- Name: Cerulean Ventures
- Headquarters: Santa Barbara, California
- Website: https://cerulean.vc/
- Investment focus: Applying AI to build exponential solutions for nature
- Investment geographies: Global
- Eligible LPs: Accredited investors, family offices, high net worth individuals, institutional investors
- GP profile: View Cerulean Ventures’ full profile on ImpactSpace
Everybody’s investing in AI. But not everybody’s investing in AI for reducing plastics in the pharmaceutical supply chain or certifying deforestation-free cocoa and coffee grown by smallholder farmers.
“When people look at us, they go, ‘This is crazy. This is going to work?’ And that’s how we know that we’re on the right track,” said Matthew Stotts of Cerulean Ventures, which closed its $10 million first fund last year and for its second fund is targeting $50 million for pre-seed and early stage investments in “physical AI” and nature tech.
Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Cerulean remains proudly “non-consensus.” The firm was launched in 2022, with support from anchor investor One Small Planet, the nonprofit and venture fund of William Peterffy and several family offices.
Cerulean made 35 investments from its first fund and is warehousing deals for the second fund. One early portfolio company, LGND, last month raised $9 million in follow-on seed funding to build out its “AI for Earth observation” platform to make sense of terabytes of geospatial data.
“The differentiation for us is very much in physical AI versus where other people are looking,” says Cerulean’s Jahed Momand. “People are finding these opportunities for software and scale from AI in places that honestly are just boring or unsexy.”
Cerulean’s portfolio includes Abeya, which helps cacao farmers in Francophone west Africa trace and deliver sustainable cocoa, and Meridia, which is engaging smallholder farmers to reduce deforestation by certifying their products under European and other regulations. Elio is a design software platform to integrate sustainability in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
The new fund will write bigger checks but seek the same kind of early-stage advantage as Cerulean’s first fund – with bigger ownership stakes.
“We’re greedy for the planet, and in order to do that, we have to be really early and help founders stay aligned, and find the folks who are deeply purpose-driven,” Stotts said. “It’s the first 18 months from the founding that creates the impact, the value of everything you’re going to do. Especially when you’re aligning to purpose, it’s really important to have that support early on and that guidance, and not just get the typical VC, just-go-for-the-big-money pressure.”
