A Durham venture capital firm just saw its fifth exit in six months – and more could be on the way.
That’s according to Bull City Venture Partners’ co-founder Jason Caplain, who called the buyout of Even, a California-based fintech, a good outcome for Bull City Venture Partners – though he declined to give financial terms.
A fintech, called Hazel, created and backed by Walmart (NYSE: WMT) announced Wednesday that it is acquiring two companies, including Even. The combined company will be called One, after the name of the other firm it’s acquiring.
Even has several ties to Raleigh. The company picked Raleigh over Atlanta and Tampa for its East Coast headquarters in 2018 following its investment by Bull City Venture Partners. And Even CEO Quinten Farmer is a native of Raleigh and a graduate of North Carolina State University.
Farmer was not immediately available to talk about the exit.
A look at Bull City Ventures’ other recent exits:
- ReverbNation: The music distribution and marketing software firm based in Durham was acquired by BandLab
- Attila Security: The Maryland cybersecurity firm was acquired by ID Technologies
- Spoonflower: The on-demand digital printing company in Durham was acquired by Shutterfly
- The firm also completed a partial exit in a confidential transaction in 2021.
Caplain said the firm is already scouring for its next deal, and that includes in the Triangle where many of its portfolio companies, including its most recent investment, Durham toy subscription startup Tiny Earth Toys, resides.
Caplain said that pre-pandemic Bull City saw about 1,400 companies per year. As its partners have resumed traveling, he expects to reach somewhere close to that number.
The seed and early stage investor typically targets software and internet companies in the Southeast, writing checks between $250,000 and $2 million.
Even partners with Fortune 500 companies, offering apps that integrate with attendance, payroll and banking systems to help enterprise employees understand their financial health. It offers budgeting apps that help employees automatically save money out of their paychecks. And its relationship with Walmart goes back a few years. In 2018, Farmer told TBJ that 15 percent of Walmart’s employees were using Even.