Betaworks’ third fund will close at $66 million and invest in early stage AI startups

New York City-based Betauruks has closed its $66 million Fund III. It focuses on investing in early stage AI companies.

Betaworks has invested in AI since at least 2016 and supports companies like Huggingface and Granola through its investment program camp. Jordan Crook, a partner at the company (and former TechCrunch employee), said the new fund will focus on agents, native AI interfaces and application layer AI.

“Around these themes, we will continue our straight seed investment and bettawalk camp,” Crook said.

Fund III will invest in investments in at least 25 pre-seed investments and invest in at least 50 startups as part of the Betaworks Camps program. “So far, we’ve done about 37 transactions,” Crook said, adding that the average check size was around $500,000.

Crook called the current fundraising environment “bubbly” for startups and “Spiky” for funds, but she said she saw many of the previous limited partners of the company where Fund III has returned to investing.

“The venture’s funding environment was challenging in 2024 and we weren’t exempt given that we were increasing our funds,” she said.

Betaworks previously raised $46 million in Fund II in 2020 and $48 million in Fund I in 2016. It was launched as a venture studio in 2008 and later became a staple in the New York City technology ecosystem, and in 2016 it launched the Betaworks Camps program.