Eniac Ventures closes $100 million fund

Eniac Ventures is announcing the close of a $100 million venture fund, the fourth since the group formed in 2009. The seed-stage firm plans to use the money to invest in augmented reality, virtual reality, bots, robotics and other software-enabled technologies.

“VR is really a pathway to mixed reality,” said Vic Singh, founding general partner at Eniac. It’s “very early days and we’ll see how it shakes out, but investing in the tools layer is where we’re focused on.”

The $100 million is the largest fund for Eniac, which closed its previous $55 million fund a little over two years ago. They plan to use the additional capital to lead more rounds and make some follow-on investments.

In a previous study, CB Insights found that Eniac-backed companies get from seed to Series A faster than any other venture firm. Nihal Mehta, founding general partner at Eniac says that they help the startups make it to the next step by acting as unofficial “co-founders” to their investments. “We do everything that they want us to.”

With the new fund, the team is introducing what they’re calling the Eniac Platform. They plan to help startups with publicity, hiring, operations and other business development services. Some of these offerings are available at Series A funds, but Eniac wants to send the message that they are more hands-on than the typical seed-stage venture firm.

Eniac has had a handful of exits. Recently, Apple acquired the Workflow productivity app. They’ve also sold companies to Twitter, Airbnb, Pinterest, Salesforce and SoundCloud.

Mobile ad startup Vungle and bulk shopping site Boxed are amongst their companies that have gone on to receive later stage investments. Radio app Anchor and voice synthesizer Dubsmash have received significant fanfare.

The four partners met when they studied engineering together at the University of Pennsylvania. Hadley Harris, Nihal Mehta, Vic Singh and Tim Young are all general partners.

Eniac has offices in San Francisco and New York.