One of Pittsburgh’s biggest venture capital firms is on track to at least match its 2020 pace. Draper Triangle Ventures did follow-through funding to nine portfolio companies last year and has announced five so far in 2021, Jay Katarincic, managing director, said on Wednesday.
But more are coming in the final three months with at least two Pittsburgh deals, he said.
“It’s very similar,” Katarincic said, though he didn’t reveal dollar figures nor identify the local companies.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, Draper pumped $75 million into portfolio companies, its largest quarter ever.
Two of its portfolio companies announced large capital raises this week. On Tuesday, fintech firm Alviere raised $70 million and Aware, which uses AI to manage data governance, closed on $60 million on Wednesday. Neither is based in southwestern Pennsylvania. Draper did not say how much it invested.
Draper, founded in 1999, is No. 7 by capital under management, at $205 million, on the Business Times’ ranking of the region’s largest private equity and venture capital firms that was published on April 16. It has not made new investments for the past few years.
Katarincic and fellow Draper vets Zach Malone and Michael Stubler in March announced that they had joined with Will Allen, philanthropist, investor and former Pittsburgh Steeler, to launch Magarac Venture Partners, a new fund that seeks to raise as much as $150 million and whose largely Midwest footprint is expected to extend a bit beyond Draper’s core of western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.
Stubler led Draper's investments in both Alviere and Aware.
The recent local pickup in high-profile exits, via public offerings or going public through merging with a special purpose acquisition company, is good news for Draper.
“Obviously, any type of exit is fantastic,” Katarincic said. “That has the added benefit of investors being rewarded and typically putting at least a portion of the capital into their next deals.”
