Seattle's Ascend closes $17M fund for 'Third Act' hardware startups
What's the deal? Seattle venture firm Ascend has closed a $17 million third fund to back early-stage startups building robots, energy systems, defense technology, and other products that combine software and hardware. The firm also landed its first institutional investor, FirstLook PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, which backs smaller venture funds.
What's the endgame? Ascend invests at the earliest stage, often writing the first check into a startup. Fund III extends the firm's bet on what it calls Seattle's "Third Act" — a wave of local companies building intelligent machines rather than pure software.
The firm was the first investor in Overland AI, maker of autonomous military vehicles, and an early backer of subsea geothermal startup Endurance Energy. Ascend has drawn about 60% of the money committed to Fund III so far.
Why now? Founder Kirby Winfield calls this the toughest fundraising market for small venture firms in 15 years.
Established firms took a record 88.2% of the money raised by US venture funds in the first nine months of the year. Porter said smaller firms must show "a right to exist and a right to win deals."
The backers: The rest of the fund comes from family offices, founders who have sold companies, and more than a dozen founders of Ascend portfolio companies. Josh Porter, FirstLook's co-founder and managing partner, said the firm looked at several markets outside San Francisco and New York, "but all roads kept leading back to Kirby."
Ascend launched its first fund in 2019 and raised $15 million; its second closed at $25 million in 2023. The firm writes the same size checks regardless of fund size, Winfield said.
Its significance lies in focus, not size: a targeted early-stage bet on Seattle's hardware and defense ecosystem, where backer Overland AI has raised more than $140 million and won a nearly $20 million Marine Corps production contract.
Read more: geekwire.com
Image credit: ascend
