Investment firm Anzu Partners, which has a presence in Atlanta, closed its third venture fund and has already invested a large chunk of the proceeds into a dozen early-stage companies in the life sciences, clean technology and industrial technology sectors.
The 9-year-old firm announced early Tuesday that it raised $200 million for its Fund III from both new and existing investors that include public and private institutions and single and multifamily offices. About $123 million of the total has already been deployed and five of its 12 new investments are in clean tech firms, reflecting the firm’s “expanded commitment” to the sector, Anzu said in a news release.
Anzu was founded in D.C. but now lists five cities — D.C., Atlanta, Boston, San Diego and Tampa — as its headquarters.
Led by managing partners Whitney Haring-Smith, David Seldin and David Michael, it invests in companies through its venture funds and an emerging debt offering, typically from the seed stage to Series B rounds. It raised nearly $320 million in two previous funds that closed in 2017 and 2019, and two of its portfolio companies are now publicly traded.
Included in the roughly $1 billion in assets it now manages is a special-purpose acquisition company it formed in 2021. The SPAC entered into an agreement to merge with its target company, Minnesota medical device firm Envoy Medical Corp., in April and has until Sept. 30 to complete that deal. A shareholder vote is scheduled for Friday, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
As for its clean energy investments from its third fund, three are in startups focused on improving manufacturing of lithium batteries used in electric vehicles and for energy storage, one is in a firm developing software for electric vehicle charging stations and another is in a geothermal energy company.
Anzu also invested in four industrial technology startups and three life sciences companies.
