Avanta Ventures will not make new investments but managing partner Sanjiv Parikh will remain at the unit to manage the existing portfolio.
The Avanta Ventures team. Image courtesy of Avanta Ventures.
Avanta Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of US insurance firm CSAA, is being wound down as the company shifts its focus to venture building and other types of innovation.
The investment team will leave the company by the beginning of March, with the exception of Sanjiv Parikh, Avanta Ventures’ managing partner, who will stay at the subsidiary to manage CSAA’s existing partnerships with portfolio companies. While there will be no further investments, CSAA will retain the startup portfolio rather than selling it on the secondary market.
CSAA will continue to run its strategy, business development and venture-building operations, headed by Debra Brackeen, CSAA’s chief strategy and innovation officer, who will remain in her position.
“I am proud of the Avanta team and the important contributions they have made to the company during the last several years, and we will continue to support our portfolio companies as we believe in their potential to change the game,” said Brackeen, who was part of GCV Powerlist last year.
Founded in 2017, Avanta Ventures invested in US insurance, mobility, financial, cybersecurity and smart home technology developers from seed to series B stages. It launched a second fund sized at $225m in 2022, bringing its total capital under management to $300m.
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The corporate VC unit has nearly 20 active portfolio companies and scored an exit when connected car platform Automatic was acquired by broadcaster SiriusXM in 2017 for over $100m.
Home insurance policy provider Kin Insurance and emergency response data platform RapidSOS are part of Avanta Ventures’ current portfolio, as are supply chain integrity management service Overhaul and Motorq, which collects and analyses connected car data for fleets, insurers and government agencies.
Last year, GCV named David Li, currently a senior principal at Avanta Ventures, as an Emerging Leader while Pooja Shah, a senior associate at the unit, was a GCV Rising Star in 2022.
