Goldman Sachs Unit Invests in Plaid, Databricks Company Stakes

Venture capital (VC) firm NEA has reportedly created a $540 million continuation vehicle that has drawn as investors Goldman Sachs Group ’s alternatives unit, Industry Ventures , Pathway Capital Management and Goanna Capital .

The transaction enables NEA to give its limited partners some liquidity at a time when alternative-asset managers are working to distribute cash to institutional investors amid a lull in exit activity, Bloomberg reported Monday (July 15).

The vehicle includes stakes in 11 companies in NEA’s portfolio, including Databricks , Plaid and Tempus , according to the report.

Databricks accounts for about 38% of the vehicle, while Plaid comprises 10%, per the report.

It was reported on July 3 that venture funding reached its highest quarterly total in two years in the second quarter, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) projects.

With venture capital investments coming to $55.6 billion, the quarter saw a 47% increase over the $37.8 billion startups in the U.S. took in during the first quarter.

Among the contributors to the second quarter’s total were major investments in AI firms, including the $6 billion raised by Elon Musk’s xAI and the $1.1 billion raised by CoreWeave .

VC funding hit a record high of $97.5 billion in the closing quarter of 2021 and a record low of $35.4 billion in the second quarter of 2023.

While the recent trend marks a recovery for VC funding, the initial public offering (IPO) market remains tepid.

On July 10, VC firm Index Ventures announced that it raised $2.3 billion for AI projects, saying it would divide that into two funds: $800 million earmarked for early-stage startups and the remainder for latter-stage companies.

Index has studied the impact of AI on fields ranging from accounting to molecular research to data center optimization.

On July 8, Geneva-based VC firm Forestay Capital announced the closure of its second fund at $220 million, saying Forestay II will focus on investments in the enterprise AI and software-as-a-service (SaaS) sectors, targeting early-growth companies typically making lead investments in the $10 million to $15 million range.

The company’s first fund, Forestay I, invested in 13 companies, with three achieving unicorn status (valuation exceeding $1 billion) and two acquisitions.