Augment Ventures January 2023 Update

2023 Outlook and Trends

The Augment team is extremely excited about what is in store for both our current portfolio companies and new investments in 2023.

Below are a few trends we believe are relevant and our assessment on how they may affect our portfolio:

Valuation Compression
While there will be continued downward pressure on valuations for later-stage companies looking to raise additional funds or exit, early-stage companies (pre-Seed to Series A) will see sustained ability to raise capital. Click here for PitchBook’s analysis.

Augment’s Take: The majority of our active portfolio companies has either recently raised funds, is in the process of closing a new round or is well-positioned to raise funds at increased valuations. We are excited about the trajectory of our Fund II and Fund III.

Climate Tech Tailwinds
With the initial excitement of the Inflation Reduction Act now tempered, governmental agencies, investors, scientists, and entrepreneurs are hard at work planning how to best deploy the ~$400 billion of funding. Read PwCs and PitchBook’s analysis.

Augment’s Take: Current climate tech portfolio companies LARQ, Perennial, and Flume will continue to have solid access to new funding sources and increased interest in their products and services. In addition, we are excited by the promising climate tech companies we are tracking in our pipeline.

Evolution of Web3 and the Metaverse
With the “crypto winter” upon us, investor and founder focus has shifted away from crypto currencies and NFTs into other Web3 technologies such as blockchain and the metaverse. Read multiple takes on the metaverse by McKinsey and Fast Company.

Augment’s Take: Our recent investment in Fluree underscores our belief that distributed ledger technologies will improve enterprise data infrastructure. Also, we are actively tracking the metaverse space and how its related technologies will see increased development, accessibility, and adoption.

Spotlight: Winter Venture Fellow

Austin Kautzer is a second year MBA student at Harvard Business School. He joined Augment in the Fall of 2022 and will continue his fellowship this Winter. He started his career at Ford Motor Company in product development and strategy roles, including electric vehicle strategic planning.

He has assisted the team in company and market diligence as well as analysis in support of our thematic research.

Austin will be joining the Detroit office of the Boston Consulting Group this Spring.

In the News

Guardhat Named an OHS 2022 Product of the Year
Occupational Health & Safety magazine named Guardhat’s Gas Detection and Analytics Solution as its Emergency Response product of the year. You can read the full list here.

Rivet Launches Several New Product Features
Newly launched features include an employee bench, enhanced job scheduling, richer dispatch messaging, and other tweaks. The full release can be found here.

Al Pacha