FKA Atlas Has a New Name: Accomplice

One of Boston’s most active tech investing firms has a new name: FKA Atlas Venture is now Accomplice.

No big announcement, and that’s the way the firm wants it. But the news ends months of speculation, as the tech side of Atlas Venture opened up a crowdsourcing contest in March to find its new name. That was after splitting off from the life sciences side of the firm, which kept the name Atlas Venture, last fall.

The winning name came from Zaqary Whitnack of Sacramento, CA. He gets a $25,000 investment in the new fund (as a limited partner) and also gets to allocate a $25,000 investment to a TUGG nonprofit: he chose Youth CITIES.

Accomplice raised a $200 million fund and has four partners: Jeff Fagnan, Jon Karlen, Chris Lynch, and Ryan Moore. Their previous investments (via Atlas Venture) span consumer and enterprise tech—from gaming to security to health IT—and include companies such as AngelList, Bit9, Veracode, DataXu, DraftKings, PillPack, and Sqrrl.

Pretty broad in scope, but the firm has a strong focus on Boston-area companies and entrepreneurs. Investments from the new Accomplice fund include Joist, Startup Institute, and VentureApp.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.