Participated · Series A · Sep 2021

Boom Entertainment builds and operates premium sports gaming apps and white‑label products for media and sports partners. Its products include NBC Sports Predictor, Tim Hortons NHL Hockey Challenge, PlayBarstool, NASCAR Jackpot Races, MSGN Pick’em, YES Pick N’ Play, and Chirp Golf. Led by co-founder and CEO Stephen A. Murphy, the company says its products have been played by nearly 3 million users. Boom’s platform is designed to drive mobile engagement, user acquisition, funnel management, and online gaming revenue for partners. Partners include media companies, sports leagues, retail companies, and sportsbook and casino companies. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate expansion into real-money gaming products.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2021

Kudos produces disposable baby diapers lined with 100% cotton rather than the typical plastic, positioning itself as a less-toxic, more sustainable diaper alternative. The company launched in 2021 and attracted a Shark Tank deal involving Mark Cuban and Gwyneth Paltrow. Kudos says it sold more than 20 million diapers in the past 12 months and offers monthly subscriptions alongside one-time purchases. It won the personal hygiene industry’s top innovation award and developed its cotton absorbency technology after over three years of R&D. The company plans to use recent funding to expand its footprint and attract new customers, explore adult diaper products, and ultimately create a fully compostable diaper. Management also hopes broader consumer adoption and regulation will increase supply of natural materials and reduce costs. Kudos is a startup reinventing disposable diapers with sustainability in mind, producing cotton-based baby diapers that prioritize natural materials. Its signature product uses organic cotton for the top sheet — the first disposable diaper to earn the cotton natural seal from Cotton Inc. for having 100% cotton touching the baby’s skin. The diapers incorporate four times more plant-based materials than leading brands and use a chlorine-free wood fluff pulp absorbent core harvested through the Forest Stewardship Council. Co-founder and CEO Amrita Saigal emphasizes that maintaining performance comparable to mainstream diapers is critical to adoption, and advisor Jim Keighley notes incumbents would face significant manufacturing changes to adopt natural materials. Kudos operates a direct-to-consumer subscription model with a monthly box priced at $78 based on baby size and weight, and also offers a three- to five-day à la carte box for $14. The company closed a $2.4M seed round to support its growth and product development.

Led · Equity · Dec 2020

PreAct Technologies builds near-field, software-definable flash LiDAR hardware and sensor suites that it describes as patent-pending and high-resolution. Its technology targets a wide range of industries including automotive, healthcare, ITS, industrial, consumer electronics, robotics and trucking. The company acquired AI-driven computer vision and gesture-recognition firm Gestoos in January to combine an AI algorithm development platform with PreAct’s flash LiDAR. That combination is intended to improve edge processing of sensor data and reduce reliance on system integrators for new applications and software-defined services. PreAct says it will use recent funding to drive R&D of AI-based computer vision solutions and to expand into industrial and other non-automotive applications. The company is led by CEO Paul Drysch and maintains offices in Portland, OR; Ashburn, VA; Rochester, NY; and Barcelona, Spain. PreAct Technologies builds high-speed, near-field sensing and perception technology—branded TrueSense—to detect imminent collisions in the "last 100 feet" and enable pre-crash airbags and other safety countermeasures. The company aims to complement or replace short-range radar, ultrasound, and camera sensors and to lower the cost and complexity of ADAS while enabling new use cases such as park assist and self-parking. PreAct emphasizes millisecond-scale detection to prepare vehicles for imminent collisions and reduce severe injuries and fatalities. The firm is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. On the heels of its recent financing, PreAct was awarded a $1 million prize from Luminate and plans to establish a manufacturing base in New York state. The new funds are intended to advance deployment and commercialization of its sensor suite and countermeasure algorithms. PreAct Technologies is a Portland, Ore.-based automotive safety company that develops a precrash sensing and response system. Its system uses precision, near-field sensors operating at extremely high speed to sense a vehicle’s immediate surroundings and track all objects in real-time. The sensors are also suited for slower ADAS functions such as self-parking, curb detection, and pedestrian warning. That capability allows automotive OEMs to multitask their sensor suite to address both ADAS and precrash functions as a combined package. Led by CEO and co-founder Paul Drysch, the company raised $1.6M in funding led by Alpha Bridge with participation from elev8.vc and Sony Innovation Fund. PreAct said it will use the funds to accelerate market penetration of its system.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2019

Squad is a social screen sharing and group video chat app that lets users hang out with friends inside apps such as YouTube, Airbnb, Tinder, and shopping services. The platform emphasizes safety for its primarily female audience with blocking and reporting tools to prioritize security. Squad reports 450,000 registered users, about 70% of whom are teenage girls, and users have spent roughly 1 million hours in Squad calls this year. The product evolved from an earlier data‑sharing tool called Molly and the current Squad service launched in January. Leadership includes CEO Esther Crawford and CTO Ethan Sutin, and the company plans to use the new funding to expand its operations. The company says adoption has occurred without localization, drawing a global female audience in markets including India, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. Squad is a mobile app that enables up to six people to video chat and switch to live screensharing of their phones, letting friends browse apps and media together. The app leverages Apple’s ReplayKit and only launched its app last week. Founders Esther Crawford and Ethan Sutin pivoted their prior product Molly into Squad and have $2.2 million in funding from earlier investors to fuel the new direction. Squad plans to add shareable URLs so creators and fans can tune into screenshares and is developing a Squad SDK to embed screensharing inside other apps. The team is focused on minimizing lag and preserving video quality for users in rural areas, and is considering privacy measures like blocking downloads and warning about screenshots. Its stated mission is to create more intimate, low‑pressure social experiences to help people feel less lonely.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2019

Squad offers real-time video chat plus phone screen-sharing so friends can browse content together privately. The app has amassed 450,000 registered users in eight months, with 70% identifying as teenage girls, and users have logged 1 million hours in calls. The remote, six-person team prioritizes safety features (blocking, reporting, unsearchable usernames, no recording/saving) that the founders say drove organic growth. Squad is currently free, ad-free and not yet generating revenue. The company plans to monetize via in-app purchases as soon as next year and is adding platform integrations (recently YouTube) while hiring product designers and running strategic marketing.