Fitz Gate Ventures (www.fitzgate.com) announced today that it has completed fundraising for its third venture capital fund, with Rice University’s Office of Innovation as one of its anchor investors. Total AUM across Fitz Gate’s three funds is now approximately $70 million. Fitz Gate Ventures III is an early-stage generalist fund with a sub-focus on deep tech. An example of a deep tech investment is the photonic fabric startup Celestial AI which announced this month that it was being acquired by Marvell Technology, Inc. for up to $5.5 billion. Fitz Gate Ventures II led Celestial AI’s seed+ round five years ago.

Fitz Gate will write initial checks of $500,000 to $1 million, reserving for follow-ons and will lead rounds, co-invest or invest alone. Some of the best venture capital firms in the world have invested in Fitz Gate portfolio companies after Fitz Gate. Fitz Gate has invested in a broad range of different technologies, from chips and meta materials to quantum computing (Fitz Gate was the first institutional investor in Quantum Circuits, Inc.). Fitz Gate has also backed startups that have licensed intellectual property from leading academic centers such as Princeton, Yale, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Virginia Tech, Baylor College of Medicine, Vanderbilt and others.

Fitz Gate’s investment model is differentiated from many other VC firms due to its vast “Friends of Fitz” network comprised of hundreds of founders, venture capitalists, university faculty, Fortune 500 executives and other subject matter experts who not only assist Fitz Gate in sourcing and evaluating startups but also help Fitz Gate’s portfolio company founders by making introductions to customers, partners and sources of capital, including other VCs.

Fitz Gate’s general partners, Jim Cohen and Mark Poag, have taught venture capital investing at Princeton University’s Graduate School and Rice University’s Jones School of Business for the last 7 years. At Princeton, Jim and Mark were each awarded the Clio Award in recognition of their contributions to graduate student education.

About Fitz Gate Ventures

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Fitz Gate Ventures has backed some of the most innovative companies in the world from quantum and photonics to robotics. Fitz Gate will lead, co-invest or invest alone.