This week: D.E. Shaw launches venture studio, The 8200, more stealth startups revealed
This week: D.E. Shaw launches venture studio, The 8200, more stealth startups revealed
Plus: 88 new venture studios, 412 new startups, 3 new EIR roles
Venture studio news
D.E. Shaw, the secretive hedge fund, quietly launched a venture studio and 3 startups. While this is first hedge fund we’ve seen enter the studio asset class, D.E. Shaw has a long history of successful spinoffs (PR Newswire, Insurance Journal, see EIR role below)
Profile of Pioneer Square Labs. Discusses their playbook and success with corporate partnerships, including Kroger, Fortive and Rover (Innovation Leader)
Profile of The 8200, the elite cyber unit of the Israeli Defense Force. Makes the case it’s also one of the most successful startup incubators, having spawned Palo Alto Networks, NSO, Check Point Software, CyberArk, Wix and Taboola (The Diff - $)
Who are venture studios hiring to lead their startups? Our recent post analyzes the backgrounds of founders who venture studios recruit to lead their startups. Biggest takeaways:
Most of the top studio startups are led by first time founders
Compared to non-studio unicorns, studio founders are more likely to be first time founders, and less likely to have a STEM degree or have attended a top 10 university
Studios are recruiting increasingly younger founders for their B2B startups, and increasingly more experienced founders for their B2C startups
Pre-launch startup EIR / CEO roles
D.E. Shaw DESCOvery - Entrepreneur in residence
“…explores unique opportunities to build out innovative, non-asset management technology-oriented businesses and ventures in areas such as fintech, insurtech, and data”Diagram Ventures - Founder & CEO, New Venture: Carbon Credit Solutions
”Our new venture aims to help asset owners (municipalities, industrial complexes, retailers) identify carbon credit development opportunities, find appropriate financing, plan and carry out the required work, and automate the credit issuance & sale process”Redesign Health - Chief Executive Officer
“Redesign Health is launching a new venture, StealthCo, a platform purpose-built for acquiring, converting, and managing pediatric physician practices in Medicaid value-based care arrangements”
Database additions
This week we added 88 additional venture studios and 412 startups to the database, which now totals 261 studios and 1,265 startups.
Please note many recently launched studios and startups are still in stealth, so recent years are understated.
Notable studio additions:
No longer launching startups, but one of the original studios, founded in 1999, based in New York
10 total startups, raised $865mm, employing 18,601 people
Studio team of 79, founded in 2018, based in Israel
10 total startups, raised $2.4b, employing 1,717 people
Studio team of 465, founded in 2000, based in Cambridge, MA
31 total startups, raised $10.7b, employing 10,762 people
Venture capital firm with a history of incubating startups via EIR roles, founded in 1965, based in Menlo Park
At least 10 incubated startups, raised $1.2B, employing 2,733 people
Studio team of 15, founded in 2008, based in Berlin
6 total startups, raised $12.4b, employing 27,674 people
Venture capital firm with a history of incubating startups via EIR roles, founded in 2009, based in New York
At least 10 incubated startups, raised $3.0b, employing 4,091 people
Data according to Crunchbase, LinkedIn and studio portfolio pages. See data methodology and limitations for more info.
We continually identify studios and startups from our team of researchers and submissions from the community. Please contact data@venturestudioindex.com or reply to this email with any additions.