AV8 Ventures Launches With $170M to Invest in Digital Health, Mobility and Enterprise Tech

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 26, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Allianz Group has solely backed the launch of AV8 Ventures, a new €150m/$170m venture capital fund focused on emerging technologies for AI driven digital health, mobility and enterprise to empower entrepreneurs. With this focus, AV8 Ventures has already invested in 7 portfolio companies across the US and Europe.

"AV8 Ventures is a pillar of our investment strategy in emerging, early stage companies. This exceptional team of experienced investors and technologists is focusing on breakthrough approaches that impact the consumption of machine learning across healthcare, mobility and enterprise solutions." shared Ivan de la Sota, Chief Business Transformation Officer of Allianz Group. He added, "AV8 has already built an impressive portfolio of companies that will bring us new insights and value across Allianz."

AV8 Ventures is directed by Managing Partners George Ugras and Miles Kirby, who have been executives and investors in category leading start-ups across a number of industries over the past 20 years. George until recently lead IBM Ventures globally. Miles' previously ran the Qualcomm Venture Capital Group in Europe.

The AV8 Ventures team is growing, having brought in new partners in machine learning, hard sciences, aeronautics, and partners with backgrounds in product management, product marketing, global consumer & enterprise investments.

Co-founder and CEO of Alpha Medical, Gloria Lau stated "We have been partnering with AV8 from the concept stage. Their guidance has helped us deploy our strategy to enable a simple and personalized commerce experience supported by a team of AI-assisted doctors and pharmacies."
Çetin Meriçli, the CEO of Locomation added, "They were the most technically adept VCs who also knew exactly the operational needs to build a category owning company. Since the investment they've been acting as an extension of our company helping us across the board."

About AV8 Ventures
AV8 Ventures is a €150m/$170m venture capital partnership that invests in early stage technology companies globally. Learn more about AV8 Ventures at http://www.AV8.vc

About Allianz
The Allianz Group is one of the world's leading insurers and asset managers with more than 92 million retail and corporate customers. Allianz customers benefit from a broad range of personal and corporate insurance services, ranging from property, life and health insurance to assistance services to credit insurance and global business insurance. Allianz is one of the world's largest investors, managing around 673 billion euros on behalf of its insurance customers. Furthermore, our asset managers PIMCO and Allianz Global Investors manage more than 1.4 trillion euros of third-party assets. Thanks to our systematic integration of ecological and social criteria in our business processes and investment decisions, we hold the leading position for insurers in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. In 2018, over 142,000 employees in more than 80 countries achieved total revenues of 131 billion euros and an operating profit of 11.5 billion euros for the group.

SOURCE AV8 Ventures