As we dive into 2022, our team at Newark Venture Partners wanted to take a moment to reflect on the wild ride that was 2021. While last year presented continued challenges due to the pandemic, NVP embraced the changes, retooled, and ultimately came out stronger than ever.
In 2021 we added:
- 1 new fund
- 1 new Partner
- 3 new family members
- 9 new portfolio companies
- And we celebrated all types of raises, exits, and more!
It all started in February when we officially added long-time fund advisor and friend, Vaughn Crowe to our team of Managing Partners. He got off to a running start helping us to raise our sophomore fund and providing expert operating advice to our portfolio companies.
With Vaughn’s leadership, we closed our second fund at $88 million, more than 2x our first fund, with an incredible group of LP’s including Prudential, RWJBarnabas, Audible, Rutgers University endowment, Ford Foundation, and additional family offices.
Last year we also doubled down on our mission to find and support the most promising founders in B2B software with thematically driven investments. We backed companies including Backbone.ai, Clockwork, Gearflow, Miter, Ocean Freight Exchange, PairTeam, Podsights, Walnut, Wax Insurance, and Zaya Care alongside some of the best funds and investors in the business, such as Greycroft, Union Square Ventures, Slow Ventures, Serena Ventures, MAC Venture Capital, Boldstart Ventures, Fika Ventures, and others. Together, our companies raised over $210M in follow-on funds in 2021 alone.
And core to our mission, we continued our commitment to our community here in Newark, including a deeper partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Newark and renewed commitments to our ongoing relationships with the All Stars of New Jersey and the Black Venture Capital Consortium. Not to be outdone, our portfolio companies including ABF Creative, 1Huddle, Clockwork, MoCaFi, POM, Equiva and Agilis continue to be committed to building their businesses in Newark alongside NVP. We expect to see the local tech ecosystem thrive in 2022 coming out of the pandemic.
We also celebrated several personal milestones. Both of our NVP Principals, Joanne and Allison, as well as our head of communications, Jen, welcomed new additions to their families.
Our team at NVP is excited to build on this success with our growing team (we’re hiring an associate – link is here!). Special thanks to our whole crew, Dan, Tom, Vaughn, Joanne, Allison, Brandi, Sean, Kevin, Jen, Dan Crain and extended family Brian Aoaeh and Michelle Morris – and looking forward to accomplishing more big things together!
