The Venture Codex

Led · Series C · Apr 2024

Cariloop provides an employer‑sponsored, comprehensive caregiver support platform that pairs experienced Care Coaches with a digital suite of resources for finding, booking, and paying for care. The platform is designed to reduce employee stress and burnout while improving productivity and reducing absenteeism for employers. Cariloop serves customers including Procter & Gamble, KPMG, CAE, American Cancer Society, Arthur J. Gallagher, ASPCA, and Insperity. The company has seen nearly 300% revenue growth over the last three years, achieved net revenue retention near 120%, and maintains an NPS above 80. Cariloop plans to use new financing to expand market reach to more employers and caregivers and to invest in its digital and concierge‑level offerings to drive deeper member engagement. Cariloop provides a human-powered Caregiver Support Platform that combines on-demand care coaching services with a HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based application for families to manage health, financial, and legal documents. The platform pairs families with a dedicated Care Coach to guide planning and care coordination throughout short- and long-term caregiving journeys. The company graduated from the Health Wildcatters Accelerator program in 2013 and was an early mover in this category. Cariloop intends to use new capital to accelerate national distribution, expand employer and partner programs, and build additional tools and services for integration into corporate well-being offerings. The company plans to double its team from 30 to 60 employees over 12–18 months and to quadruple the number of caregivers and families with access to its platform. The financing comes amid increased demand during COVID-19 as more employees balance remote work with caregiving responsibilities. Cariloop offers a web-based search wizard and marketplace that matches seniors and their families to nine types of care facilities, from independent living to memory health and hospice. The service targets tech-savvy adult children who help make care decisions and is modeled on consumer comparison sites. A mobile app is in development and the platform is currently available only in Texas, with expansion contingent on demand. Cariloop launched a beta one year ago and went live within the past six months; it has 10–12 staff and has signed on about 250–300 providers with a long-term goal of 1,500. Its provider funding model charges providers only after Cariloop brings them customers. Michael Walsh is co-founder and CEO.

Led · Series C · Sep 2023

Transfr provides virtual reality simulations paired with a digital coach to deliver hands-on workforce training and career-development courses, with a focus on middle-skills jobs. Its platform is used by government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, community organizations, workforce development groups, K-12 schools and higher-education institutions. The company reports installations in more than 1,000 U.S. locations, has facilitated almost 400,000 training simulations, operates in over 40 states, and says its customer base more than doubled year-over-year from 2019 to 2023. Transfr monetizes via a software-as-a-service licensing fee; customers must also acquire headsets (notably Meta’s Oculus Quest with Oculus for Business) to use the platform. The company plans to scale the platform, build out its executive team, invest in new training simulations across a wider range of skills and scenarios, and expand Spanish-language offerings and overall content. Founder and CEO Bharani Rajakumar, whose prior company LearnBop was acquired by K12 in 2014, leads the company’s partnerships with educational and workforce organizations. Transfr VR builds virtual and augmented reality simulations that simulate on-the-job training in fully immersive, 360-degree environments. Delivered with employers, colleges, and workforce development organizations, its simulations include a pre-programmed digital coach to enable hands-on, distraction-free training. The company serves industries including automotive, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, health care, and construction. Over five years Transfr expanded from customers in a single state to partners in 36 states and the District of Columbia, and nearly 300 organizations now use its platform. More than 10,000 incumbent workers, job-seekers, and students have accessed its simulations. The company recently completed a $35 million Series B financing led by Lumos Capital Group. TRANSFR VR builds simulation-based, hands-on training experiences using virtual reality to prepare people for technical and skilled-trade roles. The company’s platform pairs curriculum and assessment tools with headsets (the article cites Oculus Quest with Oculus for Business) to recreate on-the-job experiences. TRANSFR says its programs are aimed at boosting economic mobility in regions with acute skills gaps and unemployment and are already used by workforce agencies, schools, colleges, and employers. Customers and partners named in the article include Lockheed Martin, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, and statewide partnerships in Alabama through AIDT and the Alabama Community College System under the JumpstartAL initiative. The company emphasizes connecting schools, workplaces, and governments to make technical careers more accessible and to open pathways to higher wages. TRANSFR was recognized in January 2020 as a “2020 Innovator to Watch” by nonprofit JFF.

