Hawke Ventures raises $5.6M to back digital marketing startups. The firm is mostly focused on products that can be used by small and medium businesses. The firm’s focus is to build a definitive platform for Conversational Commerce. Hwake is trying to build a different venture firm that does not focus on what we think the next big idea is, but is focused on building actual technology that can be used by consumers.
Introvoke raises $2.7M to power online events that can be embedded anywhere. The funding was led by Struck Capital. The startup offers components like virtual stages, chat rooms and networking hubs, all customizable and embeddable on a customer’s website. Introvoke charges customers based on live event minutes, a model that it says is accessible to companies large and small.At Basis Set Ventures, merging venture capital and software development yields a $165 million new fund. That product development is one reason the firm has managed to stay relatively lean and was two times oversubscribed when it went out to raise its second fund, a $165 million.Currently Basis Set has at least three different programs, all aimed to recruit and nurture talent that typical Bay Area firms haven’t traditionally focused on. The first is its Persistence platform, which is designed to help women developers and founders network and nurture connections and foster ideas. The firm also has a service that it calls Founder Superpowers, to help entrepreneurs identify and develop areas of strength while looking for additional tools to augment their capabilities. Another key factor for the company is trying to find a more diverse set of founders with different backgrounds from the typical Silicon Valley biography.