Participated · Series A · Oct 2018

Front Range Biosciences specializes in next-generation plant breeding, plant tissue culture, and cannabis seed development to improve the reliability and quality of industrial hemp and medical cannabis genetics. The company runs a Clean Stock program that supplies disease- and pathogen-free plants and seeds backed by data-driven breeding solutions. FRB operates facilities in Colorado, California and Wisconsin and maintains a partnership with the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics in Barcelona, Spain, giving it global reach. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Lafayette, Colorado, the company positions itself as a market-leading R&D program in hemp and cannabis genetics. FRB is currently raising a $30M Series B financing round and has attracted investment from KEY Investment Partners, which will act as a strategic partner. KEY founding partner Pete Karabas is joining Front Range Biosciences' board as a board observer. Front Range Biosciences is a Lafayette, Colorado–based agricultural biotech that provides technology for breeding and producing new plant varieties and seeds in hemp, coffee and regulated cannabis. The company raised $8.5M in funding to support continued expansion of its hemp and cannabis portfolio. FRB plans to expand hemp seed production both nationally and globally and scale its young plant program, with production capabilities expected to multiply in 2020. Led by CEO and Co‑Founder Jon Vaught, the company has operated for a little more than three years. During that time FRB built over 160,000 square feet of facilities across Colorado, California and Wisconsin, acquired a cannabis genomics team and shipped millions of plants to farmers and growers nationwide. The new funds are intended to accelerate those production and portfolio expansion efforts. Front Range Biosciences develops Clean Stock® plant material using tissue culture, a sterile propagation technique, to address disease, inefficiency, inconsistency and scale for high-value crops. Its core product is sterile, duplicated baby plants on a defined nutrient medium for crops such as hemp, cannabis and coffee. The company supplies Clean Stock to growers and has partnerships to expand production, including with Frinj Coffee for coffee cuttings and Faith and Family Farms for cannabis in California. Led by CEO and co-founder Dr. Jonathan Vaught, Front Range is expanding Clean Stock production into California and taking orders for late 2018. It plans to use new funding to accelerate its Clean Stock program across Colorado, California and Canada, pursue IP development, and resource its varietal development program for hemp and cannabis. Front Range Biosciences specializes in tissue culture propagation of high-value crops, aiming to resolve cultivators' operational problems such as disease, inefficiency, inconsistency and limited scale. The company runs a varietal improvement program that leverages sequencing technology to map cannabis genetics and develop commercially relevant traits, including disease resistance, oil and resin yield, and desirable cannabinoid profiles. Front Range is led by CEO and co-founder Dr. Jon Vaught and COO and co-founder Nick Hofmeister. The company intends to use recent funding to scale its processes and expand into California and other legal cannabis states in the U.S. Its core product and R&D focus combine propagation services with genetic improvement to deliver more reliable, higher-yielding plant varieties for cultivators. Front Range Biosciences offers industrial-scale tissue culture propagation and an advanced breeding platform aimed at improving cannabis clone consistency and commercial traits. Its flagship product is tissue culture propagation for scalable, consistent clone production. The company also develops breeding tools to identify and enhance commercially relevant traits. Front Range will use new funding to build out its team and expand its tissue culture offering to improve efficiency and consistency for clone production. The company participated in the CanopyBoulder accelerator program for cannabis startups last year. It recently closed a $1.5 million seed round to support these efforts.

Participated · Series B · Apr 2014

EatStreet operates a software platform that lets restaurants—primarily in smaller cities and college towns—accept online and mobile orders; it supplies restaurants with a tablet free of charge. The company focuses exclusively on ordering rather than delivery, leaving fulfillment to restaurants or local providers. EatStreet charges a 12% fee on orders, sells paid placement ads in its apps, and pays restaurants their 88% share weekly. It works with about 15,000 restaurants across 250 cities and serves “millions” of customers, and has reported triple‑digit revenue growth in recent years (revenues not disclosed). Founded in 2010 and built out of Madison, Wisconsin, the company has remained relatively capital‑efficient compared with delivery-focused peers. EatStreet does not disclose its valuation. EatStreet provides an online and mobile food ordering service that lets customers order from restaurants via web and mobile apps and integrates with partner platforms. The company integrates into the Yelp Platform, enabling users to order directly from thousands of restaurant pages on Yelp. EatStreet also orchestrates digital loyalty programs with its restaurant partners, where diners can earn coupons. Led by CEO and co-founder Matt Howard, the company intends to use new funding to further develop its iOS and Android apps, expand into new markets, and double its engineering team. The article reports an additional $4M in funding from backers including 4490 Ventures and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. EatStreet previously raised $6M in April 2014. EatStreet offers restaurants a one-stop software solution for online and mobile ordering, including custom websites and apps, Facebook integrations, menu and order management dashboards, reporting, coupons and marketing tools. The company initially gained traction in Madison after being founded in 2010 by Matt Howard, Alex Wyler and Eric Martell, and expanded to nearly two dozen cities by last February. EatStreet reports 300% average annual sales growth and says annual revenue more than tripled from 2012 to 2013, though it does not disclose absolute revenue figures. In the past three months the service added over 3,000 restaurants and expects to serve more than 15,000 restaurants in 150 U.S. cities by year-end. With the new funding EatStreet plans to heavily focus on product—revamping its iOS and Android apps and its mobile website—and has doubled its development team to support that work. The company is also pursuing aggressive national expansion into 75+ cities, including larger markets like L.A. and Chicago. EatStreet provides a platform approach to restaurant online ordering, delivering websites, mobile apps, mobile sites, Facebook ordering, and listings on EatStreet.com. Restaurants receive setup at no cost and EatStreet takes a commission on sales, reported at roughly 8–10%. The company was started by University of Wisconsin students in 2009 and has grown to more than 1,000 restaurants across about 20 cities, primarily on the East Coast and in the Midwest. EatStreet has 14 full‑time employees and says it is nearly profitable while preparing to scale nationwide. It targets smaller 200,000–500,000‑person markets where many restaurants lack websites and aims to be a one‑stop shop for those businesses. The expansion strategy emphasizes replicable, "cookie cutter" market rollouts and adding roughly two employees per new market.