ARK Invest Venture Fund has made its first-ever lead investment in an early-stage startup called Lucra, firm founder Cathie Woods told TechCrunch.
“We feel pretty excited about it,” Woods (pictured above) said in the recent interview regarding the investment in the startup.
Lucra developed a software platform that reimagines corporate loyalty programs into interactive, eSports-like events such as tournaments where customers can play each other, even betting or winning cash or company giveaways. The startup said its customers include Five Iron Golf, Chess Kings, and Dave & Busters.
Lucra announced on Wednesday that it raised a $20 million Series B, led by the ARK fund, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Astralis Capital, Harlo Equity Partners, Simplex Ventures, SeventySix Capital, and WTI.
There are a few reasons why the famed financial company has never led a startup deal before. For one, the ARK Invest Venture Fund is not a typical VC fund. It’s an SEC-regulated interval fund (also known as a closed-end mutual fund), meaning anyone can invest in it, for as little as $500. However, it is not traded on a public exchange, so investors cannot sell shares at will. They can sell limited shares on specific dates, quarterly.
Woods also noted that the person running the fund, director of research Nick Grous, “is a tough sell,” leaving startups with the difficult task of getting him excited enough to advocate to lead a deal.
What’s even wilder is that ARK was particularly gunshy, about this sort of business because it got burned after investing in a somewhat similar company a few years ago.
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“We had actually owned a company called Skillz, which kind of operated in this space,” Grous said. “It didn’t work out well for us and many other investors.”
Skillz was a once hot public company that later became mired in troubles and lawsuits. The big difference, the investor said, is that Lucra is …