Led · Seed · Apr 2023

EVEN is a creative platform that lets artists sell music and offer exclusive content and experiences directly to fans, positioning itself as a first stop before releases hit streaming services. The product is built on blockchain to provide greater transparency for transactions and currently operates in beta as a free, ad-free service. EVEN generates revenue by charging transaction fees and plans to use its new seed funding for hiring and business growth. Founder and CEO Mag Rodriguez began building the platform last February to help Black and brown artists retain equity and receive proper credit and compensation. The company plans partnerships with artists such as French Montana and is experimenting with features like in-app chat to enable artist-fan communication. EVEN hopes to launch later this year with more than 600 artists and currently has a waitlist topping 4,000 creators.

Led · Seed · Sep 2021

Agricycle Global partners with rural farmers in East Africa to upcycle excess food into ethically made ingredients sold to consumer packaged goods manufacturers in North America and Europe. The company produces 159 different ingredients, from cassava flour to gooseberries, and is supplying pilot medium and large CPG customers making cookies, crackers and premium dog food. Founded in 2015 as a school project by CEO Josh Shefner, Agricycle previously operated consumer brands Jali Fruit Co. and Tropicoal Ignition but is shifting focus to its ingredient supply brand, Field Better Ingredients. The company employs four full-time and four part-time staff at its Milwaukee headquarters and 55 full-time employees in East Africa. With the recent seed funding, Agricycle plans to acquire a fleet of trucks and a milling facility in Africa to more fully control and consolidate its supply chain, which it says helps it beat commodity prices. The funding is intended to scale ingredient supply into more products and onto more retail shelves.

Participated · Series A · Mar 2019

Bright Cellars is a six-year-old, Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based subscription wine seller that personalizes selections by using customer data to guide winemaker partners. The company shifted from sending third-party wines to commissioning and tweaking proprietary blends based on member preferences. It says it has tested around 600 wines and typically has 40–50 wines live on the platform at any time. Bright Cellars declined to share subscriber counts but reported an acceleration in new subscribers during the pandemic; average bottle price on the platform is $20–$25. The company ships primarily from Santa Rosa and works with grape suppliers on the U.S. West Coast as well as internationally. It remains focused on D2C, is largely decentralized, and sees opportunities to monetize its consumer data or partner with legacy wine firms in the future. Bright Cellars is a nearly four-year-old, 40-person Milwaukee startup that sells wines directly to consumers on a subscription basis. The company uses a quiz to create taste profiles and personalize monthly wine selections for its members. It is also quietly building a portfolio of its own wines with different suppliers while continuing to ship under others' labels. Founders Richard Yau and Joe Laurendi say the member data they collect is valuable, and although Bright Cellars does not sell its findings today, it may offer aggregated insights in the future. The founders were roommates at MIT and remained in Milwaukee after early admission to the gener8tor accelerator. The broader market shows potential: consumers spent roughly $3 billion on wine delivered to doorsteps last year, and direct-to-consumer wine shipments rose 9% to 6.3 million cases between 2017 and 2018. Bright Cellars is a Milwaukee-based personalized wine subscription service powered by a data-science-driven engine that captures direct feedback to understand millennial wine preferences. The service delivers curated wine selections to subscribers based on that data-science profiling. Led by co-founder and CEO Richard Yau, the company completed the gener8tor accelerator program in 2015. Its subscriber base has grown to more than 22,000 members and revenue has grown tenfold. The team has more than 40 employees. The recent funding will be used to continue growing operations in Milwaukee. Bright Cellars is a Milwaukee-based personalized wine subscription service founded in 2014 by MIT graduates Richard Yau (CEO) and Joseph Laurendi (CTO). The company uses a machine-learning algorithm developed by its co-founders to match members to wines. After each wine is reviewed by members, the recommendation engine learns more about their actual preferences. Bright Cellars graduated from the gener8tor accelerator in May 2015. The company has 11 employees and intends to use the seed funding to continue building out a complete member experience and to grow the team. The recent financing will support product and team expansion efforts.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2016

