San Francisco venture capital firm SignalFire announced Wednesday it has closed on more than $900 million in new funding to boost investments across its portfolio, with a great emphasis on AI.
The new funding effectively doubles its total assets under its management to over $1.8 billion.
The firm will be "doubling down" on its target sectors, founding partner Chris Farmer wrote in a blog post announcing the raise. Those sectors include health care, cybersecurity, developer tools, enterprise infrastructure, fintech and consumer.
Additionally, SignalFire will be "seeking out opportunities for AI to revolutionize these industries," Farmer wrote.
Farmer founded SignalFire in 2013 on the premise that machine learning and artificial intelligence could give the firm a competitive advantage for its own investment strategy, though he sees the technology as a tool and not a replacement for human decision-making.
"The explosive growth of company formation inside and outside of traditional startup hubs makes it impossible to keep human eyes on everything," Farmer wrote. "AI can’t tell you who to fund, but it can absolutely tell you who to talk to."
The firm is also focused on investing in seed through Series B rounds, and the new funds will be spread across the firm's Seed, Breakout and Opportunities funds, as well as its "Executive-in-Residence" (or XIR) program, which it also announced on Wednesday.
The XIR program will match up tech executives with what is calls "high-potential" companies in its portfolio for mentoring around topics like fundraising, hiring, product and sales, according to the announcement.
Its first cohort of executives-in-residence include:
- Former Splunk CEO Doug Merritt
- Former Evolent Health CEO Frank Williams
- Former Evolent COO Tom Peterson
- Former CPO of Blue Kai Alex Hooshmand
- Former Qualifacts CEO David Klements
- Former president of Tenable Jack Huffard
