Participated · Equity · Dec 2023

SumUp is a global fintech that provides payments and business tools to millions of merchants of all sizes. The company has generated positive EBITDA since December 2022 and has delivered over a decade of sustained growth. SumUp says it balances sustainable growth with fiscal responsibility, launching new markets and products while keeping finances under control. Management intends to use new capital to refinance existing debt and to pursue organic and inorganic global growth opportunities. Investor interest was strong and the company reports the round was oversubscribed, which SumUp cites as confirmation of market confidence in its business model. SumUp plans to continue scaling its services and products to provide merchants with tools and best-in-class support experiences. SumUp builds card readers and point-of-sale tools and offers related services such as invoicing, loyalty programs and business accounts to small merchants. The company is planning continued organic expansion of financial services around its hardware and is targeting more geographies beyond the 36 markets where it currently operates. SumUp is also pursuing inorganic growth through M&A, having previously acquired U.S. loyalty startup Fivestars in 2021 to expand services and U.S. presence. The business says it has been "positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022" and reports over 30% year‑over‑year top-line growth. Its customer count is about 4 million, a figure unchanged from two years ago, indicating mixed operational signals. SumUp is a London-based financial technology company led by Marc-Alexander Christ, serving more than 4 million small merchants in over 35 markets. The company offers card terminals and point-of-sale registers, in-person and remote payments, a free business account and card, an online store, and invoicing. Its SumUp Cash Advance product provides merchants with advances of up to £20,000 based on their payment history. Advances are repaid through payment acceptance with SumUp card readers in a flexible, incremental manner. Merchants pay a fixed fee for access to advances and are not charged monthly interest or hidden fees. SumUp says it will use new financing to expand its merchant cash advance product and support UK-based merchants. SumUp started as a maker of card-reader dongles and has expanded into a broader suite of payments and business services used by about 4 million SMBs in 35 markets. The company now employs roughly 3,000 people and offers products including POS payments, online payments, and a business banking product used by about 10% of its customers. SumUp has pursued M&A to build its platform, acquiring companies such as Payleven, Goodtill, Tiller and U.S.-based loyalty startup Fivestars. Management says revenues have grown roughly 60% annually over the last couple of years, while POS payments remain the bulk of revenue. The company is pursuing further product development, hiring and additional acquisitions as it expands into more emerging markets (its most recent launch was Peru) and continues to focus on Europe as its largest geography. SumUp offers physical card readers and a suite of payments services — online payments, invoicing and POS solutions — to merchants, taking a cut of transactions as its primary revenue model. The company operates in 33 countries and serves roughly 3 million businesses. SumUp has grown in part through acquisitions (including Payleven in 2016 and more recent purchases such as Paysolut, Goodtill and Tiller) to expand its product set and geographic footprint. Its stated strategy is to build more services for businesses and scale transaction volume rather than move into consumer-facing financial products or cryptocurrency. The company says it has stable cash flow, which it cited as a reason for choosing debt financing to avoid dilution. SumUp is London-based and was founded in 2012.

Led · Equity · Jun 2023

Blackpoint Cyber offers Managed Detection and Response (MDR) technology that rapidly detects and isolates threats at the earliest sign of a breach and a 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC) that investigates suspicious activity and takes real-time action for MSP partners. Its services aim to eliminate alert fatigue and reduce time spent on false positives for managed service providers. The company recently introduced a Managed Application Control solution to ensure only authorized applications run on devices and to reduce malware risk. In 2023 Blackpoint launched Blackpoint University, a learning platform delivering sales and technical cybersecurity training for MSPs with lessons from military, intelligence, and business leaders. The company plans to use new funds to further develop its security technology. Blackpoint was founded in 2014 by CEO Jon Murchison, a former NSA computer operations expert. Blackpoint Cyber provides a 24/7 Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service tailored to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and real-estate owners. Its Security Operations Team uses the company's proprietary software, SNAP-Defense, which is designed to detect intrusions early and enable real-time response via a patented live network map and lateral spread detection. The company recently launched MDR 4.0, described as the industry's first contextually aware MDR platform. Blackpoint was founded by former U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence cyber experts and is headquartered in Maryland. The company reports record expansion and is scaling its partner-focused business model. In conjunction with growth, it has strengthened its board with high-profile security leaders. Blackpoint Cyber develops the SNAP-Defense platform, a threat-hunting and response product that provides patented lateral spread detection and a Live Network Map for real-time asset visualization. SNAP-Defense emphasizes early detainment of compromised devices and surfaces universal threat behaviors such as network enumeration and lateral movement rather than relying on raw logs. Recent platform additions include a multi-tenant dashboard for MSSPs, an automated compliance module, and a NICOS module for securing smart building and industrial control systems. The company was founded by former DoD cyber operations experts and has built substantial IP, including a patented approach to immediate lateral movement detection and network mapping. Blackpoint announced a $6 million funding round and said the proceeds will accelerate sales and marketing to scale in U.S. and foreign markets. Matt Gora and Jay Buchanan from DLA Piper acted as counsel to Blackpoint on the transaction.