Understory built and deployed a network of ground-level weather stations called Dot that measure wind, rain, hail, temperature, pressure and humidity at high frequency to create a detailed on-the-ground weather dataset. Using that dataset the company built global catastrophe models validated by reinsurance partners and sells data and software-as-a-service products. The founders then expanded into insurance, offering parametric products such as a Dealers Open Lot solution that now protects nearly 1,000 U.S. dealer locations. Understory says it has driven hundreds of millions of dollars in avoided damage for customers and reported 500% year-over-year growth over the past year. The company is launching a product focused on the renewable energy sector, targeting solar farms with models that can provide roughly 45 minutes of notice to mitigate hail damage and cut repair costs by about 50%. Its technology is being positioned to reduce large losses (examples cited include turning $10 million losses into $5 million or similar reductions) by enabling operational responses ahead of severe weather. Understory builds and operates a network of ground-based weather stations that funnel 125,000 measurements a second into an AI core to measure hail, rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind, solar radiation, and air quality. The company sells granular, real-time and historical weather datasets and analytics for agriculture, insurance, government, broadcasting, forecasting, and environmental markets. Understory has deployed more than 600 stations across five major U.S. metropolitan areas and on multiple continents, and it recently expanded into South America. The company announced Project Atmosphere to bring its Atmosphere technology to 10 new cities globally. Recent funding will be used to support international expansion of the sensor network, increase employee headcount, and expand into a new headquarters facility. Understory emphasizes hyperlocal monitoring to optimize decision-making for irrigation, harvest timing, air-quality tracking, risk mitigation, and other use cases. Understory builds and operates a network of ground-level weather sensors and analytics to generate hyper-local, real-time weather datasets and actionable information. Its patented sensor technology measures rainfall, temperature, humidity, evapotranspiration and growing degree units that radar and satellite cannot reliably capture. The company has deployed more than 500 stations across five major U.S. metropolitan areas and plans to expand nationally to 5,000 sensors by the end of 2019. Understory has kicked off an international presence through a partnership with Bayer (formerly Monsanto) to deploy stations in South America for agricultural use. Its data products target insurance, agriculture, forecasting, utilities, broadcasting and academic customers. The company has received recognition from Forbes as one of the 25 Most Innovative AgTech Startups (2018), and a company co-founder/VP of Engineering was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 in Manufacturing. Understory builds proprietary weather stations that generate dense surface observations and operate with no external moving parts. Its platform analyzes and processes collected information to create real-time datasets, views and actionable insights from historical, current and forecasted weather events. The data is sold for use cases including broadcasting, insurance, agriculture, forecasting and risk mitigation. The company has deployed weather-sensing networks in Kansas City, Boston and Dallas, with additional cities to be announced. Understory is relocating its headquarters to Madison while maintaining a significant presence in Boston. In February 2016 the company raised Series A funding to support its expansion. Understory builds and deploys ground-level, hyper-local weather stations that measure rain, hail, wind, humidity, ambient light and other metrics. Its hardware uses a solid-state sensor that senses wind, rain and hail in three dimensions, including updrafts and downdrafts, allowing analysis of storm energy exchange and short-term severe-weather risk. The company sells granular ground-level data to businesses that need real-time local conditions; its first customer is American Family Insurance. Understory is beginning deployment of its first network in the Kansas City area to support that customer. Potential future uses include improving weather models and forecasts and helping clients (insurers, broadcasters, etc.) anticipate and respond to severe weather. The startup recently closed a $1.9M seed round to fund deployment of its network.

Led · Equity · Jun 2014

ReviewTrackers provides review and customer feedback solutions that help businesses analyze and act on customer reviews. Its platform empowers more than 65,000 businesses with tools to analyze, amplify, and maximize customer feedback to accelerate customer acquisition and improve customer retention. The company serves small, medium and enterprise customers across many industries. Led by CEO Chris Campbell, ReviewTrackers plans to use new capital to strengthen its core product offering and scale its sales and customer success teams. As part of that expansion, it intends to hire over 100 people in downtown Chicago. Founded over seven years ago and based in Chicago, IL, the company raised $10M in funding from PeakSpan Capital. ReviewTrackers provides a customer feedback platform that aggregates reviews from over 70 review sites for enterprise brands. Its software enables brands to manage online reviews, uncover hidden customer insights, make data-driven decisions and improve brand reputation. The platform is used by over 25,000 businesses. ReviewTrackers raised $4M in growth capital in an equity round led by American Family Ventures, complemented by debt financing from Square 1 Bank. The financing brings the company's total capital raised to $6.1M. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate development of its software. ReviewTrackers is led by CEO Chris Campbell and is based in Chicago, IL. Review Trackers provides a platform that compiles customer reviews from major forums like OpenTable, Google+ and TripAdvisor, as well as smaller niche feedback sites, and helps businesses manage their online reputation. The company offers subscription plans starting at $29/month. Founder and Chief Tracking Officer Chris Campbell launched the company in 2013 after participating in Startup Chile in 2012 and later joining the Gener8tor accelerator. Review Trackers emphasizes customer service and building features tuned to business needs. The company plans to use roughly half of the new funding to double its engineering team this year and bring roadmap features to market, and the other half to grow its sales team and focus on customer acquisition. Over the last year, revenue at Review Trackers grew about 80% a month.