Participated · Series C · Jul 2021

Tailor Brands provides AI-driven tools that automate logo creation and other branding and marketing services for small businesses. The company is assembling components into a one-stop SaaS platform that delivers design, branding and marketing capabilities to help owners launch and scale. Headquartered in New York and Tel Aviv, Tailor Brands is onboarding some 700,000 new users per month and says more than 30 million businesses have used the platform. It began monetizing offerings at the end of 2019 and reported triple-digit annual revenue growth. The company plans to use new funding for R&D, to double the team, build additional capabilities and pursue potential acquisitions. Tailor Brands aims to leverage its data to proactively guide customers through next steps and create an integrated ecosystem where users can manage their business without leaving the platform. Tailor Brands automates branding and marketing for small businesses by applying machine learning to logo design, copywriting, and social media strategy. CEO Yali Saar positions the company at the intersection of design and machine learning, with automated logo creation as a flagship feature. Users can try creating logos for free but must pay to access high-quality image files. The technology has been used to create 45 million logos; the company reported 3.86 million customers last year and is adding roughly half a million new businesses to the platform each month. Tailor Brands launched at TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield in 2014 and plans to use new funding to expand globally, add more languages, and introduce additional tools to its full branding suite. The company has raised a total of $20.6 million to date. Tailor Brands offers an automated branding service that generates logos, promotional materials, and social media campaigns using machine-learning models. CEO Yali Saar aims to automate the full-service branding agency by combining design best practices with algorithmic generation. The company employs an interdisciplinary team of engineers and designers who are required to learn the intersections of design and machine learning. Tailor Brands collects high-volume behavioral data — users create a new design every 1.5 seconds — which Saar says can surface macro trends in design and branding. Pricing ranges from $24 to $99 per package, and the company also offers a $9.99/month subscription plan. The product has improved since its 2014 beginnings but still exhibits occasional design faults. Tailor Brands uses algorithms to generate logos and a range of branding items, including business cards, bags, mugs, pens and online materials such as social media profiles for small businesses. The site lets users download logos for free and offers unlimited free revisions while monetizing via higher-resolution images and designed asset packages. Paid offerings start at $24 for a single job and go up to $99 for a complete package; the company provides design files but does not print or ship physical cards. Tailor Brands launched in beta at Disrupt San Francisco and has done business in over 35 countries since that launch. The company raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Disruptive Fund and various angel investors to build out its automated design process. CEO Yali Saar said the funds will be used to hire more designers and expand services such as app design as the team experiments with additional offerings.

Participated · Series F · Jul 2021

ManoMano operates an online marketplace for DIY, home improvement and gardening products, serving both hobbyists and a B2B arm (ManoManoPro). The company is available in six European countries, including France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany and the U.K. It does not hold inventory or own warehouses and relies on third-party logistics while positioning itself as a tech company. ManoMano reported gross merchandise volume doubled to €1.2 billion in 2020 and has 7 million clients; it has been profitable in France for a couple of years. The platform uses advisors (Manodvisors) to provide guidance—customers initiated 2.3 million advisor conversations in 2020. With the new capital the company plans to invest in product, build better logistics infrastructure, expand ManoManoPro into Spain and Italy, and grow its presence in the U.K. and Germany. ManoMano also plans to recruit 1,000 people over the next 18 months, most of them in tech roles. ManoMano operates an online marketplace for DIY, home improvement and gardening products, combining brand inventory with community advice and category-specific services. The company offers services such as Mano Fulfilment (category-specific logistics) and Manodvisors (a community of experts and enthusiasts). ManoMano has pursued international expansion across Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK and aims to become the European market leader in its category. In 2019 the company grew well in excess of 50% and for the first time exceeded €600 million in sales, with international markets contributing more than one third of sales. ManoMano launched ManoManoPro in March 2019, which already contributes about 10% of sales in France. The company had 420 employees in 2019 after adding 200 hires and planned to add another 200 positions in 2020 across offices including Barcelona and Bordeaux. ManoMano operates an online DIY and home-improvement marketplace serving consumers and professionals. The company also launched ManoMano Pro, a platform for construction professionals. It claims 2.5 million customers and about 20 million visits per month, and it employs 370 people. ManoMano reported an 85% increase in revenues in 2018. The startup currently operates across France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom. It plans to use new funding to strengthen its presence in those markets and further develop ManoMano Pro. ManoMano operates an online marketplace that connects customers with a network of merchants selling DIY and gardening products at competitive prices. The platform serves more than 1.9 million customers across multiple European markets. It is active in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium and the UK and focuses on expanding its product and service offering. The company plans to invest in brand marketing to raise awareness in all markets and enhance its DIY product range and customer services. ManoMano also intends to continue building commercial and logistics services and to increase headcount in its IT & data teams as well as grow the business development teams in the UK and Germany. Financially, the company recently completed a significant equity raise to support these initiatives. ManoMano is a French online ecommerce and social platform specializing in DIY, bricolage, gardening and renovation products. Launched in 2013 by Christian Raisson and Philippe de Chanville, the company is active in France, Spain, Italy and the UK. Its platform combines product offerings with social features for home-improvement shoppers. In 2016 ManoMano raised €13M in VC funding. The company intends to use the funds to expand into additional European countries. Previously it raised €600k in 2013 and €2m in 2014.

