B Capital Closes $250M Early-Stage Ascent Fund II

Global multistage investment firm B Capital has announced a $250 million close for its Ascent Fund II, the first dedicated early-stage fund, which will help it work with more entrepreneurs, a press release said Tuesday (July 19).

The release noted that Ascent works on pre-seed through series A rounds for the most part, working globally but concentrated on the U.S. and Asia.

The release notes that B Capital supports its companies with numerous value-added services and expertise, such as connecting the clients with business leaders that want to partner with new technologies, which it does through a partnership with Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

“Forty years of investing has taught me that early-stage founders have the best view of where the market is heading,” said founder Howard Morgan. “Ascent allows us to work with these entrepreneurs to build great companies ahead of the curve.”

Morgan, along with co-founder Eduardo Severin and others, made the company to use their decades of experience as active partners in early stage companies.

The release noted that the firm usually looks at founders who are innovating in fields like healthcare, enterprise software, fintech and logistics.

Read more: Once-Hot FinTech Sector Loses Half a Trillion in Valuation

PYMNTS wrote recently that the fintech space has been seeing some slowdowns as of late. There was around half a trillion in valuation that fell off the sector.

The report said the cumulative value of shares for newly-listed firms in the sector is down $156 billion so far in 2022. And IPOs were up when the pandemic started, but this has changed in more recent months, with plans for going public now on hold. Valuations have been seeing strife and companies are cutting costs amid a volatile economy.

There were some FinTechs like OneConnect which had its shares drop 20%, according to the PYMNTS FinTech IPO index. Overall performance in the space was down around 43% this year thus far.

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