Revolution closes second Rise of the Rest Seed Fund with $150M to invest in early-stage companies

Two years after launching the first Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, D.C.-based Revolution said Monday that it closed a second $150 million fund to invest in early-stage companies that are based outside Silicon Valley, New York and Boston.

The second fund received investment from business leaders in the region including Monumental Sports and Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis, Carlyle Group CEO David Rubenstein and Under Armour founder Kevin Plank. The list of big names backing the fund also include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Eric Schmidt and former U.S. CTO Megan Smith.

BREAKING: #RiseOfRest announces second $150 million fund, to back 100 entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley, at ⁦@ForbesUnder30⁩ summit in #Detroit #ForbesUnder30 https://t.co/jxWJht4j0S

— Steve Case (@SteveCase) October 28, 2019

For Revolution, the new fund will be led by Managing Partner David Hall, with partners Anna Mason and Mary Grove also taking on expanded roles.

“At the launch of our first Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, we were confident that we could identify a wide range of promising startups based outside of Silicon Valley,” said Steve Case, the AOL cofounder and CEO of Revolution, in a statement. “But the results to date have exceeded our most optimistic expectations. We have made initial investments at a faster pace than we originally anticipated, and we’re seeing a stepped up pace of follow-on investments in companies that have scaled faster than expected.

The money in the new fund will be invested in new companies to the Rise of the Rest portfolio, Revolution said. Going forward, the remaining funds from the first Rise of the Rest Seed Fund will be reserved to contribute follow-on funding to the startups that the fund backed.

The fund formed a formal venture arm to go alongside the Rise of the Rest bus tours, which Case began taking in 2014 to connect startup communities around the country.

Rise of the Rest Seed Fund’s first fund backed more than 120 companies, with those coming from about 70 cities and 32 states. The D.C. area, where Revolution is based, is well-represented among those companies.

Here’s a look at the startups in the region that received investment from the first Fund:

• Aurora Insight
• Chase Therapeutics
• Fiscal Note
• Hatch Apps
• Healthcare Interactive
• ICX Media
• Insightin Health
• Ledger Investing
• LiveSafe
• Lynk
• Ordway
• Rize
• Upside Travel
• Upskill
• WhyHotel
• Wirewheel