2023 Year in Review

Jan 08, 2024

Amasia announced its investment in Topanga and why they're a perfect fit.
Molly Wood joined Amasia as a venture partner.
We released a four-part blog series on our climate investment thesis. Find out more about R1: Review, R2 Renew, R3: Rethink, and R4: Rebuild.
We started a new blog-post series on climate-related impact in the VC industry in collaboration with Malk Partners, a pre-eminent advisor to private market investors. Read more about our thoughts on Impact versus ESG and Preventive versus Reactive Strategies.
Ramanan and Molly launched Futureverse, a new climate fiction podcast, available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
The In Our Hands Podcast was moved to Substack and classics were re-released from the vault. Subscribe and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of our fellowship for university students — we now have 29 alumni.

Portfolio News

We loved how our companies continued to evolve. Here are some (but certainly not all!) of the highlights:

Breathe London pioneered a new model for clean air with Clarity.
Commons app informed and facilitated mass shifts in climate-influenced consumer living and spending.
Dialpad launched DialpadGPT, a new bespoke LLM.
Go1 partnered with Litmos to offer 80,000+ top-notch training courses.
Inbenta announced extensive generative AI integration.
Renaissance announced the acquisition of GL Education, a provider of formative assessments for schools.
Skillshare is now available to all Xfinity X1 customers.
Spren reached the top 200 Health and Fitness apps in the App Store.
Topanga.io celebrated the anniversary of the first #ReusePass campus program and its growth to 25 campuses across the US and Canada.
Xendit partnered with Visa to be the first to launch Visa Token Service in Indonesia.

Here are some of the public announcements:

CarbonChain announced a $10 million Series A funding round, co-led by Union Square Ventures and Voyager Ventures.
Dialpad broke the $200-million-dollar revenue mark, delivering 12 AI products in 12 months.
Finch closed a round of funding led by Oxcart Ventures.
Inbenta closed a $40 million funding round led by Tritium Partners.

Our companies received many accolades this year. Some of the more prominent ones include:

Clarity was featured in CRN's Top 10 Internet of Things Companies of 2023.
Commons was included in this year's Norrsken Impact100.
Dialpad was listed as #25 on Forbes’ 2023 Cloud 100 list.
Go1 was awarded Scaleup of the Year at the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards.
Renaissance won multiple nominations for the Tech & Learning Best of Show Awards at ISTE 2023.
Scrimba reached one million users.
Skillshare was named one of America's Top Online Learning Providers for 2024.
Super named as one of LinkedIn's Top Startups in Indonesia for 2023.
Topanga was featured in TechCrunch for partnering with Grubhub to banish single-use plastics.

Thank you for your continued support. We genuinely appreciate you being a part of our journey. Best wishes for the new year!

Useful links:

The Amasia website for an overview of our firm, our team, and our portfolio.
The Amasia blog for essays on the VC business, our portfolio, and our impact.
The In Our Hands podcast with theorists and practitioners in climate science and behavior change (with full transcripts if you prefer text).
The Futureverse podcast with authors of climate-related fiction (with full transcripts if you prefer text).
Ramanan’s blog for personal essays. To stay updated on our activities, keep an eye out for our monthly newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn.