Touchdown Ventures

Touchdown Ventures is a distinctive corporate venture capital firm established in 2014, operating with a unique model that sets it apart in the venture landscape. Rather than investing its own balance sheet, Touchdown co-founds and manages dedicated corporate venture capital funds on behalf of large, established corporations. This specialized approach allows corporations to strategically engage with the startup ecosystem, leveraging Touchdown's expertise in venture investing while aligning investments with their core business objectives. The firm maintains offices in key innovation hubs including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, facilitating broad market access.

The firm's impressive roster of corporate partners underscores its credibility and reach. These partners span diverse industries and include household names such as Kellogg's, T-Mobile, USAA, SC Johnson, Ally Financial, and Fujifilm, among others. Touchdown Ventures acts as an outsourced CVC arm, handling all aspects of fund management from deal sourcing and due diligence to portfolio management and value creation. This enables its corporate clients to tap into new technologies and business models without building an in-house venture team from scratch, thereby mitigating risk and optimizing resource allocation.

Touchdown Ventures primarily focuses on early and growth-stage companies, with investment sectors dictated by the strategic interests of its corporate partners. This flexible mandate allows them to invest across a wide array of industries, from consumer goods and financial services to telecommunications and advanced materials. Their portfolio boasts investments in high-profile companies like Impossible Foods and Allbirds, demonstrating their capacity to identify and support disruptive innovators. The firm's value proposition extends beyond capital, aiming to foster synergistic relationships between startups and their corporate backers, facilitating commercial partnerships and strategic growth opportunities.

In terms of scale, Touchdown Ventures has demonstrated significant capacity, managing over $500 million in assets as of 2020 across its various corporate funds. This substantial capital base supports a robust investment pace, with the firm having made over 150 investments into promising companies. While specific check sizes can vary based on the corporate partner's strategic goals and the stage of the investment, Touchdown typically participates in rounds ranging from $1 million for early-stage, strategically aligned opportunities, up to $20 million for more mature growth-stage companies that offer significant strategic value to their corporate limited partners.