WEKA and Cisco funding contribution: Now you see it, now you don’t

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On January 4, WEKA announced Cisco was among contributors to its $73 million funding round. Now Cisco’s name is off the list – for the latest round, at least.

The original release read: “WEKA, the data platform for AI, today announced that Hitachi Ventures led its recent round raising $73 million in funding, which brings the total amount raised to $140 million. Other investors participating in this round were strategic investors, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Nvidia, Micron, and Cisco, and financial investors including MoreTech Ventures, Ibex Investors, and Key 1 Capital.”

Spot the difference with a corrected version issued on February 5: “WEKA, the data platform for AI, today announced that Hitachi Ventures led its recent round raising $73 million in funding, which brings the total amount raised to $140 million. Other investors participating in this round were strategic investors, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Nvidia, Micron, and Digital Alpha, and financial investors including MoreTech Ventures, Ibex Investors, and Key 1 Capital.”

Enter Digital Alpha as a strategic investor, which now contributes a quote: “As Digital Infrastructure investors, we see Enterprise AI as a highly attractive segment,” says Rick Shrotri, managing partner at Digital Alpha, “and we are delighted to be investors in WEKA’s market-leading AI data platform.” 

What is Digital Alpha?

It describes itself on its website as a premier alternative asset manager focused on digital infrastructure and lists Cisco as a key partner.

Digital Alpha website strategy graphic.

Rick Shrotri is the founder and managing partner at Digital Alpha, and says on LinkedIn that he is the “leader of a private investment fund targeting digital infrastructure worldwide, with proprietary access to deal flow and a knowledge base backed by Cisco Systems, Inc. and other corporate partners.”

He founded Digital Alpha in Feb 2017. Before that he spent almost ten years at Cisco, finishing up as managing director and global head of business acceleration. In that role he was said to have “created and led a global initiative to bring third party equity capital to invest in attractive opportunities from Cisco’s most coveted customers.”

In a WeLink press release Digital Alpha Advisors describes itself as an investment firm focused on digital infrastructure and services required by the digital economy, with a strategic collaboration agreement with Cisco Systems. As part of this agreement, Digital Alpha has preferred access to Cisco’s “pipeline of commercial opportunities requiring equity financing.” This is not mentioned on the revised WEKA release.

In April last year, Digital Alpha announced the closing of Digital Alpha Fund II, over its initial hard cap with over $1 billion in commitments. The fund was oversubscribed.

Digital Alpha is, effectively, a Cisco investment business. That’s why it is classed as a strategic investor, not just as another contributing VC.