Led · Series A · Sep 2020

Pom Partners is a NYC-based personal and enterprise safety technology provider founded in 2014 that delivers real-time, vital safety solutions through accessible technology. Its core products include the POM SAFE, a one-touch device that instantly connects users to help in emergencies, and POM TRACER, an enterprise-grade contact tracing system that emphasizes accuracy while protecting participant privacy. The company's security portal mitigates risks from workplace assault, medical emergencies, COVID-19 health and safety, travel harassment, and other social situations. Since 2016 the system has been deployed across healthcare, colleges and universities, corporations, and municipalities; Pom has partnered with 35 university campuses and hospital networks in the U.S. Its digital security devices have been used to prevent over 2,000 serious crimes, including domestic violence, sexual misconduct, and medical emergencies. Pom intends to use the Series A proceeds to further invest in engineering and product development, and in sales and marketing.

Led · Series A · Apr 2018

GiveGab, branded as the Nonprofit Giving Platform, provides an easy and enjoyable way for fundraising professionals to raise money online. The company offers a complete suite of products and services for year‑round fundraising and for running giving days. Its platform is delivered as SaaS, and the company says it will continue to innovate its giving day and year‑round fundraising offerings. GiveGab plans to use new funding to build out its sales and engineering teams, refine its SaaS platform, and cover ordinary working capital requirements. The company reported strong growth over the prior six months, and the latest investment increases its Series A funding to over $9 million. The company is based in Ithaca, NY, and CEO and co‑founder Charlie Mulligan commented on the value of the new partner. GiveGab provides modern, easy-to-use software that helps nonprofits with online fundraising, donor management, supporter engagement and Giving Days. The company emphasizes tools to cultivate long-term giving relationships and is developing next-generation features for the sector. GiveGab completed an initial close of a $7.4M Series A to provide growth capital and support recent strategic activity. The funding was instrumental in its acquisition of Kimbia and in scaling operations; GiveGab says it has more than doubled its employee count to expand customer success and engineering. Upwards of 40,000 nonprofits have raised more than $1.1 billion on the platform, and nonprofits using GiveGab have realized 98 percent of intended donations. The company highlights continued innovation and consolidation in the nonprofit fundraising technology market as part of its near-term plans. GiveGab is a social network for volunteers that connects individuals with volunteer positions matched to their skills and interests. The Ithaca, New York–based company offers a suite of tools and a premium services package that lets organizations build online profiles, promote events and programs, create reports on volunteer activity, and measure impact. Volunteers can find opportunities, log hours, and keep records for future reference. GiveGab has worked with more than 1,500 nonprofits and nearly 200 colleges and universities and currently hosts tens of thousands of volunteer opportunities, targeting several hundred thousand by year-end. Founder and CEO Charlie Mulligan, who has two decades of consulting experience with nonprofits and small businesses, says the platform aims to make onboarding and managing volunteers more efficient. The company recently closed a $1.6 million funding round to support building out premium services and to begin development of a mobile application scheduled for later this year.

Participated · Series C · Dec 2015

SocialFlow is a social media distribution platform that enables publishers to distribute engaging content across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Apple News. The company also provides publishers with monetization solutions that leverage their most effective content to improve advertising offerings and retain paying subscribers. SocialFlow's client roster includes half of the top 150 media companies, including CNN, Condé Nast, Meredith, The Associated Press and the BBC. Founded in 2009 and based in New York City, the company closed a $3.5M funding round. Backers were not disclosed. The company intends to use the capital to retire debt and fund continued product development and marketing. SocialFlow builds a platform that optimizes when and how media organizations share content on social networks to maximize clicks and engagement. It automates tweets, schedules Facebook posts via an algorithm to post at optimal times, and integrates with LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest. The company says its platform can deliver "twice the results" in clicks and engagement and works with publishers including The Wall Street Journal, BBC, TechCrunch, Time Inc., Condé Nast, The New York Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, Mashable and Yahoo. With the new capital SocialFlow plans to improve its core product and offer media publications audience insights with demographic data tied to each tweet. The company will also provide recommendations to help brands optimize social advertising, including Promoted Tweets and Promoted Pins. SocialFlow is based in New York, was founded in 2009, and recently closed a $7.5 million Series C. SocialFlow builds optimization technology for social media that determines when brands should post and which messages they should promote. Its two core products, Cadence and Crescendo, help businesses schedule posts automatically and advise which messages to pay to promote on platforms such as Facebook. The company says it serves more than 70 enterprise customers, including Walmart, Pepsi and Burberry, and that six of the ten largest media companies use Cadence. SocialFlow reported revenue in the “low seven figures,” grew 332% year‑over‑year in Q1 2013, and booked as much in Q1 2013 as it did in all of 2012. The company plans to use new funding to expand its product lineup and grow reach through partnerships, and intends to add 12 hires to a team of 32. Competitive context includes recent acquisitions of competitors (Buddy Media by Salesforce and Vitrue by Oracle), which the company cited while declining to disclose valuation. SocialFlow is a social media platform that helps brands use Twitter more effectively by analyzing data and posting on their behalf. Brands supply tweets and SocialFlow determines the best time to send them to maximize exposure with the right users. The company has a formal long-term agreement with Twitter that gives it access to the full firehose (about 155 million tweets per day), after previously having only month-to-month access. Revenues have been pouring in for about a year, and the team says the new funding will support research on the data they are receiving and creating. SocialFlow is NYC-based, has 17 employees, and came out of Betaworks. Co-founder Frank Speiser is quoted discussing the company's focus on turning Twitter data into a paid product for brands.

