Embark Ventures
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Embark is a competent but quiet deep tech fund that actually knows what they're doing in robotics and industrial automation. They're one of the very few deep tech/frontier tech focused investors in LA, writing $500K-$1M checks into pre-product companies with important science behind them. Their portfolio companies like Machina Labs ($124M Series C) and SafeAI (acquired by Pronto AI) show they can spot real technical defensibility and help companies scale. The partners have solid backgrounds - Peter from McKinsey and traditional VC, Yipeng with quantitative chops from UCSD. They don't chase hype cycles or make noise on Twitter, which in today's market actually makes them more appealing to serious technical founders who want investors who understand their tech stack.
- —Best for: Deep tech founders with real IP in robotics, manufacturing, or industrial automation
- —Known for: Quiet competence and understanding actual technical moats vs marketing fluff
- —Watch out for: Small fund size means limited follow-on capacity for big rounds
Embark Ventures is a pre-seed and seed stage fund focused on "deep tech" companies looking for ambitious teams with break-through proprietary technology which provides a highly defensible competitive advantage in transforming multi-billion dollar industries. They're particularly interested in frontier/deep tech where technology creates a defensible competitive advantage.
They write $500K-$1M checks into pre-product companies with important science behind them. The firm seeks to invest in software, biotechnology, materials science, robotics and automation, semiconductor, and manufacturing sectors. They primarily invest in Series A rounds in United States based startups, with 9 investments in Seed stage averaging $5.29M and 8 investments in Series A stage averaging $14M.
Peter brings over a dozen years of experience in venture capital and technology startups. Previously an investor at Clearstone Venture Partners and Prism VentureWorks, before entering VC he was VP of Operations at Goldpocket (acquired by Ericsson) and a Manager with McKinsey focused on digital media and internet industries. He earned his BS and MS in Engineering Product Development from MIT.
Yipeng co-founded Embark Ventures in 2017 and is responsible for managing new investments and portfolio companies. Previously at ZMXY Global Investment, a China-based private equity investor, where he was involved in equity investments in both China and the US. He started his career as a research statistician at UC San Diego focused on econometrics and Big Data customer behavior research. As a Class 22 Kauffman Fellow, he served his fellowship at Embark Ventures under mentorship of Peter Lee.
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