• Arrive Outdoors

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2020

  Arrive operates Arrive Outdoors, a consumer-facing camping and ski gear rental business, and The Arrive Platform, a B2B service that licenses Arrive’s rental technology and operations to other ecommerce brands. The platform embeds a “rent” button on product detail pages and handles the full rental lifecycle, including shipping, customer service, and cleaning returned products. Founders Rachelle Snyder and Ross Richmond launched the company in 2017 and have pivoted from pure rental operations toward licensing the underlying software and operational processes. Arrive announced a $4 million Seed II funding round led by Amino Ventures and has raised $8.75 million in total to date. The company continues to run Arrive Outdoors and is onboarding partners including the Eddie Bauer Gear Rental Program and Public Lands (a new Dick’s Sporting Goods store). Sustainability is a core tenet of the business, and Arrive positions rentals as a convenient alternative to ownership within a large consumer-goods rental market. Arrive Outdoors was started by Rachelle Snyder and Ross Richmond after they arrived in L.A. The company operates an equipment-rental business that lets people access outdoor adventure gear without owning it. Its core offering is a rental platform and inventory of outdoor equipment aimed at increasing access to outdoor activities. CEO Rachelle Snyder discussed the company's approach on the Office Hours podcast, saying, 'If you present customers with a rental model, they're going to take that model every time.' The article reports that Arrive Outdoors has recently raised $4.75 million. The piece does not provide additional operational metrics or detailed future product plans.

• Lex

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2020

  Lex is a text-first social app inspired by vintage lesbian personals that operates as a community hub for LGBTQIA+ people. The product emphasizes text-only posts and local, community-oriented uses such as dating, finding roommates, selling tickets, venting, and other neighborhood exchanges. A February redesign codified a broader community focus and prompted debate as some users lamented a deemphasis on dating and hookups. The company has about 11 employees, is three years old, and ranks around No. 350 on Apple’s U.S. social networking charts, with concentrated usage in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Leadership recently shifted: co-founder Jennifer Lewis moved from COO to CEO, founding CEO Kel Rakowski became chief creative officer, and former Hinge product boss Michelle Parsons joined as chief product officer. Lex plans to use new funding to expand while prioritizing community-sensitive monetization rather than an ad-based growth model. It is already testing paid features, including charging users who want to post more frequently than the app typically allows. Lex is an MVP social app that lets users create profiles and post text-based personal ads (personals) and browse or like others’ personals without requiring mutual matches. The app launched on the App Store in November 2019 and intentionally omits in-feed photos, though users can link to Instagram and messaging is available without a match. Founder Kell Rakowski built the product from an audience that responded to curated historic personal ads, and the current team is five people with 80% cis women, 20% cis men, 80% identifying as LGBTQ and three team members of color. With the new funding, Lex plans to hire underrepresented talent in product and engineering as a hiring priority. Product roadmap items include adding clickable profile photos (not in the feed), group chat for community building, and eventually a freemium subscription model to unlock extended functionality. For now the focus is on growth and building out the app.

• Teal

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2020

  Teal is a Miami, FL–based company that empowers people to grow their careers on their own terms through a suite of web-based career tools. The company’s free platform includes a Job Tracker, Resume Builder, and a Chrome extension designed to accelerate job searches. Led by CEO and founder David Fano, Teal has been used by over 65,000 people to get jobs at companies such as Google, Apple, TikTok, Spotify, and Bumble. Teal raised $6.3M in seed funding to support product and growth initiatives. The company plans to use the funds to expand its job-search tools and build a recommendation engine that helps people learn the right skills to advance in their chosen careers. Investors in the round span institutional firms and angels, alongside prior backers. Teal launched in November 2019 and originally offered a hands-on service called Career Agent that handled much of the job-application process. The company pivoted to a more scalable product, Career Assist, a curriculum for cohorts of 20–30 people that includes an eight-class, four-week program led by experts on resumes, outreach, and interviewing. Career Assist moved from a free offering to a paid model priced at $149 for full access. Since April, more than 200 people who completed the course have landed new jobs. Teal pairs members with peers for mutual support and plans to expand beyond job search help to guide workers through other career events like negotiations, promotions, and resignations. The company is focused on consumers rather than selling B2B into HR teams and intends to use its user data to provide more generalized, scalable career advice.

• doorkee

  Led · Equity · Jun 2020

  Doorkee operates a peer-to-peer digital marketplace that brings the rental process online, enabling landlords, departing tenants and apartment seekers to transact with virtual tours and integrated leasing workflows. The platform integrates with existing leasing systems, eliminates broker fees, reduces in-house leasing costs and shortens vacancy time. Departing tenants on Doorkee are incentivized to notify landlords (as early as 100 days) and currently provide notice an average of 71 days, earning about $1,000 on average for coordinating virtual tours. Landlords using Doorkee own more than 40,000 rental units in New York City; the company reports average savings of around $5,000 per apartment, roughly 60% lower than typical combined broker fee and vacancy costs. Doorkee launched in September 2019 and was founded by John Fagan (CEO) and Jordan Franklin (COO); it currently operates throughout New York City and plans national expansion. The company is using capital from its recent fundraise to expand the platform and enter other major U.S. markets.

• Trade Hounds

  Led · Seed · Jun 2020

  Trade Hounds operates a mobile app (launched in 2019) that serves as a professional community for skilled tradespeople to showcase work via photos and video, seek advice, build networks, and find job opportunities. The platform emphasizes imagery-first profiles tailored to electricians, plumbers, carpenters and other trades that prefer to "show" their work. Trade Hounds has grown to more than 150,000 registered users. The company plans to launch a Jobs platform this summer to link qualified tradespeople with construction companies and staffing firms, enabling faster, seamless communication and access to passive candidates. Management says the Jobs product will simplify and shorten hiring for companies and staffing agencies while expanding job opportunities for tradespeople. Trade Hounds intends to use the new funding to expand its user base, roll out the Jobs platform, and grow the team; the engineering organization is led by CTO Jonathan Clark.

No current team members are available.