Norwest, a company backed exclusively by Wells Fargo, has raised $4 billion in funding to further invest in AI. This is the 65-year-old multi-stage investment firm’s 18th fund and its largest to date.
The fund invests in various sectors and multiple countries, particularly the US, India and Israel. But the big story here is AI and Norwest’s plans to expand its investments in this space.
Norwest said Thursday it aims to leverage AI startups to develop products and services across core industries such as consumer, healthcare and technology. The investment firm, which has backed Plaid, Spotify, Uber, and Vuori, said it will continue to expand investments in physical AI, voice AI, agent-based cybersecurity, and aerospace.
While that may sound like a broad approach, that’s the intent, Jeff Crowe, senior managing partner at Norwest, told TechCrunch.
“We are taking a broad approach to AI because the impact of AI is far-reaching,” Crowe added, as AI is not limited by industry, geography, or application. “Just as digital transformation has, AI transformation can impact most layers of enterprise, consumer, and healthcare solutions, including networking, enterprise IT, and applications. Adapting to the agent environment means broadly applying AI across problem-solving products and services.”
Crowe added that the company is particularly excited about early-stage companies building AI-native applications and infrastructure, physical AI, domain-specific models, and cybersecurity solutions.
Some of the company’s recent investments reflect this strategy. For example, the company has invested in Coval, which builds tools to test and evaluate AI agents, and Generalist AI, a startup that has developed an AI foundation model for robots.
The firm has made more than 87 investments since the launch of its 17th fund, which raised $3 billion and closed in 2024.
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