineering.

IVP turns breakout companies into enduring market leaders. With a 40-year record of driving growth and 130+ IPOs, we’ve partnered with over 400 companies including Amplitude, Brex, Coinbase, Crowdstrike, Datadog, Discord, Klarna, Slack, Snap, and Twitter. As trusted allies, IVP helps founders and CEOs meet the challenge of leading a rapidly growing company. Its proven system bolsters functions including those that are sometimes overlooked and partners serve as trusted allies to companies seeking to realize their full potential.

Benchmark invests in and works alongside entrepreneurs building startups into transformational companies. They focus on early-stage venture investing in mobile, marketplaces, social, and infrastructure and enterprise software. Founded in 1995, the firm has offices in Woodside and San Francisco, California. The firm has been recognized for its commitment to open source and is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners. The five equal general partners who take board seats and a hands-on approach to every entrepreneur and company they back, with no junior investment staff. Current general partners are Chetan Puttagunta, Sarah Tavel, Victor Lazarte, Peter Fenton, and Eric Vishria. Benchmark has had 37 exits since beginning of 2011; 14 IPOs and 23 M&As representing a total market value of more than $60 billion. Benchmark’s current portfolio of early-stage venture investments includes private market leaders such as Uber, Snapchat, Tinder, Stitch Fix, Elastic and Cyanogen; recent IPOs and acquisitions such as Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, League of Legends, Jasper, OpenTable, New Relic, Hortonworks, Amplitude, Confluent, GrubHub, Zendesk and Zillow; and franchise companies from Juniper to eBay to Red Hat.

Benchmark

Insight Partners is a global software investor that partners with growth-stage technology and software companies. Insight has a deep focus in Fintech, Cybersecurity, AI/ML, DevOps, and Healthcare sectors. Across their people and their portfolio, they encourage a culture around a core belief growth equals opportunity. As of December 31, 2022, the firm has over $75B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 750 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO.

Insight Partners

Morgan Stanley, from the number of their offices and employees to the experience of their management and the quality of their financial results, the facts about Morgan Stanley tell an impressive story.  Morgan Stanley and its people have helped redefine the meaning of financial services. The firm has continually broken new ground in advising its clients on strategic transactions, pioneering the global expansion of finance and capital markets, and providing new opportunities for individual and institutional investors.  Morgan Stanley maintained comprehensive corporate governance guidelines for years before corporate governance became headline news.

Morgan Stanley

T. Rowe Price is an investment management firm dedicated to funding technology startups. The firm serves individuals, financial intermediaries, and institutions and offers a full range of investment strategies across a broad spectrum: debt, equities, and private equities.

T. Rowe Price

Kleiner Perkins is a venture capital firm specializing in investing in early-stage, growth, and incubation companies. The firm continues that legacy, investing in founders with bold ideas that span industries and continents, partnering with them from inception to IPO and beyond to maximize the potential of their ideas. They also focus on early computer firms using their devices and programming and service companies. It also invests in the digital, life sciences, and healthcare industries.

Kleiner Perkins

Over the last decade, Millennium has been a pioneer, innovator, and leader in developing institutional-quality alternative liquidity programs for companies and shareholders in the venture capital ecosystem, partnering with the world’s leading technology companies to design investment structures that foster long-term growth from growth capital to debt financing and secondary liquidity.

Millennium Technology Value Partners

DST Global is an investment firm that focuses on late-stage ventures in the Internet sector. The firm has invested in several rapidly growing companies. Its offices are in Menlo Park, New York, London, Beijing, and Hong Kong. The firm was founded in 2009 by Yuri Milner, Saurabh Gupta, John Lindfors, Rahul Mehta, and Tom Stafford.

DST Global

DFJ Growth invests in growth stage technology companies that are scaling rapidly and poised for market leadership.  Based in Silicon Valley, DFJ Growth is the later stage investing practice of [Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ)](http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/draper-fisher-jurvetson), a global venture capital firm. DFJ Growth partners with extraordinary entrepreneurs who set out to change the world by creating a new generation of iconic technology-driven businesses.

DFJ Growth

Slow Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on investing in companies central to the technology industry as well as those operating at the intersection of science, society, and culture. The firm seeks to support innovative ideas and solutions that shape the future across various sectors.

Slow Ventures

The Employee Stock Option Fund provides current and former employees of venture-backed companies with financial help needed to exercise options and cover associated taxes. It has a due diligence strategy and transaction protocol to evaluate and close transactions very quickly. The ESO Fund provides a new approach to exercising stock options that provides superior ROI potential through leverage and tax optimization. The fund also provides individuals who have already exercised private stock options with partial liquidity on the same terms that allows the owners to recover capital and eliminate downside risk while still retaining the potential upside from the stock.  ESO Fund was formed by Stephen Roberts, Jimmy Lackie, and Scott Chou in 2012.

