Two Sigma Ventures III is ready to go

Two Sigma Ventures announced the close of Two Sigma Ventures III, LP, a $288 million venture capital fund focused on investing in early-stage, data-driven startups across a wide variety of industries. The new fund exceeded its initial fundraising target and is Two Sigma’s first venture capital fund raised primarily from external investors, including a diverse group of endowments, foundations, pensions, and others.

Established in 2012, Two Sigma Ventures invests in high-growth technology companies that leverage data science and advanced engineering. To date, Two Sigma Ventures has invested in over 70 companies across enterprise and consumer software, AI-powered applications, infrastructure and developer tools, and data-driven biotech and healthcare. Two Sigma’s broader employee network of over 1,700 data scientists, engineers, and other industry experts provide extensive support to Two Sigma Ventures’ portfolio companies.

“We believe data science and technology are two of the central forces driving breakthroughs in many industries, and that they will be key ingredients in the creation of some of the most important businesses of our lifetime. Over the past eight years we’ve seen our thesis of how visionary founders can combine data science and computing to build transformative companies take hold—perhaps even more quickly than we anticipated.” – Colin Beirne, Partner at Two Sigma Ventures.

“As part of Two Sigma, we have always believed we could do venture capital differently . We are extremely thankful and humbled to have backed such an incredible group of dedicated and passionate founders and operators over the years, who continue to prove our belief that every industry and sector will be affected by the data revolution.” – Lindsey Gray, Partner at Two Sigma Ventures.

Two Sigma Ventures is led by four partners: Colin Beirne, who helped launch the business in 2012; Dan Abelon, who previously co-founded SpeedDate and grew the site to 23 million users before being acquired by IAC; Lindsey Gray, who helped launch and lead the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute; and Villi Iltchev, who was previously a General Partner at August Capital.

Two Sigma Ventures is headquartered in New York City, with a presence in San Francisco, and invests actively across the U.S. and in select international opportunities. Recent investments include Firedome (an IoT endpoint security company), NewtonX (an AI-powered expert search engine), Radar (a location data infrastructure company), and Terray Therapeutics (an AIpowered drug discovery platform).