Wharton Digital Ventures
WHARTON DIGITAL VENTURES is an investment platform formed to exploit opportunities at the crossroads of real estate, private equity, and venture capital related to AI and the attendant technologies as our society moves from an “analog” to “digital” world.
Wharton Digital’s business is anchored in its real estate strategy involving securing land parcels suitable for building data centers and positioning them for development. Once approvals and infrastructure are obtained, we either sell the land or develop through build-to-suits, and JV’s.
We believe that data centers provide a “window into the future” as they portend capacity demands, emerging technologies, and geographical areas with high AI potential. Through this comes insights into data center construction, alternative power, promising operators and service providers, as well as AI hardware and software companies.
Wharton Digital Ventures is positioned to also take advantage of a wide spectrum of private equity, venture capital, and credit opportunities in the middle market that are presented to the firm as younger and more mature companies seek ways to finance their businesses. As such, we are building a cohesive, cross-pollinating investment platform that leverages, deal flow, knowledge and relationships to take advantage of an array of investment possibilities related to data centers/AI.
Additionally, the firm takes advantage of its experience in other real estate sectors, most notably, industrial, to make investments in such areas as automation and robotics.
Dataminr
Fabric
Fabric is a pioneer in the automation of urban warehouses which are critical in meeting the growing demands of consumers seeking same day deliveries. By combining highly efficient fulfillment systems with local last-mile locations, Fabric is redefining how supply chains work. The company has developed its own proprietary AI software and robotic technology and is running micro-fulfillment operations for grocery and general merchandise retailers in New York City, Washington, DC, and Tel Aviv. Fabric maintains partnerships with major retailers and grocers including Walmart, Instacart, FreshDirect and others. As a key piece of its longer term strategy, Fabric is seeking to buildout a “neural network” of automated microfulfillment centers throughout the US to be able to offer a national footprint for customers.
Wharton Digital Ventures was part of a $200 million Series C round that valued the company at approximately $1 billion and which featured other investors such as Temasek, CPP Investments and Koch Disruptive Technologies. Proceeds from the round will be used to assist Fabric in expanding its base of warehouses nationally, adding key executives and further developing its hardware and technologies.