D.C. tech accelerator Dcode appears to be planning to raise money for a new fund for its 2-year-old investment vehicle, Dcode Capital.
That’s according to a document filed this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission, where the firm indicated plans to raise $50 million for what it labeled as a venture capital fund, dubbed Dcode Capital Fund I LP. Executives didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the filing, though firms that are actively raising for a fund can often be limited in their ability to make public comments during that process.
It’s unclear if this would be the Dcode venture arm’s first major fund — this represents the first such filing for the D.C. firm.
The tech accelerator advises its tech clients on getting into the government contracting market, teaches government organizations how to innovate their technology and connect with tech firms, VCs and industry partners, and works with bigger companies like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) to connect them with government and tech leaders.
Alumni of its programs include Rockville’s Sepio Systems, D.C.’s Virtru, D.C.’s Mapbox and Arlington’s Distil Networks, among others. Dcode has worked with more than 100 companies across industries that include cybersecurity, analytics, artificial intelligence and space tech. Its partner companies have raised a combined total of more than $19 billion; at least 18 of those firms are unicorns, according to Dcode’s website.
“We saw a really great opportunity,” Meg Vorland, Dcode's chief strategy officer told the Washington Business Journal in 2021 about the firm’s newly formalized investment arm. “We had been starting to make investments anyway, so this was actually a new business. A lot of companies started getting a lot of term sheets, so things started clipping quickly.”
This month, Dcode Capital announced that it had taken part in a larger $25 million Series B funding round for Berkeley, California’s UrbanFootprint. The data and intelligence company said it helps governments, real estate companies and other organizations make informed decisions about environmentally friendly urban planning.
As of April 2020, Dcode Capital said it had invested more than $3 million in such companies as Arlington data analytics firm Stardog and San Francisco data transformation company Trifacta.
Vorland co-foudned Dcode with CEO Meagan Metzger, who is a former Washington Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree.