Participated · Series C · Oct 2020

Ÿnsect produces natural insect protein and is shifting its commercial focus from primarily animal feed to pet foods and food ingredients. The company says the new capital will support that pivot toward higher-margin markets. Ÿnsect cited soaring costs—energy, raw materials and the cost of capital and debt—as a driver for refocusing its operations. As part of the refocus it will close a Dutch production plant acquired via Protifarm about two years ago. The shutdown triggers 35 immediate job cuts and a further 38 positions slated to go, from a workforce of 360 (a 20.27% reduction). Management says the move responds to market dynamics where animal feed is less remunerative than pet-food and food-ingredient markets. The company declined to disclose investors for the newest raise and said a second tranche is in discussion. Ÿnsect farms mealworms that produce protein ingredients for animal feed and fertilisers and is constructing a large insect farm in Amiens, north France. The company says it will complete construction in 2022 and produce 100,000 tons of insect products annually. Ÿnsect plans to use the new funding to finance expansion into the US. Management frames the technology as a more sustainable way to produce food inputs amid climate change and growing populations. The company reported that Covid-19 had little impact on its workflow this year. Its total funding to date now stands at $425 million. Ÿnsect produces insect-derived protein at scale using mealworms and automated, sensor-driven cultivation technologies. The company applies automation and sensing technologies from industries like automotive and data centers, holds 25 patents, and uses an AI-enabled, fully automated production process. Its products are sold into pet food, plant food and aquaculture animal feed markets, with particular emphasis on fish and shellfish farming. Ÿnsect is expanding globally and plans to build what it calls the world’s biggest insect farm in Amiens Métropole in northern France, while beginning expansion into the North American market. The company is on track to book more than $70 million in revenue this year. Management has signaled a goal of reaching unicorn status as it scales production and market reach. Ynsect is an innovation company that farms and transforms insects into high-quality natural diets for livestock and pet nutrition, and potentially human nutrition in the longer term. Its main product is TMP — Tenebrio molitor protein — a de-fatted protein meal made from farmed mealworm larvae. The company has designed proprietary technology to farm mealworm larvae, using automation and machine-learning software connected to sensors to ensure insect welfare, promote growth, and safeguard operators' health. Ynsect intends to increase capacity at Ynsite, its pilot centre in Jura, France, and to begin preparatory engineering for a large insect unit targeted to produce at least 20,000 metric tons of insect protein per year. The company closed a $15.2M Series B, bringing cumulative private and public funding to $37M over the prior three years. Founded in 2011 and based in Evry, France, Ynsect focuses on scaling mass-breeding and processing of mealworms for the animal feed market. Ynsect is a French insect biotechnology company founded in 2011 that has developed Entoraffinerie© for the nutritional and green chemistry markets. The company has run major R&D programs with academic and research institutions across France and Europe, including CEA, INRA, CNRS, IFREMER, AgroParisTech, IRSTEA and Wageningen University. Ynsect raised €5.5m in funding from New Protein Capital alongside existing investors Emertec Gestion and Demeter Partners. The company intends to use the funds to advance its solution, accelerate R&D in a new 1,700 m² facility at Genopole in Évry, and begin industrializing its processes. Ynsect also plans to strengthen its international position, particularly in Asia, and continue developing partnerships with manufacturing companies abroad. It is supported by Bpifrance and the Île-de-France Region.

Participated · Equity · Nov 2018

The Bitfury Group is a full-service blockchain technology company that builds hardware, security and software solutions for governments, corporations and the Bitcoin network. Its products include custom semiconductor chips, mobile datacenters, the private blockchain framework Exonum, analytics platform Crystal Blockchain and Lightning Network engineering (LightningPeach). Founded in 2011, the company employs about 700 people across 15 countries and operates five data centers in Iceland, Canada, Georgia and Norway. Bitfury reported triple-digit growth and more than half a billion dollars in revenues. The company says it will use proceeds from the placement to support growth and expand into adjacent market segments such as AI. Management retains control of the company. BitFury Group is a Bitcoin and private blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Led by CEO and founder Valery Vavilov, BitFury develops and delivers both the software and the hardware solutions necessary for businesses, governments, organizations and individuals to securely move an asset across the Blockchain. The company's core offerings combine hardware and software infrastructure for blockchain transactions. In January 2017 BitFury received a US$30m investment from Credit China FinTech. The investor signed a deal with BitFury to establish a joint venture focusing on the China market. The collaboration will assist Credit China FinTech in maximising the adoption of the Bitcoin Blockchain and private Blockchains into its various platforms. BitFury builds Bitcoin blockchain infrastructure and transaction-processing hardware and services. Its product lineup includes the HexFury USB mining rig (six ASICs) and a recently rolled-out 28 nm chip. The company acquired immersion-cooling startup Allied Control and is building a 'Techno Park' to host a new 100 MW data center in the Republic of Georgia. It secured $20 million in funding to bolster its blockchain infrastructure. Founded in 2011 by Valery Vavilov and Valery Nebesny, BitFury has offices in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Amsterdam, and data centers in Iceland and the Republic of Georgia.