Led · Series B · Jul 2026

Materna Medical develops technologies addressing unmet needs in women's pelvic health, with a mission to transform the standard of care in OBGYN. Its first product, Milli, is a vaginal dilator originally launched as a wellness trainer in 2019 and cleared by the FDA in 2023 for over-the-counter sale. Milli outcomes have been studied in a post-market prospective virtual study called POMPOM. Materna's second product, Ellora, is an investigational device intended to reduce pelvic floor muscle injury during vaginal delivery and is being evaluated in the randomized EASE trial across 20 U.S. hospitals. The company recently raised $5 million in a B3 financing to support completion of the EASE trial readout, expand Milli channel access, and prepare Ellora's commercialization and manufacturing. Materna is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2026

Theta Neurotech is developing a non-invasive wearable EEG patch aimed at forecasting seizures. The company pivoted from a broader consumer "Fitbit for the brain" concept toward a medical wedge focused on epilepsy after identifying clinical demand and behavioral considerations for EEG wearables. Theta has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding to support device development, machine-learning research, and an exploratory clinical study. Co-founders Truman Pierson and Christopher Fitz lead the company. The market for seizure monitoring includes invasive and non-invasive competitors, but non-invasive seizure forecasting remains early-stage and challenging. Several rivals are running exploratory studies, and none have yet reached patients.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2025

AiDEN Auto builds a privacy-first, no-code application framework and dynamic consent-management platform that enables OEMs to deploy and monetize in-vehicle services at scale. The platform emphasizes consumer control, transparency, GDPR and CCPA compliance, and minimal data collection. AiDEN positions its product to unlock service revenue streams such as proactive charging recommendations, smart parking, and destination services while keeping drivers in control of their data. The company has formed partnerships with HERE Technologies, Volvo Trucks CampX, Conxcity, MAVI, Treads, and HAAS to integrate contextual alerts and other services into vehicles. Founded in 2021, AiDEN is based in San Ramon, California, and maintains offices in Sweden. Financially, the company recently closed an oversubscribed $4.2M Seed round, bringing total funding to $6.1M.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2023

Champions Round offers short-form "micro fantasy sports" games that can be played daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly, removing the need for season-long commitments. The app supports free and buy-in game options across multiple modes (Daily Dozen, Boost Ball, Big Board, Spicy Slips, 7 Stakes and Sunday’s Best) and currently focuses on the NFL, NBA and esports. It emphasizes creator-driven engagement and is building a Creator Rooms feature to let content creators host games, monetize audiences, and earn via engagement, sign-ups, cosmetic sales, revenue share and ad revenue. The company says it recently turned profitable, averaged 28% month-over-month growth in 2022, and has an average user age of 22 with over 10,000 downloads to date. Champions Round launched publicly in September 2021, is available worldwide on iOS and Android, and plans expansion to many more leagues by 2024. Champions Round operates a mobile fantasy sports platform offering NFL and NBA games through its app, with shorter multi-week game modes and a winner-takes-all format. Users can join public leagues or create private leagues and play for free or pay $2, $5 or $10 per entry. Founders Carter Russ and Chase Payne met in May 2018 and partnered to launch Champions Round; the app was updated the week of the article. The company reports that 58% of users are ages 13–24 and 28% are ages 25–34, but it did not disclose total participant counts. Champions Round has grown to 10 employees (up from five earlier this year) and plans to hire more engineers to improve the app. It has formed marketing partnerships with athletes including Baron Davis and a co-branding deal with YnG DnA, and it hopes to offer traditional sports betting in coming years while taking a cautious approach to NIL partnerships. Champions Round is a Los Angeles-based startup that operates a fantasy sports app focused on specific sports events. The app centers on events such as playoffs and the NFL draft and runs on both iOS and Android. The company is led by co-founder and CEO Carter Russ. In January 2021 Champions Round disclosed it had raised $1M in a seed funding round. The funding was led by Quest Venture Partners and was announced during the holidays. No revenue, user metrics, or detailed future plans were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2022

AlgoFace develops Face AI and computer-vision solutions centered on a Face AI Enablement Engine that supports 2D facial landmark tracking, 3D face mesh, iris tracking, head pose estimation, and hair segmentation. Its core Face Analyzer/Semantic Search technology can locate facial attributes in photos via descriptive text searches without requiring a probe photo. The company emphasizes privacy-by-default and ethical AI frameworks to avoid traditional identification workflows and reduce legal and other risks. AlgoFace targets enterprise and government customers and applications including national security, law enforcement, building safety, video search, digital asset management, spatial analytics, and programmatic media. The technology is designed to operate on the edge across mobile, desktop, embedded systems, AR/VR, and the Metaverse. AlgoFace holds two patents related to the technology and is using grant funding to advance R&D. AlgoFace develops a Face AI Enablement Engine that provides 2D facial landmark tracking, 3D face mesh, iris tracking, head pose estimation, and hair segmentation with a focus on privacy-by-default and ethical AI frameworks. The company's engine targets edge deployment and is usable across mobile, desktop, embedded systems, AR/VR, and the Metaverse. AlgoFace positions its product for enterprise and government customers seeking trusted, low-power facial AI solutions. The company has participated in multiple accelerators and competitions, including the Fuel AI/ML Accelerator and Venture Madness, and has received local recognition such as Phoenix Business Journal’s "Startups to Watch." Financially, the firm was awarded a $150,000 grant from the Arizona Commerce Authority as an Arizona Innovation Challenge Awardee. AlgoFace intends to leverage the ACA Venture Ready Accelerator milestones to unlock the grant and accelerate growth. AlgoFace's Face AI enablement engine uses advances in computer vision and edge computing to power 2D and 3D facial analysis and landmark tracking for features, expressions, eye gaze, head pose and mouth-to-eye ratio. The platform includes data labeling and annotation tools, synthetic data generation, and deepfake detection with privacy and inclusivity prioritized. Its technology is positioned for deployments across mobile, desktop, embedded systems, AR/VR, the Metaverse and Web 3.0 via enterprise, commercial, and government relationships. The company reported rapid commercial traction—selling 2.5X its entire six-figure 2021 revenue in Q1 2022—has grown headcount from 14 to 30, and counts a Fortune 50 company as a client. AlgoFace expects to expand at a compounded annual growth rate of at least 40% and describes its plan as balancing revenue-funded growth with capital efficiency. Financially, the company has raised over $1.6 million toward its seed round and is pursuing government R&D opportunities such as an NSF Phase I SBIR/STTR submission.