Employee Stock Option Fund

X (formerly Twitter)

A foundational component to the next generation of digital entertainment.

Esports

Skillz is a multiplayer mobile gaming platform that hosts tournaments for various online games, allowing users to compete for large cash prizes. Skillz holds two core patents, granted in 2016, for its growth drivers: 1) The ”fair play algorithm” determines whether a game is skill-based (crucial for legal compliance in cash prize games in the USA) and 2) “tournament management system” (TMS) enables developers to integrate games onto the Skillz platform. In June 2023, the company expanded to Las Vegas by acquiring a 36,045 sq ft building for its new headquarters.In June 2021, Skillz announced its USD 150 million cash and stock acquisition of Aarki, a mobile marketing platform powered by machine learning and AI. This acquisition broadened Skillz’s revenue streams and provided cost synergies by optimizing marketing spend. To further diversify its market, Skillz&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7548">launched</a> a pilot program in India in December 2021.Skillz went public in September 2020 through a USD 3.5 billion merger with SPAC Fly Eagle Acquisition, listing on the NYSE. For FY<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/skillz-reports-2023-fourth-quarter-200500269.html">2023</a>, Skillz reported a 44.3% YoY revenue decline to USD 150.1 million, reflecting ongoing challenges in user acquisition and retention12. The company's paying monthly active users (PMAU) decreased to 179,000, indicating a continued decline in the player base. However, the average revenue per paying monthly active user (ARPPU) improved to USD 70.0, suggesting better monetization of remaining users. The company&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/skillz-reports-2023-fourth-quarter-200500269.html#:~:text=Adjusted%20EBITDA1%20of%20%24(70.1)%20million">recorded</a> an adjusted EBITDA loss of USD 70.1 million for the year, showing a 42.7% improvement from the previous year.Key customers and partnershipsIn&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9309">March 2022,</a> Skillz entered a multi-year partnership with the UFC, the world’s leading mixed martial arts organization. The agreement provides Skillz and its developer community licensing rights to create UFC-branded esports mobile games, which were set to launch in 2023 and co-marketed by both organizations.Skillz also partnered with Exit Games in August 2021, investing USD 50 million for a minority stake in the company, the developer of Photon, a leading real-time multiplayer game development technology. The partnership granted Skillz exclusive access to Exit Games’ technology, enabling the platform to support synchronous multiplayer games like racing, fighting, and first-person shooters.

Sports Tech

PlaySight Interactive is a leading sports technology company that specializes in providing advanced video analysis and coaching solutions for various sports. Their flagship product, SmartCourt, is a connected camera system that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning capabilities to offer live streaming, multi-angle video recording, and comprehensive performance analytics.
PlaySight's technology democratizes access to cutting-edge video analysis tools, making them available to athletes and teams at all levels, from youth sports to professional leagues. The SmartCourt system enables automated video capture, eliminating the need for human camera operators, and uses AI algorithms to track player and ball movements, providing valuable insights into performance metrics.
In March 2024, PlaySight was acquired by US tennis company Slinger for USD 82 million, with the acquisition aimed at scaling up the distribution of PlaySight's mobile AI-based technology globally.
PlaySight's solutions cover over 30 sports, with a strong presence in tennis, pickleball, volleyball, and other racquet sports.
Key customers and partnerships
PlaySight has established numerous partnerships with universities, sports organizations, clubs, and facilities worldwide. Some notable partnerships include:
- Atlantic Coast Hockey Academy (ACA)
- Boise State Beach Volleyball
- Rutgers Wrestling
- University of Wisconsin Tennis
- Cracked Racquets (Broadcasting partnership for racquet sports)
- RedPADEL Rating (USPA rating system partner)
- Magnus Sports Group (Optical tracking and analytics)
- Scorli (Fan engagement solutions)
- Pin Point Raleigh (Large tennis facility)
- DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating system)
- Troy University (Streaming for 12 tennis courts)
- PickleRage (Indoor pickleball club franchise)
- Playbypoint (Reservation and video analysis integration)
- SpinInsight Analytics (Tennis analytics)
- SEE LiveSports (Balkan sports marketing)
- University of Richmond Tennis
- National Pickleball League, Australia
- Pickleball Kingdom (Premier pickleball locations)
- Scorebird (Sports viewing experience enhancements)
PlaySight's technology is widely adopted, with installations at over 20,000 venues across 57 countries as of March 2022. The company has grown rapidly, with partnerships spanning collegiate athletic programs, professional teams, and a diverse range of sports organizations worldwide.