Led · Series B · Oct 2015

Rheonix develops fully automated microfluidic-based molecular assays and sells the Rheonix CARD® cartridge used on its Encompass Optimum™ platform. The enclosed CARD cartridge enables assays to be performed in a fully automated format that the company says reduces contamination risk, lowers cost, reduces user error and streamlines workflow. Rheonix holds a patent for the Rheonix CARD® cartridge. Management has stated the new capital will fund further product development and increase focus on commercialization and marketing. The company targets research, healthcare, food-safety testing and point-of-care settings. Rand Capital has characterized Rheonix as one of its largest portfolio holdings. Rheonix builds fully automated molecular diagnostics systems and consumables, including the Rheonix CARD®, a credit-card-sized disposable cartridge that can run multiple samples simultaneously without user intervention. The company planned to use the financing to complete a manufacturing build-out and launch its first commercial product, expanding physical operations to produce consumables and systems. Funds were also intended to enable fulfillment of a joint development agreement with Life Technologies, which will market, sell and distribute Rheonix-supplied technology. The raise consisted of a combination of debt and equity investments totaling $14 million. Rand Capital has been an investor since 2009 and, following this financing, will have invested $2.1 million in equity. Rheonix maintains offices in Ithaca and Grand Island, New York. Rheonix develops the Rheonix CARD™ (Chemistry And Reagent Device) system, a polymer chip microfluidic analytic platform that vertically integrates raw sample preparation, molecular amplification and multiplex analysis. The CARD system is modular and designed to provide rapid product development and to allow end users to automate new or existing assays using single or multiple raw clinical samples. The company says the platform integrates all functions of traditional molecular diagnostic instrumentation into a single system. Rheonix is continuing development of the Rheonix CARD with new capital from its recent financing. The company is based in Ithaca, NY. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article. Rheonix commercializes CARD (Chemistry And Reagent Device) microfluidic technology that provides an automated diagnostic platform for a broad spectrum of markets including human and veterinary in vitro diagnostics, biopharmaceutical and food & beverage manufacturing, food and water safety testing, and homeland security and defense applications. The company is a spinout of the microfluidic division of Kionix and is based in Ithaca, New York, with a separate Corporate Development and Scientific Affairs facility in Grand Island, New York following its 2008 acquisition of Innovative Biotechnologies International. Rheonix is ramping up efforts to commercialize a series of molecular diagnostic assays aimed at the infectious disease market. The article reports a recent equity financing that supports those commercialization efforts. No operating metrics (revenue or users) are disclosed in the article.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2014

Agronomic Technology Corp operates Adapt-N, a cloud-based recommendation platform that gives farmers customized, soil-driven insights to optimize fertilizer, crop and irrigation decisions. The Adapt-N tool uses advanced modeling, soil and weather data, and years of field calibration and is backed by Cornell research and peer‑reviewed land grant studies. The company emphasizes improved nitrogen management—the 4R's: right rate, right source, right time and right place—to boost yields and reduce environmental losses. Agronomic Technology said the $2.2M Series A will be used to scale its engineering and agronomy teams, expand work with enterprise partners, and extend Adapt-N beyond corn into additional crops. Investors in the round include Arthur Ventures, Cayuga Venture Fund and Armory Square Ventures, with proceeds deployed to grow product and partnerships. Adapt-N has industry recognition and cited grower results, including a reported 40-bushel-per-acre yield increase and an additional $200 per acre profit for one user.