Participated · Equity · May 2020

Founded in 2018, EdSights offers an AI-driven platform that uses personalized, SMS-based conversations to surface real-time insights on issues such as mental health and financial struggles that can jeopardize a student’s success. The system translates millions of student interactions into actionable data for advisors and administrators, enabling targeted interventions that improve retention rates. The company currently partners with more than 240 colleges and universities, including Southern New Hampshire University, the University of Missouri, the University of Hawaii System, Oklahoma State University, and the College of Charleston. Opt-in and engagement rates on the platform are well above industry averages, demonstrating strong student receptivity. EdSights positions itself as the first AI-powered “student voice” platform designed specifically for higher education. The new capital will be used to enhance the product and expand the team so the company can serve more institutions nationwide. The business continues to focus on making higher education more student-centered by amplifying the student voice at scale.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2012

Olapic aggregates images submitted by users on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook and helps brands boost sales by replacing traditional stock photography with authentic social content. It uses a curation algorithm alongside human editors to identify which images are best suited to specific brand use-cases. The company’s algorithm tracks 46 signals to determine which photos drive the highest engagement and conversion, and it feeds those results back into its curation engine to improve over time. Olapic says realistic, contextual images translate into higher sales and cites customer examples such as West Elm adjusting shoots to include pets. The platform is used by more than 200 brands, including Calvin Klein, West Elm and Target, and reports that about 70% of consumers grant permission to use their photos. With social networks adding “buy it now” features and the rise of the visual web, Olapic positions itself to expand brands’ use of user-generated imagery. Olapic scours the web for user-generated photos via hashtags and keywords and lets retailers insert those images into product pages or galleries. Brands retain control over which photos are used, can see submissions in real time, and have tools to engage the users who submit content. The platform includes an analytics dashboard that lets brands track ROI and, according to co-founder Pau Sabria, can increase e-commerce conversions. The company has shifted its focus from publisher customers to e-commerce brands and currently has around 20 live brand integrations, including Lululemon, Nasty Gal, Steve Madden, Threadless, New Balance, Jet Blue and Coach. Olapic plans to use new funding to scale the service, hire additional sales staff, and invest in marketing and awareness for customer-inspired e-commerce. The product-centric approach emphasizes visual social proof within shopping experiences to drive conversion. Olapic provides a toolset that lets website visitors upload photos from local storage or pull in images shared on social services (Twitter, Instagram) for use by brands and publishers. The platform includes moderation workflows combining humans and algorithms to filter relevance and spam, as well as widget aggregation to create collections across a brand's property. Customers to date include Condé Nast, Pepsi, NY Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and sports organizations such as the Mavericks, Grizzlies, Giants, Ravens and FC Barcelona. The company is expanding into e-commerce with a launch partner, Free People, and offers tagging and hashtag-driven flows to surface customer photos alongside product pages. Olapic sells its service on a SaaS basis with pricing starting at $300/month up to several thousand per month, and plans to re-open a freemium self-serve tier. The company was founded by Pau Sabria, Luis Sanz and Jose de Cabo, who met at Columbia University, and recently closed a $1 million seed round.