Exploring the limitless possibilities of AI

Generative AI Applications

Founded in March 2023, Elon Musk's xAI is an AI-focused company that develops large language models (LLMs) and related applications. Its team includes former employees of prominent AI companies, such as OpenAI, DeepMind, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and Tesla.In November 2023, the company launched Grok, an AI assistant that allows users to obtain answers to questions based on information available online. Grok is based on xAI’s LLM, Grok-1, aimed at excelling in tasks like middle school mathematics, multiple choice questions, Python code completion, and LATEX-formatted math problems. xAI claims that its major edge lies in Grok's ability to source real-time information through the X (formerly Twitter) platform. This makes it stand out among other similar products as it claims to offer users more updated, current responses to their queries. Moreover, Grok elicits a slightly sarcastic and witty tone, making the AI interaction more engaging for the users. Grok was made available to users with X premium subscriptions in the <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24926">US and 45+ other countries</a> in December 2023. As of April 2024, the chatbot was available to more than 500 million users on the X app.In March 2024, xAI <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27647">open-sourced</a> the foundational code of its Grok AI model excluding the training code to assist developers and researchers to work on the model, thereby influencing its future updates. In March 2024 it introduced the <a href="https://x.ai/blog/grok-1.5">Grok 1.5</a> model with improved reasoning capabilities and in April 2024 it introduced <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28512">Grok-1.5V</a> with vision capabilities. The company launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32644">Grok-2 and Grok-2</a> mini with image generation capabilities in beta in August 2024, and AI image generation feature&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/36997">Aurora</a> in December 2024. The company and has announced plans to <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31904">release</a> Grok 3 AI model during 2024.&nbsp;

Foundation Models

Founded in March 2023, Elon Musk's xAI is an AI-focused company that develops large language models (LLMs) and related applications. Its team includes former employees of prominent AI companies, such as OpenAI, DeepMind, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and Tesla.In November 2023, the company launched Grok, an AI assistant that allows users to obtain answers to questions based on information available online. Grok is based on xAI’s LLM, Grok-1, and is aimed at excelling in tasks like middle school mathematics, multiple-choice questions, Python code completion, and LATEX-formatted math problems.&nbsp;In March 2024, xAI&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27647">open-sourced</a> the foundational code of its Grok AI model, excluding the training code, to assist developers and researchers in working on the model, thereby influencing its future updates. In March 2024, it introduced the&nbsp;<a href="https://x.ai/blog/grok-1.5">Grok-1.5</a> model with improved reasoning capabilities and in April 2024, it introduced&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28512">Grok-1.5V</a> with vision capabilities. In August 2024, the company launched&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32644">Grok-2 and Grok-2</a> mini with image-generation capabilities in beta and planned to&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31904">release the Grok</a>-3 AI model in 2024. The company leverages Black Forest Labs' Flux.1 diffusion model for image-generation capabilities.&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35099">In October 2024,</a> xAI launched an API that allows third-party developers to access and build applications using xAI's Grok LLMs. The API was in public beta and offered access to a model called "grok-beta" at USD 5 per million input tokens and USD 15 per million output tokens (November 2024).Key customers and partnershipsIn June 2024, xAI partnered with Dell Technologies and NVIDIA to construct an AI factory called the “Gigafactory of Compute” to develop advanced AI capabilities. The supercomputer facility was to utilize 100,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, making it 4x larger than existing GPU clusters.&nbsp;

XAI is an AI company that creates a platform for scientific discovery. The company conducts research to ensure its AI systems are reliable and effective. Its mission involves studying the fundamental nature of the universe.

OpenNode offers the most accessible way for e-commerce businesses to process bitcoin payments. With an easy-to-use plug-in solution that includes payment infrastructure APIs for developers and the fastest payment processor capacity on the market, OpenNode enables new payment models and instantaneous settlements for businesses and consumers alike. By bridging the gap between blockchain and the rest of the world with a simple payments platform that is accessible to all, OpenNode is helping to create a borderless future where everyday transactions are paid for with bitcoin and fiat interchangeably.

Aleph is the digital media partner trusted to connect the biggest players in digital media with the advertisers that rely on them.

Alter is a platform SDK consisting of a real-time 3D avatar system and motion capture built from scratch for web3 interoperability and the open metaverse. Developers can pipe avatars into their apps, games, and websites. They offer computer vision, 3d technology, web3, machine learning, avatars, rendering engines, blockchain, and NFTs.

ShareChat is an Indian social media startup. It offers the content consumption and sharing platform only in Indian vernacular languages to cater to over 1.17 billion wireless network users of India. It is available in 15 Indian languages. The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka.

Skillz is the mobile games platform on a mission to bring out the best in everyone through fun and fair competition. The Skillz platform helps developers create multi-million dollar franchises by enabling social competition in their games. Leveraging its patented technology, Skillz hosts billions of casual mobile gaming tournaments for millions of players worldwide. As the pioneer of skill-based competition for mobile gaming, Skillz has earned recognition with Parity.Org’s 2022 Best Companies for Women to Advance, Deloitte 2022 Tech Fast 500 and one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in 2023.

