Participated · Series A · Mar 2024

TravelJoy offers a suite of software tools that centralize travel entrepreneurs’ workflows, including CRM, messaging, invoicing, payments, proposals, itineraries and group trip management via an online dashboard. The service is priced at $30 per month (or $25 per month billed annually) and the company also monetizes through payments (partnering with Stripe) and plans to monetize booking processes. Its software is used by thousands of travel entrepreneurs and it now facilitates over $1 billion in annual spend for its customers. The product has added integrations with travel insurance provider Faye and Viator for experiences, and more booking integrations are planned. The remotely distributed team includes 30 full-time employees and is hiring across engineering, product design, marketing and customer support. TravelJoy plans to add AI features to support members’ planning workflows and will announce details about those tools soon.

Participated · Series A · Mar 2023

Trala is a Chicago online music school that combines technology that listens to users play and provides instant feedback with personalized 1-on-1 lessons from diverse teachers. Its core offering is learning the violin, and the company intends to use new funding to continue expanding that offering while exploring additional instrument options. Trala raised an $8M Series A, bringing its total funding to $15M. The round was led by Seven Seven Six, with participation from Lachy Groom Fund, Altman Capital, Next Play Ventures, and Concrete Rose Ventures. The platform has attracted a diverse group of about 1,000 students, including truck drivers, politicians, firefighters, grandmothers, surgeons, and construction workers. The company anticipates creating up to 300 new jobs for musicians over the next two years to bolster its community of teachers and learners. Trala is a music education app focused on teaching violin to students of any age via matched teachers, a large library of violin videos, and interactive sheet music. The app pairs students with violin teachers tailored to age, skill level, and goals, and provides instant pitch and rhythm feedback through proprietary signal-processing algorithms. Trala reports over 400,000 downloads from users in 193 countries over the past three years. The company recently announced a partnership with violinist Joshua Bell and counts backers including Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn. Management says the new funding will be used to refine Trala’s curriculum and technology. The stated mission is to make music education accessible to everyone on Earth. Trala provides a violin teaching app that features video tutorials with professional violinists and leverages technology to give feedback on mistakes. Founded in 2017 and led by CEO Sam Walder, the company is based in Chicago and was part of the 2018 Techstars Chicago class. On August 13, 2020, Trala raised $3.5M in a seed round led by Next Play Ventures with participation from Techstars Ventures, Lachy Groom, Hyde Park Angels, Phoenix Rising, Blue Titan Ventures, Webb Investment Network and Concrete Rose Capital. The company has raised just under $5M to date. Trala intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations and broaden its business reach. Trala is a mobile app that teaches users how to play the violin using advanced signal processing and tutorials. The app is Juilliard-approved and teaches absolute beginners how to play songs in 30 days. Trala has over 60,000 downloads and is available on the App Store. It was co-founded by Sam Walder and Vishnu Indukuri and is headquartered in Chicago. The company is part of Techstars Chicago located within 1871 and is supported by violinists such as Rachel Barton Pine and former Juilliard professor Stefan Milenkovich.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2023

Nestment is a San Francisco-based startup (founded in 2021) that enables groups of friends and family to co-buy and co-own homes by forming an LLC to fractionalize purchases. The platform assists with property analysis, lender setup, agent introductions, and post-purchase management including a shared calendar, P&L management, and equity tracking. Nestment also helps owners sell shares in a home and provides assistance listing and providing liquidity for departing co-owners. The company launched publicly from stealth into a public beta alongside a $3.5M pre-seed financing. Its revenue model is referral-driven, primarily earning referral fees from the agent side rather than charging users directly. Nestment positions its product as a way to open access to homeownership and build equity for groups who otherwise could not afford individual homes.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2022

Tradeblock operates a social, barter-based marketplace for sneaker collectors that facilitates trades through a community-first experience and a simultaneous inspection/authentication logistics workflow. Launched in 2020, the app has grown from 300 users and ~5,000 shoes to more than 250,000 users and over one million sneakers listed. The platform emphasizes accessibility, sustainability, and representation, with a workforce that is more than 80% BIPOC and senior leadership over 75% BIPOC. Tradeblock is investing in expanding its authentication and logistics operations and building out data-science capabilities to improve the virtual bartering experience. The company plans to use recent financing to drive growth in its sneaker business and further develop the marketplace. Its mission is to level access to sneaker culture for communities historically priced out by resale markets.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2022

Five to Nine offers a platform that helps enterprises plan ERG programs and provides attendance and feedback analytics to measure ERG effectiveness. Launched in 2018 by Jasmine Shells and Denise Umubyeyi, the product integrates with Okta, Workday and Slack. The company already counts Yahoo, UpWork and Expedia as clients. Founders created the company to consolidate tools used to run internal events and to surface data on ERG impact and leader burden. With the new funding, Five to Nine plans to expand engineering, build new products, increase hiring and double its clientele. The analytics aim to demonstrate ERG ROI and highlight the work of ERG leaders often shouldering a diversity tax.