Dolby family invests in seed Tech Fund
June 18, 2014
By Chris Forrester
Last August saw the death of audio genius Ray Dolby. His family is creating the Dolby Family Venture in his name. The early stage venture capital fund adds to the Dolby family’s existing technology venture portfolio, and formalises the Dolby family’s ongoing, multi-generational commitment to Ray Dolby’s legacy of discovering and supporting visionary entrepreneurs.
Dolby Family Ventures is jointly managed by David Dolby, son of Ray Dolby, and veteran venture capitalist Pascal Levensohn. Based in San Francisco, Dolby Family Ventures funds international seed and Series A investments in four sectors: Digital Media, Cloud Services, Security, and HealthCare Technology and Services. Dolby Family Ventures anticipates making four to seven investments per year, with capital at risk of approximately $3 million per company. The fund is not affiliated with Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
“Our family is committed to honouring my father’s legacy by investing in the development of exceptional technologies that have the potential to generate significant social impact,” said David Dolby, Co-MD, Dolby Family Ventures. “Our direct investment approach focuses on highly defensible intellectual property, and our long time horizon provides ongoing support for entrepreneurs to build great companies.”
“We’re committed to partnering with our portfolio companies and actively collaborating with entrepreneurs to implement best practices in operational finance, strategy, and board development processes,” added Pascal Levensohn, MD, Dolby Family Ventures.
Dolby Family Ventures’ existing portfolio includes: health tracker technology, Basis Science, recently acquired by Intel; direct-to-fan video marketing and commerce platform, LittleCast; audio networking company, Beep; anti-counterfeiting security software developer, Authentic Vision; and several biotech companies focused on diagnostics and therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease. Other recent investments include medical diagnostics company, Cytovale, and virtual reality software company, AltSpaceVR.
“The team at Dolby Family Ventures has been instrumental to our seed fund raising round, generating engaged interest from new investors, and helping set valuable and reasonable expectations for the team and our growth plan,” said Eric Romo, CEO, AltSpaceVR.