Announcing Counterpart Ventures Fund III: Tripling Down on CVC and Unlocking Customers and Capital for our Founders

In 2017, before Counterpart Ventures even existed, we found ourselves hosting a couple of coffee chats a week with corporate venture capitalists. No fundraising agendas—just honest conversations with trusted relationships based on our two founding general partners' backgrounds leading Qualcomm Ventures and Recruit Strategic Partners. We began to jokingly call these recurring meetings “CVC therapy sessions.”

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When we initially launched Counterpart in 2018, we were fatigued by this corporate stigma and turned our backs on CVC. That was a strategic error, as we lacked fund differentiation. We had to ask ourselves, “What is our real edge?” We decided to host the first Counter event in November 2018 and begged ~30 corporate investors to attend. It was a non-obvious bet, which is now obvious.

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That bet has now transformed into Counter Club: 650+ unique global CVCs represented by 1,500+ investors. Last week, we launched the CVC Playbook, a series of educational modules that demystify CVC and unlock insights for corporates looking to launch a new fund or expand an existing one. This September, we will welcome 600+ investors to SF for our annual event, Counter VI, which has morphed into the premier gathering of CVCs in the world. Later this year, we will continue our Global Counter Series, including events in London, Japan and Singapore.

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We are not a CVC or service provider, but a pure-play, institutionally backed financial VC with unfair access to CVC benefits. Since we are the trusted advisor, we have four access points to corporates (sourcing, diligence, customers and capital), which provide a real edge to our portfolio companies.

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We’re only just getting started. Today, we’re proud to announce Fund III with over $132M raised.

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We’ve now crossed $250M in assets under management, creeping toward $300M, and have quietly become the best in the world at bridging traditional VC and corporate VC. With our fresh capital, we’re looking for Seed & Series A enterprise software companies that are bringing disruptive AI-native solutions to antiquated industries.

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Building off the Success of Fund I & II

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Looking back at our inaugural Fund I in 2018, we have already returned the capital and more.

We matured into Fund II with multiple exits, including Annex Cloud (Acquired: Open Gate Capital), Glidian (Acquired: Infinx), Intricately (Acquired: HG Insights), Rippey AI (Acquired: PayCargo)and Sense 360 (Acquired: Medallia, NYSE: MDLA).

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Fund III is live, active, and already investing—recent investments from the past couple months include BudgieHealth (Seed), InfinitForm (Seed), Zelody (Pre-Seed).

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Budgie Health is modernizing the benefits ecosystem—an industry long plagued by opacity and inefficiency—by giving employers smarter tools to manage and optimize healthcare spending. InfinitForm is redefining how manufacturing workflows are built and scaled, offering a no-code platform that empowers teams to automate complex processes in record time. And Zelody is bringing modern data orchestration to banks and financial services— using AI to turn legacy data chaos into a streamlined, centralized, system.

Counter Club 🤝 What Founders Actually Need: Customers and Capital

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Founders don’t care about fancy platforms. They care about solving the problems that keep them up at night:

1. Recruiting top-tier talent
2. Landing customers to drive revenue
3. Raising follow-on capital to keep building

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Most VC “Value-add” Platforms fail to address these three needs or have more style than substance. But we think of it differently. We believe CVC can be the ultimate platform if done right, unlocking the latter two in a unique and clever way.

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The Counter Community is a Trojan horse for both enterprise customers and upstream capital. We not only fast-track this dialogue with the right access point, but we can also secure fast “no’s,” which save you time (so precious to founders). The biggest frustration with corporates is the “slow maybe” and unknown.

This creates real, quantifiable value:

●        Revenue through commercial deals

●        Strategic validation through corporate engagement

●        Liquidity through late-stage capital or M&A optionality

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In addition to customers and capital(post-investment), the Counter community unlocks value pre-investment through deal sourcing and diligence. This completes the Counter flywheel, powered by the 1,500+ corporate investors in our community.

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In a sea of commodity capital, we offer something different: A platform that creates strategic leverage for founders. A flywheel that spins faster with every investment.

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How it all Comes Together During Counter VI and CVC Week

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This Counter flywheel will be in action on Founder Day around our annual event. We’re hosting a Founder x CVC Matchmaking side event, breaking the room up into relevant sector pods where founders will be seated and corporate investors will rotate, giving them a chance for one-on-one conversations.

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It’s part of CVC Week, an entire week of CVC-themed events in the San Francisco Bay Area from September 8-12^th and the largest gathering of CVCs in the world. Consisting of closed-door sessions on niche topics to industry-themed happy hours and a portfolio development side event, this will be our biggest program of events ever.

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While community members will host many events throughout the week, the main day of the conference, hosted by Counterpart Ventures, will be on September 10^th. Corporate VCs can register now on the counterclub.vc events page.

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The CVC Playbook: Demystifying Corporate Venture

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At Counter Club, we’ve always believed that the best way to build something lasting is to build it together. For the past six years, hundreds of corporate investors have shown up—openly, honestly, and without ego—to share what they’ve learned. From launching new funds to post-mortems, they’ve talked about what worked, what didn’t, and what they’d do differently.

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These aren’t panel soundbites. These are lessons earned the hard way—through lived experience. And now, we’re unlocking that knowledge in a step-by-step format.

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Introducing the CVC Playbook:
A first-of-its-kind immersive learning series designed to demystify corporate venture capital. Whether you're setting up a fund for the first time or navigating your next phase of growth, this is the resource CVC leaders have always wanted—all enabled by community members without consulting or participation fees.

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Each chapter is packed with tactical insight pulled directly from Counter Club contributors who’ve done the work. Our first three modules live today include:

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1. How to Launch a CVC Fund

2. How to build your reputation and position your fund (internally & externally)

3. How to do Early Stage Investing Right

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These lessons are live on our portal at counterclub.vc, available exclusively to qualified corporate investors. No cost. Just the best thinking in corporate venture.

To Corporate Investors: Join the Counter Club, The Community Driven Network of CVCs

Everything we offer—educational content, global events, curated matchmaking, and trusted deal flow—is 100% free and made possible by our partners and members giving back their learned experience. If you’re not already in the room, it’s time to ask why.

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To Founders: We Unlock Enterprise Access, AKA Customers and Capital

We’re a pure-play financial VC with unfair access to corporates. Through our deeply engaged community of 650+ unique CVCs, we help unlock enterprise customers and secure upstream capital—all without the slow maybes and headaches.

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If you’re building disruptive AI-native solutions for antiquated industries, let’s talk.

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—
The Counterpart Ventures Team: Patrick, Joe, Mikey, Tanvi, Abbie and Nandini

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