Unlock Venture Partners Raises $60 Million For Startups In L.A. And Seattle:
Unlock Venture Partners.When Sanjay Reddy and Andy Liu met in 2007, they had a lot in common. Both were angel investors. Both had founded entertainment startups and both had built their entire venture careers outside of Silicon Valley. Reddy, based in Los Angeles, was personally leading the Series A for Liu’s Seattle-based startup, BuddyTV, a website that helped people find things to watch, through his role at Gemstar-TV Guide.
. “There is a tremendous amount of world class entrepreneurial talent in Seattle and in L.A. There is a lot of entrepreneurial drive to create new companies from folks who have moved into the city and that's not matched with the availability of capital.” Reddy adds that while Seattle is a mere two-hour flight from the Valley — and L.A. being even closer than that — early-stage investors weren’t willing to make that trip.
The firm raised $60 million for its second fund, bringing its total capital raised to $85 million, as originally reported in. The fund will invest in pre-seed and seed-stage companies with money saved for potential follow-ons. Unlock decided to focus on the earliest stages because the partners think that is where they can make the largest impact because of their operational and angel investing experience, Reddy says. It also is where the two ecosystems need the most support.
The firm targets L.A. and Seattle with partners based in each locality as well as other cities across the West Coast. The firm plans on making investments in sectors including web3, the metaverse, and gaming, among others, and into companies utilizing data and AI. The firm won’t silo itself to those areas though, as it tries to be founder-led and frequently invests off of warm introductions from entrepreneurs they have backed before. “We are extremely entrepreneurial driven,” Liu says.
The firm has invested in 37 companies thus far. Unlock has seen four of its investments from Fund I get acquired including enterprise messaging platform Chatitive, purchased by marketing automation platform Mailchimp last year, and adtech startup Downstream, sold to Jungle Scout, which offers tools to Amazon third-party sellers, in 2021.
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