This startup incubator just raised $22 million from Jerry Yang and Paul Maritz by focusing on one area
REUTERS/Rick Wilking
On the surface, The Hive looks like a conventional Silicon Valley incubator. It provides funding, networking, and advice to early stage startups.
But there's a hook: it only looks for companies that leverage serious data science technology.
That focused helped The Hive raise $22 million for its second fund on Thursday, with backing number of Silicon Valley bigwigs, including Pivotal CEO Paul Maritz and Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang.
"We believe that applications of data will really be the next big frontier of the tech industry," T.M. Ravi, cofounder and Managing Director of The Hive told Business Insider. "There's going to be radical transformation in the next 5 to 10 years with the use of data."
Ravi is not alone in this belief.
Tons of companies are springing up that promise to help enterprises make sense of the flood of data from new sources, like the moves that people make as they visit web sites (this data is useful for online advertising), or information collected by millions of tiny sensors (useful for factories or other industrial facilities). The systems to collect, organize, and analyze this data are often lumped under the buzzy term "big data."
Ravi says although his investment is hyper-focused on data-driven companies, it will span multiple industries from advertising and marketing to security and financial services.
For example, its first company to exit was a commerce-recommendation startup called Kosei, which was acquired by Pinterest in January. Earlier this week, The Hive saw another one of its portfolio companies called E8 Security receive Series A funding of $9.8 million.
The Hive only invested in 11 companies with its previous fund. With its second fund, Ravi plans to invest in about 10 companies, as well. Each investment will be in the range of $1.5 million to $2 million, which is significantly higher than most incubators.
Another interesting angle of The Hive is that it recruits potential entrepreneurs on its own once it finds an interesting idea to invest in. Its in-house team has years of experience and networks in Silicon Valley that makes it relatively easy to find the right candidate at companies like Google and Facebook, Ravi says. "It's why we also call ourselves a co-creation studio," he says.
And that means big shot investors like Maritz and Yang also self-select who they want to invest in. Ravi says they're not just financially involved but very actively engaged with the entrepreneurs.
"What is so compelling about The Hive is that it aligns the portfolio with the interests of founders, advisors, and investors, while directly applying their deep entrepreneurial and business expertise to help entrepreneurs move through company building, business design and go-to-market," Maritz said in a statement.
- Colon cancer rates are rising in young people. If you have two symptoms you should get a colonoscopy, a GI oncologist says.
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- An Ambani disruption in OTT: At just ₹1 per day, you can now enjoy ad-free content on JioCinema
- In second consecutive week of decline, forex kitty drops $2.28 bn to $640.33 bn
- SBI Life Q4 profit rises 4% to ₹811 crore
- IMD predicts severe heatwave conditions over East, South Peninsular India for next five days
- COVID lockdown-related school disruptions will continue to worsen students’ exam results into the 2030s: study
- India legend Yuvraj Singh named ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 ambassador
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market