Participated · Seed · Mar 2024

Zenapse is a Westport, CT–based martech company that offers an AI SaaS marketing and customer experience optimization platform. Its core product, ZenImpact, is built on a large Emotion Model (LEM) knowledge graph that uses AI to interpret signals from more than 150 million consumers to surface emotional insights for marketers. The platform enables brands to create emotionally intelligent marketing experiences and counts customers such as Sam’s Club, Aeropostale, Prosper, and Bread Financial. The company was founded by Matthew Bernardini, Janis Nakano Spivack, Godfrey Baker, and Christer Manning. Zenapse plans to use the new funding to further develop its AI technology, expand product features, integrate with more platforms, scale its customer base, and enhance its marketing efforts. Financially, Zenapse has raised $8.0M in a seed round led by Naples Technology Ventures with participation from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Broad Street Angels, and BaseCamp Ventures.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2023

NS/TX Industries (doing business as NEW/SCHOOL FOODS) operates a vertically integrated manufacturing platform built around a proprietary, tuneable scaffolding and texturization technology for meat and seafood analogues. The platform supports production of whole-cut formats (steaks, filets), non whole-cut formats (burgers, strips), and a wide range of species analogues with tuneable texture, flavor delivery systems, and cleaner-label nutrition. The company operates a 28,000 sq. ft. facility in Toronto and launched a V1 commercial assembly line in late 2024, achieving more than a 10x reduction in production costs through extensive trials, equipment upgrades, digital QA, and process breakthroughs. Those developments generated new patents and proprietary equipment designs. NS/TX provides production, R&D, and co-manufacturing services and delivers consumer- and restaurant-facing products via its NEW/SCHOOL FOODS brand. The company has raised over $30 million USD in private and government funding and is now scaling via construction of an automated V2 Assembly Line to increase capacity by over 10x and further lower costs.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2022

Here is a Miami-based platform that enables retail investors to buy fractional ownership of vacation rental homes with minimum investments as low as $100. The company acquires properties, readies them for short-term rental, lists shares at $1 per share, and pays quarterly dividends from rental profits; properties are held in LLCs and offerings are submitted to the SEC. Here uses a mixed equity-and-debt financing model for acquisitions, discloses financing and operating details in its offering circular, and typically retains a minimum 1% stake in each property. It charges 1%–10% sourcing fees on acquisitions and a 1% annual asset-management fee, and had listed three properties (Bear, CA; Clearwater, FL; Gatlinburg, TN) with a fourth coming soon. The company reported more than 30,000 registered users and about 1,000 active investors, and noted listings usually have 400–500 investment seats. Here planned to expand to 70–100 properties across roughly 20 vacation destinations and to build its own listing platform for members and the public. On January 4, 2024, Here announced it was shutting down services due to the current interest rate environment and economic conditions and said it would list all vacation rental properties it owns for sale and return proceeds to investors. Here operates a fractional vacation rental investment marketplace that securitizes properties into shares and enables investors to purchase fractional ownership without large down payments or credit checks. The company handles acquisition through ongoing property management, including bookings, cleanings, and upkeep, on behalf of members. Property shares start as low as $1 per share and each property has been securitized by the SEC. Members receive monthly income and potential property appreciation while remaining passive owners. The marketplace experience is curated into three steps: browse listings, select share quantities, and let Here manage the asset. Here is led by founder and CEO Corey Ashton Walters and includes industry veterans Caleb Olthoff (Head of Product) and Keith Breon (Head of Operations). The company announced a $2M pre-seed financing.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2021

Integry offers a cloud-based service that lets companies deploy native integrations instantly within their applications and surface them through a branded marketplace with minimal code. Its flagship integration platform enables SaaS product teams to create custom integration marketplaces where users can point-and-click to connect to third-party SaaS applications. The company's expanding library includes integrations for Salesforce, HubSpot, Atlassian Jira, Twilio, Gmail, Constant Contact and hundreds more. Integry launched out of stealth and announced $3.0 million in new funding to accelerate product development. The seed financing was led by Bonfire Ventures and Operative Collective, with participation from Basecamp, Silicon Bandia, Pencil Ventures and several angel investors.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2020

Stark offers a suite of accessibility tools that plug into popular design apps (Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD) and browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave) to help designers check and fix accessibility issues. The Stark Suite uses automated intelligent analysis and provides seamless fixes for both design and code, surfacing issues like font size, color contrast and missing alt text. The company sells four pricing tiers — a free tier plus paid pro, team and enterprise plans — and positions accessibility as part of a company’s core PSA (privacy, security, accessibility). Stark was conceived in 2017 and formed officially in 2020; the founders are CEO Cat Noone and CTO Michael Fouquet, and Benedikt Lehnert serves as chief design officer. The startup operates a distributed team of 18 employees and says it will hire conservatively, letting market demand guide growth. Stark emphasizes diversity in hiring and reports that a majority of its team identify as disabled, which the company says informs product development. Stark is a New York-based startup that provides accessibility tooling for designers and developers to make products more inclusive for people with visual impairments. Its plugins for Figma, Sketch and Adobe XD include a Contrast Checker, Smart Color Suggestions, eight colorblind simulations, a Colorblind Generator and rapid contrast checking on Adobe XD. The company plans developer integrations (next up: a GitHub integration), continued integrations into common design apps, and to build an end-to-end platform addressing other accessibility needs beyond color and beyond software. Stark has grown quickly since launching its early plugins eight months ago, reporting 300,000 users and a 10,000-member community, with customers including Microsoft, Instagram, Dropbox, Volkswagen, Pfizer, Oscar Health and US Bank. Co-founded by CEO Cat Noone and Michael Fouquet and run remotely with Noone now based in Europe, the team describes the ambition as becoming "the Grammarly for accessibility." To fund that expansion it raised a $1.5M pre-seed round and will use proceeds to build integrations, expand pricing and usage tiers, and continue product development.