Primary Ventures Closes $625M Fund
Primary Ventures closed massive $625M Fund V for nationwide seed investing, while Seligman Ventures debuted with $500 million and a novel approach to blending public and private market investments. Global PE/VC hit $45.54B in January with x.ai accounting for 44% of the total.
- Primary Ventures' new fund marks a significant scaling in its capital, having previously raised $60M for Fund I in 2015, $150M for Fund III in 2021, and $275M for Fund IV in 2022. - The firm intends to use Fund V to back 40 to 50 startups over the next three years, with average investments ranging from $5 million to $10 million in sectors like vertical AI, fintech, and cybersecurity. - Notable past exits for Primary Ventures include Jet.com (acquired by Walmart for $3.3 billion), Ticketfly (acquired by Pandora for $450 million), and Mirror (acquired by Lululemon for $500 million). - Seligman Ventures is the new venture capital arm of Seligman Investments, a Silicon Valley-based technology investor with approximately $30 billion in assets under management led by Chief Investment Officer Paul Wick. - Led by Managing Partners Umesh Padval and Ashish Kakran, Seligman Ventures will focus on early-stage to pre-IPO companies in AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and modern data-center hardware. - Since its formation in November 2025, Seligman Ventures has already made four investments in companies focused on datacenter hardware and AI infrastructure. - The January global private equity and venture capital total was dominated by x.ai's $20 billion Series E funding round. - Investors in x.ai's massive round included Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and strategic investments from NVIDIA and Cisco Investments.
