2017 Year in Review for Fontinalis Partners
With five exits and seven new investments, this was our busiest year yet.
January is a transitional month as people turn their attention to the year that lies ahead, and each year we try to adhere to the socially acceptable window of time to talk about the year that has passed (the standard cutoff is usually about a week or two into the new year) — but humor us as we stretch that window out a bit further this year.
You see, 2017 was our most exciting year yet, full of major developments in both our portfolio and the broader mobility ecosystem. We sprinted to the end of the year, only to be caught up in the hustle and bustle of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) that marks the beginning of each new year.
Now, with a temporary breather, we thought would share with you what Fontinalis Partners (and — more importantly — our portfolio companies) was busy with this past year.
Five Successful Exits
Every company has its ups and downs and even the biggest technology companies in history have their own stories of enduring challenges on their way to success. As an investor, when you get it just right and back the right team in the right space at the right time, you find that the highs greatly exceed the lows; and when it comes time to sell the company, it can actually be hard to part with it — no matter the price. On that note, we want to congratulate the following tremendous, hard-to-part-with teams on their successful exits this year:
· nuTonomy was acquired by Delphi/Aptiv — Fontinalis was the only institutional investor in both the seed and Series A rounds, and was an active board member of the company. Press release
· Parkmobile was acquired by BMW— Fontinalis’ first investment as a firm back in 2010, Parkmobile grew from a single U.S. deployment to the national leader in pay-by-phone parking. Fontinalis was active on the board during the course of its investment. Press release
· TransLoc was acquired by Ford Smart Mobility — Fontinalis co-led the Series A financing in March 2016, and actively served on the board for two years. News article
· Classics&Exotics was acquired by Hagerty Insurance — Fontinalis was a seed-stage investor and advisor to the company during the 2015 cohort of the Techstars Mobility program. News article
In addition to the above four exits, we would like to congratulate a fifth company, whose sale transaction has been completed and will be announced in the near future. [UPDATE 2/21/18: We can now share that the fifth exit was portfolio company SPLT, which was acquired by Robert Bosch.]
Seven New Investments (and Several Follow-Ons)
While we are parting with five wonderful portfolio companies, 2017 also saw us welcome seven new companies to the portfolio, including:
· Humatics — Breakthrough microlocation platform revolutionizing how people and machines locate, navigate, and collaborate. Fontinalis led the oversubscribed $18 million Series A financing. Read more
· FreightWaves (formerly TransRisk)— Data, analytics, and risk management tools for the road freight industry. Fontinalis led the oversubscribed $3.4 million seed financing. Read more
· ClimaCell — Hyper-local weather forecasting capable of providing city-block-level granularity. Canaan Partners led the oversubscribed $15 million Series A financing, with participation from Fontinalis Partners and others. Read more
· Ouster — LiDAR sensors for autonomous vehicles with industry-leading performance, cost, and scalability. Cox Enterprises led the oversubscribed $27.4 million Series A financing, with participation from Fontinalis Partners and others. Read more
Seed Investments
· Stae — Software to help the public sector collect, manage, and process data about its infrastructure. Fontinalis participated in the company’s $1.5 million seed financing. Read more
· RightHook — Simulation software for development of autonomous vehicles. Fontinalis participated in the company’s $2 million seed financing. Read more
In addition to the six companies above, we completed a seed investment in a stealth company (more on that one soon!) and supported numerous existing portfolio companies with follow-on investments as they continued to achieve key milestones.
We are already off to a running start in 2018, and look forward to exceeding the bar set in 2017. On behalf of our partnership, we would like to wish each and every one of our entrepreneurs, portfolio companies, limited partners, syndicate partners, and industry contacts a wonderful year ahead. Cheers!
