Background Microsoft Ventures was used as an umbrella for all of Microsoft's accelerator and seed-stage funding operations.
Official founding In March 2016, Microsoft launched the Microsoft Ventures
venture capital fund. The operation previously known as Microsoft Ventures was renamed Microsoft Accelerator, with a focus on "start-up enablement" instead of startup investments. In late 2017, the company has invested in artificial intelligence with a new AI startup competition, and
3-D printing with
Markforged. In March 2019, Markforged raised $82 million in venture funding, with M12 contributing. In March 2019, the company invested in Skedulo, a work scheduling company. In June 2019, M12 invested in AnyVision, a facial recognition company. After reporting by NBC news on the use of its technology in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip,
Microsoft hired Eric Holder, former US Attorney General, to conduct an audit of the company to ensure that it complies with Microsoft's ethical principles on biometric surveillance. In September 2019, M12 participated in a Series B funding round in Applied Intuition, a software company specializing in products for autonomous vehicles (AVs). In Jan 2020, it was announced that Microsoft Venture in a new round had taken a stake in SuperAwesome. In March 2020, Microsoft Ventures and Honeywell Ventures are in talks with
FarEye to invest $40 million in the Logistics startup. Also in March 2020, M12 announced it would lead a $22 million Series B funding round in San Francisco-based fraud prevention platform
Arkose Labs Name change to M12 In April 2018, Microsoft Ventures changed its name to M12, to avoid confusion with a previous accelerator program of the same name. The M stands for Microsoft, and the 12 refers to the number of letters in the word entrepreneur. ==Accelerator Plus program==