Led · Series B · Apr 2023

Scene Health operates a video-based platform and mobile app that connects patients with a care team of pharmacists, nurses, and health coaches through daily video check-ins and in-app chat. Its tech-enabled solution combines video technology, clinical coaching, and validated interventions to improve medication administration, adherence, and address social determinants of health. Scene reports impacting more than 200,000 lives with over 40 million engagements and currently delivers programs for 720 customers across Medicaid and Medicare managed care organizations, public health departments, and life sciences organizations. The company cites evidence in 19 peer-reviewed publications demonstrating improved engagement, outcomes, and reduced costs. Recent validations include a CDC endorsement of video DOT for tuberculosis and a $1.67 million NIH grant to support pediatric heart transplant recipients. Scene has raised over $25 million in total funding since its 2014 founding.

Led · Series B · Nov 2022

Founded in October 2020, Tampa-based HSP Group delivers a unified suite of global people and entity management solutions—such as payroll, Employer of Record, HR support, entity compliance, tax and legal filings—through its proprietary GateWay technology platform. GateWay gives customers real-time visibility into their international footprints and allows self-management of key workflows, positioning the firm as a digital disruptor in the $24 billion international expansion solutions market. HSP targets start-ups, growth companies and multinationals that need a permanent alternative or complement to Employer of Record arrangements. The company plans to use new capital to deepen industry partnerships, add automation and lower-cost operations centers, and roll out advanced GateWay applications that simplify cross-border expansion. Management emphasizes a customer-experience-first approach, integrating technology, methodology, pricing and expertise into a single offering. Total funding in the company now exceeds $20 million, underscoring investor confidence in its growth trajectory.

Participated · Series C · Jul 2022

Cordial offers a marketing orchestration platform that unifies customer data from multiple sources (cloud storage, REST APIs) and uses customizable machine-learning models to automate personalized campaigns across email, SMS, mobile, and social channels. The platform supports A/B testing, predictive models for churn and product affinity, and allows clients to view and adjust top predictors to avoid a black-box approach. Cordial positions a customer data platform (CDP) at its core to ingest real-time feeds without changing schemas, enabling native messaging, segmentation, testing, and optimization. The company says it serves more than 600 brands, including Revolve, Backcountry, and Purple. Cordial currently has about 130 employees and plans to grow to roughly 200 by year-end as it expands its global footprint and launches new features. The founders—Jeremy Swift (CEO), Adam Gillespie, Chris McGreal, and David Baker—built on prior experience from BlueHornet; Cordial was founded in 2014 and estimates a total addressable market around $8 billion. Cordial builds a next-generation platform for email marketing that personalizes messages using real-time customer data and machine learning. The product embeds dynamic elements in emails that update based on individual customer behavior and optimizes every part of the message from subject lines to CTAs. Cordial has expanded beyond email to include push notifications and SMS, all coordinated via a visual tool called Podium for building event-driven communication flows. The company emphasizes replacing legacy marketing clouds and point solutions with a unified, real-time messaging stack. Customers using the platform include Freshly, La Quinta and 1-800-Contacts. Cordial is led by CEO Jeremy Swift, whose team has background from BlueHornet/Mapp Digital and plans continued product and channel expansion. Cordial develops a platform that tracks user behavior across apps, websites and connected devices to generate targeted, automated marketing emails. The company positions itself as a vendor that understands customer behavior across multiple connected devices, including smart home devices. Cordial is led by a team of longtime email marketing professionals, including CEO Jeremy Swift, CTO Adam Gillespie (who sold BlueHornet to Digital River) and COO David Baker. The startup is San Diego–based and is a graduate of R/GA’s Connected Commerce Accelerator. Its product aims to further automate marketing messages and sit at the center of offerings following major industry acquisitions by Salesforce and Oracle. Financially, the company disclosed a $6 million Series A financing led by Upfront Ventures.