Led · Equity · Jun 2023

Blackpoint Cyber provides a nation-state‑grade cybersecurity ecosystem delivered to managed service providers (MSPs), centered on its managed detection and response (MDR) technology and a 24/7 Security Operations Center that investigates and neutralizes threats in real time. The company’s SOC takes action on behalf of MSPs to reduce alert fatigue and false positives rather than merely issuing alerts. Blackpoint has added products such as Managed Application Control to ensure only authorized applications run on devices. In 2023 it launched Blackpoint University to deliver sales and technical cybersecurity training for MSPs. The business says it is committed to adding additional products and simplifying the security stack for MSP partners as they take on a larger role in cybersecurity. The company was founded by CEO Jon Murchison, a former NSA computer operations expert, and emphasizes real‑world cyber defense experience in its product development. Blackpoint provides a cybersecurity platform called SNAP-Defense that detects lateral spread and offers real-time network visualization to identify and detain threats early in a breach. SNAP-Defense's Live Network Map gives accurate, real-time visualization of every asset and focuses on universal threat behaviors such as network enumeration, lateral movement, and system administration tradecraft. The platform is designed to let customers reduce their product stack while detecting threats before they can spread. Recent product enhancements include a multi-tenant dashboard for MSSPs, an automated compliance module, and a Networked Industrial Control Operations System (NICOS) module for securing smart building systems, industrial control systems, and operations technology including factory and logistics control systems. The company intends to use new funding to accelerate sales and marketing and to scale in U.S. and foreign markets. Blackpoint is led by founder and CEO Jon Murchison and is based in Ellicott City, Maryland.

Led · Equity · Jun 2022

Ataccama builds a data fabric platform that provides data governance, data catalog, data quality, discovery, lineage and remediation across on-premises and cloud sources. The platform uses AI to help technical and non-technical users find, understand and improve data, and can import business term definitions, policies, quality rules and metadata. It automatically discovers and transforms data, captures lineage and can fill missing information using external reference and reference data. Founded in 2007 as a spin-off from systems integrator Adastra, Ataccama serves roughly 200 corporate customers and about 200 additional B2B customers via OEM partners. The company has been operationally profitable since 2011 with positive cash flow and reported 86% annual recurring revenue growth year-over-year. Management plans to direct new funding toward scaling go-to-market functions, continued product innovation to bridge data democratization with governance, and tighter integrations with platforms such as Snowflake and Databricks. Ataccama also intends to expand its workforce from about 468 employees to over 500 in the coming months.

Led · Series C · Nov 2021

Mixpanel builds product analytics tools for tracking product usage and user behavior. After promoting Amir Movafaghi to CEO in 2018, the company narrowed its focus, shutting adjacent messaging and A/B testing products to concentrate on core product analytics. The refocus improved customer satisfaction and retention — NPS rose from 15 in 2018 to 85 this year — and revenue has improved alongside those metrics. When Movafaghi took over in 2018 the company had roughly $100 million in revenue and was near a $1 billion valuation; business performance has continued to accelerate since. Mixpanel plans to use its new capital to invest in partnerships and further product development for its enterprise customers to grow market share. Founded in 2009 by Suhail Doshi and Tim Trefren, the company has raised $277 million to date following the latest round. Mixpanel offers an analytics platform focused on mobile (and web) that helps customers answer detailed questions about user behavior. The company was incubated by Y Combinator and launched in 2009. Mixpanel processes roughly 34 billion actions per month and its "People" product accounts for about 20% of revenue. Mixpanel has been profitable since 2012 and, prior to the new round, reported having more than $20 million in the bank. The company recently passed the 100-employee mark. Leadership says it will use new funding to experiment aggressively on features, invest in predictive capabilities that combine data science with AI, and make data more usable for non-data scientists while addressing retention through larger customer-success efforts and more annual subscriptions. Mixpanel provides advanced mobile and web analytics that track user actions across applications. The company reports rapid usage growth—tracking about 4 billion actions per month in February and more than 7 billion just weeks later. Mixpanel counts high-profile smartphone apps among its customers, including Path, Viddy and Socialcam, and the team says most hit mobile apps (aside from Instagram) use its service. The product is positioned as an affordable, innovative alternative to legacy analytics vendors such as Omniture. Mixpanel plans to make analytics data more actionable for customers (for example, helping gaming companies act on identified "whales") and to spend aggressively on recruiting to compete for talent with large tech firms. Mixpanel offers an easy-to-integrate analytics solution focused on on-page actions (how often users activate features, progress through flows, etc.) and reports data in real time. Its customers include Quora, Bebo, and Slide, and the service is used on roughly 2,000 sites, many of them mobile. Mixpanel provides a free plan that tracks 25,000 data points per month and paid plans starting at $150 per month for 500,000 events. Cofounder Suhail Doshi says the company is already generating a significant amount of revenue, with double-digit revenue growth each month. The team previously participated in Y Combinator and raised an earlier $500,000 from Michael Birch and Max Levchin. Mixpanel plans to expand its engineering team and hinted at major product announcements in the coming six weeks. Mixpanel is a Y Combinator‑backed startup that provides analytics tools enabling web services to get a deeper view of how users interact with their applications. Its core product tracks on-page actions and recently added a Tests feature that lets developers run A/B groups while tracking many user actions rather than a single metric. The company emphasizes more powerful, granular analytics than other popular solutions. Mixpanel has two founders, Tim Trefren and Suhail Doshi, and says it is ramping up hiring. The service has already been adopted by notable operators—Max Levchin is using Mixpanel to track some of Slide’s stats. Financially, the company has secured early seed backing from prominent angel investors.