Betaworks’ third fund closes at $66M to put money into early-stage AI startups

New York Metropolis-based Betaworks has closed its $66 million Fund III, which can give attention to investing in early-stage AI corporations. 

Betaworks has been investing in AI since at the least 2016 and, by way of its funding program Camp, has backed corporations similar to Huggingface and Granola. Jordan Criminal, a accomplice on the agency (and former TechCrunch worker), mentioned the brand new fund will give attention to brokers, native AI interfaces, and application-layer AI. 

“Round these themes, we are going to proceed to do straight seed investing and the Betaworks Camps,” Criminal mentioned. 

Fund III will search to put money into at the least 25 pre-seed to seed investments, in addition to make at the least 50 investments into startups as a part of the Betaworks Camps program. “To date, we’ve finished round 37 offers,” Criminal mentioned, including that the common verify dimension was round $500,000. 

Criminal known as the present fundraising atmosphere “frothy” for startups, and “spiky” for funds, however she famous that Fund III noticed lots of the agency’s earlier restricted companions returning to speculate. 

“The fundraising atmosphere in enterprise was difficult in 2024, and we weren’t exempt, on condition that we had been upsizing our fund,” she mentioned.

Betaworks beforehand raised a $46 million Fund II in 2020, and a $48 million Fund I in 2016. It launched in 2008 as a enterprise studio, and has since change into a staple within the New York Metropolis tech ecosystem, launching its Betaworks Camps program in 2016. The agency’s different notable investments embody Tumblr and Kickstarter.