SOSV is a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

firm that provides pre-seed, seed, venture and growth stage funding to

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

in the technology sector. The company conducts seed accelerator programs in Asia and the United States of America. SOSV was founded in 1995 by Sean O'Sullivan. It is headquartered in

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

, New Jersey, with operations in Cork, Ireland, and offices in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major Sub-provincial division, sub-provincial city and one of the Special economic zones of China, special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pea ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, and Newark.

History

In July 2018, then governor of New York state

Mario Cuomo Mario Matthew Cuomo (, ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as ...

announced that the state would invest $25 million in an IndieBio facility in

. In December 2020,

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximat ...

's former COO, Ned Desmond joined SOSV as senior operating partner. As of November 2021, SOSV has backed approximately 150 startups that are developing climate technologies, with a focus on the transport, supply chain, logistics, and agriculture sectors. In September 2021, the

New Jersey Economic Development Authority The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) is an independent government entity in the U.S. state of New Jersey dedicated to broadening and expanding the state's economic base. The EDA creates public-private partnerships to provide acces ...

announced that the state was investing $25 million to establish a HAX location in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

Investments

SOSV invests in startups that specialize in deep tech, including climate and health, as well as enterprise and consumer in emerging markets. Notable companies within its portfolio include

Opentrons Opentrons is an open source liquid handling robot and can be used by life scientists to manipulate small volumes of liquids for the purpose of undertaking biochemical reactions. The instrument is used primarily by researchers and scientists interest ...

, Formlabs, Perfect Day,

NotCo NotCo is a unicorn Chilean food-tech company producing plant-based alternatives to animal-based food products. NotCo was founded in 2015 by Matias Muchnick, Pablo Zamora and Karim Pichara and utilizes machine learning to replicate dairy produ ...

, Upside Foods,

The EVERY Company The EVERY Company (formerly ''Clara Foods Co.'') is an American biotechnology company that develops proteins and other products traditionally sourced from animals. It does this by using yeast to convert sugar into proteins that are similar to th ...

, and BitMEX. In 2020, SOSV closed its fourth fund totalling $277 million. In 2021, SOSV closed a $100 million Select Fund.

Programmes

SOSV runs the following programmes: *dlab (New York) - an accelerator for startups working on decentralized software technology (blockchain). * HAX (formerly Haxlr8r, Shenzhen and Newark) - a development program for hardware-based startups at seed and growth stage. *IndieBio (San Francisco and New York) - a startup development program for startups operating in the life sciences sector. *Orbit Startups (formerly Chinaccelerator and MOX, Shanghai and Taipei) - focuses on high growth, early stage startups in emerging markets.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
Financial services companies established in 1995 Venture capital firms of the United States Startup accelerators