PlaySight is connecting the next generation of athletes through immersive sports video and analytics technology. They are bringing advanced sports video and analytics technology to every court in the world, creating a global and connected community of athletes, coaches, and fans. Technology has changed how sports are coached, played, and consumed at the elite levels, and they are focused on delivering the same cutting-edge experience to all levels of sport, all over the world. They are becoming the new standard in sports with our cloud-based Smart Court sports video and analytics platform, integrating what happens on-court with an interactive and social online community.

Actively promoting a unique, antidisciplinary culture, the MIT Media Lab goes beyond known boundaries and disciplines, encouraging the most unconventional mixing and matching of seemingly disparate research areas. It creates disruptive technologies that happen at the edges, pioneering such areas as wearable computing, tangible interfaces, and affective computing.  Today, faculty members, research staff, and students at the Lab work in more than 25 research groups on more than 350 projects that range from digital approaches for treating neurological disorders, to a stackable, electric car for sustainable cities, to advanced imaging technologies that can “see around a corner.”  The Lab is committed to looking beyond the obvious to ask the questions not yet asked–questions whose answers could radically improve the way people live, learn, express themselves, work, and play.

OverDrive, Inc. provides technology infrastructure for distributing premium digital content in the United States, Singapore, Mexico, Canada, and Australia. The company delivers secure management, protection, and downloading services for publishers and enterprises, libraries, schools, retailers, and distributors. It provides download media with various titles, including eBooks, audio books, music, and video; and customizable reports. The companyâ€™s software products include Media Console, which allows downloading audio books, music, and videos; ReaderWorks, a suite of eBook authoring and conversion tools; BookWorks, a suite of tools for both commercial and noncommercial eBook production, as well as distribution.   OverDrive, Inc. was founded in 1986 and is based in Cleveland, Ohio.

X, formerly Twitter, is a global social networking platform that allows its users to send and read 280-character messages. It enables registered users to read and post their tweets through the web, short message service (SMS), and mobile applications. As a global real-time communications platform, X has more than 400 million monthly visitors and 255 million monthly active users around the world. X’s active group of registered members includes World leaders, major athletes, star performers, news organizations, and entertainment outlets. It is currently available in more than 35 languages.  X was launched in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass. X is headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, with local offices in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Boulder, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Sunnyvale, and Washington.  X's international offices are located in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, London, Madrid, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, Seoul, Tokyo, Toronto, and Vancouver.

<div> X, formerly Twitter, is a global social networking platform that allows its users to send and read 280-character messages. It enables registered users to read and post their tweets through the web, short message service (SMS), and mobile applications. As a global real-time communications platform, X has more than 400 million monthly visitors and 255 million monthly active users around the world. X&rsquo;s active group of registered members includes World leaders, major athletes, star performers, news organizations, and entertainment outlets. It is currently available in more than 35 languages. X was launched in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass. X is headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, with local offices in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Boulder, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Sunnyvale, and Washington. X's international offices are located in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, London, Madrid, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, Seoul, Tokyo, Toronto, and Vancouver. </div>

Twitter Ventures

Giving creators the power of content monetization and audience engagement.

Creator Economy

Platforms that allow creators to share several types of content. Some platforms also offer fan engagement/ interactions with the creative artist via videos/ live streams.

Platforms that offer exclusive content to signed up members.

Platforms that allow creators to share their written works and blogs.

Platforms that provide tools to discover relevant analytics, produce content, engage with the audience, and help with the overall process.

Platforms that allow creators to share one of either videography, live streams, photos, music or audio podcasts with fan engagement capabilities.

Blockchain-based Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) allow creators to transfer ownership of their content via platforms that share proceeds with buyers, sellers, creators, and platforms via smart contracts.

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<div>
 X (previously known as Twitter) is implementing modifications to its creator revenue scheme. These include a system of monetization that doesn't involve advertising but instead depends on engagement from X Premium users.
 In this new scheme, revenue is produced not by advertisements but through the actions of Premium users such as replies, reposts, and likes on the content created by creators. X Premium users, recognizable by their blue checkmark badge, remain the only group on the platform that can be monetized. They maintain their engagement with both content that is without ads and content that is monetized. The charge for this subscription service commences at USD 8 per month.
 
</div> Analyst QuickTake: 
 X has claimed that the changes to its creator revenue program could result in higher revenues for content creators, as there is a push for more Premium subscriptions. Despite a previous report of a <a href="https: 
//mashable.com/article/twitter-x-revenue-falls-x-payments-plans"> nearly 40% drop </a> in revenue due to declining ad sales, X claims this new model will contribute to overall growth.

X

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