Seed-stage startups focused on business-to-business have another source of capital to go after. Monta Vista Capital<\/a> secured $48 million in capital commitments for its third fund \u2014 its largest to date \u2014 to support B2B startups.<\/p>\n The Silicon Valley firm was founded by Venktesh Shukla, who started investing at the angel stage as part of entrepreneurship group TiE Silicon Valley, also serving as a former president. He is the current chair of TiE Global.<\/p>\n Venktesh Shukla, Monta Vista Capital, venture capital<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Shukla and his group of partners, including Roger Krakoff, general partner, have expertise in the areas of AI, cloud, security and data. They take a team approach to investing and often do so at the pre-revenue stage. Monta Vista targets startups in infrastructure, vertical SaaS and digital transformation of industries, like mining and textiles.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have these deep, deep domain experts that we rely on for diligence and for the judgment call before we make the investment,\u201d Shukla told TechCrunch. \u201cAnd, unlike most of the seed funds, which typically have a one-person operation fund of this size, we believe that investing is a team sport. We collectively make a decision so we have the agility of a small fund, but all the resources of a very big fund.\u201d<\/p>\n Also setting Monta Vista apart is that the firm doesn\u2019t raise capital from institutional investors, but rather leverages a large network of 65 individual investors. Shukla calls the network the firm\u2019s \u201csecret superpower,\u201d and that this network gives the firm its deal flow, diligence and portfolio company support. Monta Vista has now raised $72.8 million across the three funds.<\/p>\n Though the third fund is $48 million, securing some of that capital is somewhat exclusive. Monta Vista made only 12 investments from its second fund and plans to invest in 15 companies with the third fund. That said, the firm will put in around $1 million to $2 million into each company, Shukla said. This year, Monta Vista is on track to invest in about five companies.<\/p>\n Previous investments include marketing tech company Captiv8<\/a>, customs clearance company KlearNow<\/a> and Eridan<\/a>, a mobile infrastructure company.<\/p>\n Monta Vista also had some successes from its earlier funds, including API security company Cequence Security<\/a>, which raised a Series C in 2021, and Tekion<\/a>, an automotive retail platform that announced a $250 million Series D, also in 2021. Another is Nyansa, a company doing mobility performance management of enterprise wireless networks, was acquired by VMWare in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a fun experience,\u201d Shukla said. \u201cEven with all the doom-and-gloom going on, the innovation train does not stop. Whether it\u2019s good times or bad times, the good entrepreneurs have very compelling ideas, and that\u2019s our goal \u2014 to find those compelling ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Venktesh](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Venktesh-04.a-Updated-2023-540x540-color-v1.1.jpg\")
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