 "Siliocn Valley's Tandem announces third fund")
As the third fund from Tandem, the Habit Fund will preserve the fund’s focus on disruptive mobile products and platforms, and will concentrate on habit-forming businesses – those that have the potential to become an integral part of people’s daily lives. It will also allow Tandem to bring its unique approach, called "muscle capital," to an increased number of early-stage startups.
Muscle capital delivers a combination of cash and strategic/operating support from seasoned company builders to Tandem company founders from the very beginning, substantially increasing the odds of success for Tandem’s portfolio companies.
Responding to widespread demand from entrepreneurs across the globe, Tandem has begun to scale globally. Adding to its base in Silicon Valley, it recently opened an office in Bangalore, India. As Tandem continues to grow its team and operations, it will be working with more international companies with the intent to bring many of these to Silicon Valley.
"We are very excited to launch Tandem Habit Fund III," said Rohit Bhagat, Tandem partner and managing general partner of the Habit Fund. "It allows us to scale Tandem’s proven muscle capital approach and track record, and takes the model global, particularly focusing on regions that are rich in talent but lack a valley-like ecosystem."
Previous Tandem companies include ZumoDrive (sold to Motorola), as well as Bash Gaming (the maker of the #1 social bingo app on the iPad) and PlayHaven (a gaming platform that powers habit-forming mobile games), two companies that are cumulatively generating well over $100 million in annual revenue.
A recent Tandem company, Tile, has orchestrated the most successful self-managed crowdfunding campaign to-date, which has generated over $2.1 million in funding (100x its initial goal) with over 39,000 backers.