Managing partners and serial entrepreneurs Jesse Coors-Blankenship and Gregg Hill leverage deep knowledge and investment experience with simulation and AI to attract new advisory board members and raise $50 million to date

New York, NY, July 1, 2021 –  Parkway Venture Capital, an emerging NYC-based technology venture capital firm, today announced its second $60 million venture capital fund, bringing new opportunities for investors for a diversified, institutional-quality portfolio of venture capital investments. Parkway is a generalist venture firm with an emphasis on technology companies that are using artificial intelligence (AI), complex engineering, and data science to enable the advanced simulations that power tomorrow’s possibilities. Parkway has eight investments in its portfolio, and is operating on a rolling close through 2021.

“Parkway operates at the convergence of technology, simulation and production,” said  Jesse Coors-Blankenship co-founder and managing partner, Parkway. “This is based on our insight that everything will be simulated as our world embraces a higher complexity future. For Gregg and me, our ability to accurately predict future outcomes to achieve success has been essential to our winning record in venture capital. Collectively our portfolio companies harness simulation and AI to bring value and competitive advantage to any sector.”

Parkway is focused on disruptive technologies across all sectors, with a specific emphasis on companies using simulation and AI at the heart of their development process to drive digital transformation. Parkway is targeting investments in future-forward companies that have this at the core of their product development, alongside vision to succeed and drive change through advanced technology. Gregg and Jesse’s extensive experience has shown that almost every part of technology advancement requires simulation and AI to best manage the extreme complexity these technologies require.

“At Parkway, we practice a refined investment approach that extends across sectors - one rooted in digital transformation technologies, with a strong potential to disrupt and redefine the status quo,” adds  Gregg Hill, co-founder and managing partner, Parkway.  “We truly understand the transformative power of innovation and the value our portfolio companies bring to the world.” 

Parkway’s portfolio companies reflect this mission and represent advanced technologies that can be transferable across multiple sectors:

● Frustum Focus on AI, data science, simulation, complex engineering for pioneering generative design applications. Frustum Inc., was  acquired by industrial innovation leader  PTC for $70 million in 2018;

●       TAE Technologies: Uses AI, data science, simulation, complex engineering to simulate data to allow optimization of their reactors;

●       Burrow: Data science and complex engineering are used to predict positive product outcomes through data. Parkway were  lead investors in Burrow, the D2C modular furniture innovator, whose unique business model has led to triple digit growth and 19 new products launched in 2020 alone;

●       SIERA: AI. A leading industrial AI vision solutions provider that is able to prevent accidents due to simulation and learning through AI;

●       OnScale: AI, data science and simulation optimize for end user computer aided engineering software-as-a-service with cloud computing;

●       TestFit: AI, data science, simulation, and complex engineering have enabled the first-to-market generative design building configurator with traction across six countries, and poised to transform the building modeling space;

●       r4 Technologies: AI, data science and simulation for cross-enterprise business management software as a service;

●       Persefoni: Leverages AI to provide users with contextual sustainability performance scores for their organization and allows enterprise companies to manage their carbon transactions and inventory with the same rigor to lower their carbon footprint.

Building on the success of its first fund, Parkway recently invested in the energy industry disruptor  TAE Technologies, alongside Google, Goldman Sachs, NEA, Venrock, and Kuwait Investment Authority, among others. Parkway has also attracted global energy leader  Omran Al-Kuwari to its Advisory Board. Al-Kuwari, a pioneer in clean technology in the MENA region, currently serves as the CEO of Qatar Foundation International, and is a researcher on decarbonization and energy transition matters. He has held key leadership positions in Qatargas, GreenGulf, and various ventures across three continents. He will play an integral role in shaping and growing Parkway’s investments in the energy sector. Parkway also recently opened its new Madison Ave office in New York City.

“I am thrilled to be joining Parkway at a time when they have already zeroed in on transformational new opportunities in simulation across sectors, including clean energy,” shares Omran Al-Kuwari. “I am particularly excited to support the growth of some of our portfolio game-changers, such as TAE Technologies, who are redefining energy to the grid and power management, while expanding the frontiers of fusion technology.”

For Parkway, their proven ability to predict future outcomes is central to their current and future success in venture capital. Founded in 2018, Parkway is made up of hands-on operators who have the entrepreneurial experience and success to help their portfolio companies chart the best paths forward. Both Gregg and Jesse remain major investors in the firm, which exemplifies their confidence in the funds they are raising, and the portfolio companies they are investing in.

"At TAE Technologies, we have had the good fortune to have worked with some of the world's most sophisticated investors, including Parkway," said Michl Binderbauer, CEO, TAE Technologies. "It is thanks to the confidence and expert guidance of investors like Parkway that we have been able to advance our path to the commercialization of fusion and delivering carbon-free energy."

About Parkway Venture Capital LLC

Parkway Venture Capital is an emerging NYC venture capital firm working from New York. Founded in 2018 by Managing Partners Gregg Hill  and Jesse Coors-Blankenship , Parkway is focused on supporting future-forward companies that are building their businesses around simulation and AI disruptive technology innovations, at every stage. Parkway investments and exits include  Frustum Inc. , sold to PTC in Nov. 2018 and were lead investors in Burrow , the D2C modular furniture innovator.

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