Participated · Seed · Aug 2024

TEAMology develops TEAMtalk, an AI + human technology that connects K-8 students with six interactive characters designed to provide personalized social-emotional and mental health support. The company emerged from Penn State’s Invent Penn State commercialization ecosystem in 2016 and is led by CEO and founder Linsey Covert. TEAMology has partnerships with Penn State and public media company WQED to help expand its reach. The company plans to use its new funding to accelerate growth, invest in TEAMtalk product marketing, and expand talent within the K-8 edtech space. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2023

Croptix builds a precision ag platform centered on patented, field-deployable spectrophotometer sensors combined with AI analytics, cloud-based data, and a mobile app to provide rapid, actionable crop-health and nutrition measurements. Its initial solution aids citrus growers in early detection of Huanglongbing (HLB) and the company is expanding disease detection to apples, grapes, and broader nutrient testing. The co-founders translated Pennsylvania State University research into miniaturized, non-invasive handheld devices and the company was awarded NSF SBIR Phase I and Phase II grants to develop and commercialize the technology. Croptix plans to add nutrient testing to its suite and scale in-field testing across a broad range of crops with strategic partner Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). The platform is positioned to enable predictive, data-driven farming decisions that can improve crop quality, yield, and financial returns for growers. Croptix is currently in an ongoing $3.5M Series Seed round (first close announced) to accelerate development and market penetration.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2022

Daasity provides e-commerce analytics and data infrastructure that pulls customer and sales data from platforms like Shopify, Amazon, Facebook and Klaviyo, analyzes it, and pushes insights to marketing channels. The company works with more than 1,600 brands, including Manscaped, Vuori and Caraway Home. In the past year Daasity grew its annual recurring revenue by 300% and doubled headcount, and CEO Dan LeBlanc said the company expects to grow headcount another 160% by the end of 2022. The new funding will be used for further employee growth and technology development to improve data accessibility, personalization, data sources and educational resources. Product roadmap items include making brands’ data infrastructure modular and adding 35 integrations across data sources, warehousing, transformation and visualization tools. Daasity has raised $20.7 million in total funding to date. Daasity is an omni-channel analytics and data platform launched in 2017 by Dan LeBlanc, Sean Corson, and Chris Shimojima in San Diego, CA. The platform offers prebuilt dashboards and more than 130 pre-built reports to provide insights for inventory management, omnichannel measurement, marketing efficacy, customer segmentation, cohort analysis and more. Daasity supports 50+ integrations and powers the data and analytics for over 1,400 eCommerce stores worldwide. The company raised $3.4M in seed funding and intends to use the proceeds to expand the team, further develop the platform and product, and increase marketing efforts. Daasity targets merchants of all sizes seeking to centralize and analyze omni-channel and eCommerce data. Daasity offers a proprietary “D2C Analytics Suite” that automates data extraction, transformation and analysis to give DTC brands access to business data and metrics. The platform ingests, re-structures and transforms data automatically, removing the need to hire additional staff. It ships with 12 standard dashboards covering business health, omnichannel measurement, marketing efficacy, customers, product/inventory management and more. Daasity says the solution provides a holistic view across key business areas and unlocks actionable insights to save brands time and money. Forty top DTC brands across the U.S., including Kopari, BioClarity, MVMT Watches, Parachute Home and Rothy’s, use the product. The company is led by CEO and co-founder Dan LeBlanc and is based in San Diego, CA.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2021

Phospholutions develops RhizoSorb, a product positioned to make phosphorus fertilizer use more effective so growers can apply less product for superior yields. The deck emphasizes sustainability benefits and reduced environmental impacts from inefficient phosphorus use. It acknowledges RhizoSorb is pricier than alternatives but argues efficacy and lower usage offset cost. The public materials show detailed efficacy data and go-to-market content, while several commercial and financial slides are heavily redacted. The company has been operating for about seven years and the pitch indicates ongoing commercialization. According to TechCrunch, the company recently closed a roughly $10M raise, bringing total capital raised to $32M. Phospholutions develops RhizoSorb, an additive that can be applied with phosphate or added during fertilizer manufacturing to improve phosphorus uptake by plants. The company says RhizoSorb can allow farmers to cut phosphorus fertilizer applications by about 50% without compromising yields. RhizoSorb has been tested on corn, soybean, wheat, barley, sunflower, chickpea, rice and turfgrass, with an initial focus on large row crops like corn. Phospholutions expanded field trials with digital ag company IN10T to 14 US states and plans further expansion to as many as 130 additional US corn fields in 2022, plus trials in New Zealand, Canada, Turkey, India, Brazil and parts of Africa. Financially, the company tripled in size last year after a $10.3 million Series A led by Continental Grain Company’s CGC Ventures and has recently completed a convertible-note financing to commercialize RhizoSorb in the US row-crop market. Phospholutions' core product, RhizoSorb, is a soil amendment or fertilizer additive that improves delivery of phosphorus and other nutrients and can be applied with phosphate or added during phosphate fertilizer manufacturing. The company reports "dramatic declines" of up to 75% in fertilizer use rates when RhizoSorb is applied. Phospholutions began by targeting turf and ornamental markets and is shifting toward row crops such as corn and soybeans. It will use the Series A funding to support general growth by building a farmer network, establishing partnerships, and running large-scale field trials to collect grower feedback. Management said the company expects to more than double its team this year. The startup sees two go-to-market paths—selling through retailers and distributors for blending, or targeting phosphate producers to incorporate RhizoSorb during production—and notes typical agricultural adoption and regulatory challenges. Phospholutions develops RhizoSorb, a patented soil‑enhancement product designed to reduce phosphorus runoff and improve plant health. The technology was originally created in Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences. RhizoSorb aims to decrease the amount of water and fertilizer needed for plant growth while mitigating environmental impacts of phosphorus fertilizer. The company is led by CEO and Penn State alumnus Hunter Swisher. Phospholutions intends to use the new funds for the full commercial launch of RhizoSorb. The financing positions the company to move from development toward broader market deployment.

Led · Equity · Jul 2018

Pledge It is a sport-based crowdfunding platform founded by a group of Penn State alumni. The platform mobilizes athletes to harness the power of sports for social good and run sport-focused fundraising campaigns. Scott Shirley is co-founder and CEO. The company said it is expanding its team in Central Pennsylvania as it grows. Financially, Pledge It completed a first close with $1.5M in commitments toward an expected $2.5M funding round. The round was led by 1855 Capital.