- Matter Venture Partners' successful fundraising, $300 million in first fund by 2023.
- Investment focus on "Hard Tech" companies.
- Surprise at fundraising success, Wayne Hsieh expressed surprise at raising $300 million.
Matter Venture Partners, a young VC fund, successfully invested $300 million in its first fund, making it one of the largest early-stage funds by 2023. It originally raised $200 million by 2023 at a time when startup VC funding was dwindling.
Kleiner Perkins investors Wayne Hsieh and Haomiao Huang founded their own VC fund, Mater Venture Partners, in 2023. Kleiner backed them and Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC Hsieh and Kleiner have been together for 17 years, while Huang had been next for four years.
Hsieh focused on investing in companies involved in "hard tech," such as Luxview, Amprius, DJI, and Desktop Metal.
They also co-led the investments in Dexterity and Lumafield. Wayne Hsieh, founding partner of Mater Venture Partners, expressed surprise at their success. They closed with a total of $300 million last year and had more investors than expected.
Hsieh believes their emphasis on hard tech was a key factor in oversubscriptions. He commented that a lot of technology and trends in society today are built on hard tech, which has worked for them. Despite the difficult circumstances, they were happy to raise money.
Edited by Shruti Thapa
