We spoke with co-founders and partners , previous principal at and a board member at the , and , who was previously a software engineer at and currently sits on the board of .

鈥淲e’ve had a lot of success in our first three funds in terms of returns and recent exits,鈥� said Okike. The founders reached out to its limited partner advisory committee last year to strategize for its next fund.

鈥淲e’ve really focused on capital-efficient companies,鈥� Okike said, commenting on the firm鈥檚 success in raising its fourth fund. 鈥淲e shy away from a lot of the exuberance of the past couple of years.鈥澛�

Holiday noted that last year the firm鈥檚 portfolio raised $1.1 billion in follow-on capital, far exceeding the reserves of its core fund, which led to its first select fund.听

The firm is reserving 44% of the capital to invest in follow-on funding rounds, in what it calls a 鈥渢ournament strategy鈥� to invest in its most successful companies that could potentially return the fund.听聽

For its new fund, 75% came from existing LPs who stepped up. And 95% are institutional investors including endowments, foundations and fund of funds.听

645 Ventures invests at seed between $1 million to $5 million, and up to $10 million at Series A. From the select fund, it can invest between $10 million and $15 million.听

To source and track investment opportunities, an in-house four-person engineering team built Voyager, a core asset to the firm that enables it to find investments outside of the firm’s network. It also has an investment research team to evaluate opportunities, a success team to support its portfolio companies, and a finance and operations team.听

645’s winning bets

Since July the firm has had acquired, and its first IPO. Washington-based , a global intelligence company, went public in August 2022 via a special-purpose acquisition.听

It is a seed investor in two San Francisco-based unicorn companies: user engagement marketing platform and cybersecurity company .

It also has two emerging unicorn companies, both based out of New York, in its portfolio: sports network and barbershop management service .听

The team raised its first fund of $8 million from high-net-worth individuals in 2014. Its second fund with its first institutional investors was raised in 2018, totaling $41 million, and its third fund in 2020 totaled $160 million.听聽

Among its Connected Network advisers it counts , previously at , previously at Insight, and , previously CTO at .

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