The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Dec 2017

Sanctuary is a mobile-first app that provides free daily horoscopes (sun and rising), birth-chart summaries, and premium live one-on-one text-based readings with astrologers, tarot readers, and psychics. Paid readings are available in increments from 10 to 60 minutes. The company operates a freemium model, using free daily content to drive engagement and conversions to paid readings. During the COVID-19 pandemic Sanctuary saw a 500% increase in users who requested live readings and reports rising weekly and monthly engagement. The team plans to expand beyond text-based formats, add more types of readings, grow its community of practitioners, and enhance in-app content and experiences. Financially, the company has raised capital to scale product and community initiatives, with total funding reported at $6.5M since 2016. Sanctuary is a digital media company focused on astrology, tarot, numerology and magick for millennial audiences. Its core products include an automated Facebook Messenger experience, Live (Tarot) readings, personalized forecasts, mystical experiences and other related media products. The company plans to release these products throughout 2018. Sanctuary raised $1.5M in seed funding to support expansion. The funds will be used to continue to expand its offerings. The company operates online and targets millennial users through messaging and live-reading formats.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2017

Islands offers mobile iOS and Android apps that let students create and join themed channels, or “islands,” to organize activities, share class notes, or form support groups. Users verify identity and college location by syncing social accounts, and a built-in geofence connects users within five miles of campus. The product is designed to help students interact with people they don’t already know and positions itself against GroupMe and social apps rather than Slack. Islands is live on five campuses (including University of Alabama, University of Florida, and University of Western Ontario) and says thousands have requested access during a targeted rollout. The company currently uses human moderators for safety and plans to automate security with AI in the future. Islands has a nine-person team and has not yet launched a monetization plan; it will use the new seed funding to further develop the product and hire more engineers.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2017

Keli Network is a social video publisher that builds vertical social channels and distributes content targeted at millennials from offices in NYC and Paris. The company produces roughly 1,000 videos per month across brand channels including Gamology (gaming), Oh My Goal (soccer), and Genius Club (innovation and gadgets), with a Beauty Studio channel launching later this month. Most content is produced in-house while about 30% is user-generated, and the company recently introduced a Live Talent series inviting influencers to submit live videos for distribution. In one year Keli has grown to more than 500 million monthly views, mostly in the US. Co-founders are Michael Philippe, Robin Sabban, and Swann Maizil. It intends to use the newly raised funds to expand its video distribution on mobile and social platforms.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2016

Waggle collects user-generated pet content via a mobile app and website, curates and lightly produces clips, then syndicates that programming through an e-mail newsletter, website, mobile app and Facebook. The New York City–based startup was incubated at Broadway Video Ventures and forges partnerships with organizations such as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, America’s Funniest Home Videos and the San Francisco SPCA to fuel its digital programming. Since its beta began in September, Waggle has aired at least 1,000 hours of live-streaming pet videos on Facebook and garnered more than 10 million views. Co-founder and CEO Matt Cavnar says the company aims to celebrate pets and build a community-driven destination for animal lovers and pet parents. Eventually Waggle hopes to help pets and their owners become micro- and mega-influencers who can generate income via product placements or content licensing. The company has eight full-time employees, about half based in San Francisco, and intends to use its new capital for hiring, community and content development.

Participated · Seed · Apr 2016

Poncho delivers succinct, entertaining weather updates (with GIFs) via SMS, email and push so users receive need-to-know forecasts without opening a full weather app. It launched out of betaworks in New York and has expanded to offer alerts globally. The Poncho app emphasizes useful push notifications so users theoretically never need to open the app; the company previously experimented with an alarm-clock feature that was discontinued due to iOS Do Not Disturb. Poncho plans to add horoscopes, motivational content and offers, and is building a new backend to enable AI-driven personalization of weather, content and offers. The company reports seven-day retention in the ~60% range. It recently raised external funding to support product and personalization efforts. Led by CEO Sam Mandel, Poncho delivers personalized weather forecasts via email, text message, apps, notifications, and bot interactions on Facebook Messenger and Slack. Forecasts are tailored to user routines and based on a quick survey of wake-up time, morning commute, and allergy and hair concerns. The company closed a $2M seed funding round to support its growth. It intends to use the funds to continue building its chatbot interface and to deepen its data science and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The product roadmap emphasizes making the user experience more conversational and learning-driven.