Participated · Seed · Nov 2023

Forum operates a NYC-based marketplace that connects people with facilitator-led peer support groups covering grief, loneliness, chronic conditions, substance use recovery, caregiving, relationships, and career. Co-founded in 2022 by Rajiv Kumar, MD, and President Lee Pichette, the platform equips facilitators with tools to create, grow, and manage their groups. Facilitators undergo a vetting process based on education, skills, and experience and complete formal onboarding and training, receiving longitudinal feedback and professional development. The platform’s tools reduce administrative burden so more facilitators can pursue helping people and generate a new income stream. Forum has grown rapidly since founding and intends to use the new funding to expand operations and broaden its business reach.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2022

Covey is a NYC-based, analyst-owned community and blockchain-enabled platform that tracks simulated stock picks on a leaderboard to find and reward top-performing analysts. For the past year it has hosted over a hundred anonymized analysts whose best-performing portfolios received monetary rewards. The company plans to shift rewards to a token launching this fall and to introduce copy trading in 2023 so users can implement analysts' strategies directly. Covey intends to use its new funding to continue building the platform and to nearly double its engineering team by the end of the year. The platform will award the top 10% of analysts the opportunity to publish investment ideas to users, who can then implement those strategies through the product. Covey was founded by Brooker Belcourt, who previously spent seven years managing investments at Citadel, a Tiger Management–seeded fund, and Coatue.

Participated · Series B · Jun 2022

Wahed operates a digital platform that provides a suite of Shariah-compliant investing products, including managed portfolios and venture and real estate investments. The company positions itself around accessible, affordable and values-based investing to advance financial inclusion. It intends to use the new funds to expand operations and its development efforts. Wahed serves more than 400,000 customers globally and manages over $1 billion in assets. Founded in 2015 and based in London, the company has made inroads in Shariah-compliant investing through its product offerings. The recent investment was presented as part of its ongoing growth strategy. Wahed is a New York-headquartered global Islamic fintech company that offers individuals a way to invest ethically. The company provides a quick, easy and affordable investing platform focused on ethical and Sharia-compliant products. Wahed is licensed in nine jurisdictions, operates through 11 offices, and serves over 300,000 customers across its entities. The company plans to use the Series B proceeds to launch an ethical neobank on its platform, enabling users to fulfill banking and investing needs in a single app. Wahed’s mission is to reduce financial exclusion by encouraging ethically focused investing. Recent corporate moves include appointing Haroon Mokhtarzada, William Haney and Lori Richards to its Board of Directors. Wahed is a New York-based fintech that describes itself as a digital Islamic investment platform and the world’s first halal robo-adviser. Its core product is a robo-advisory platform offering Sharia-compliant/ethical investment services and it currently operates in the U.S. and U.K. The platform serves more than 100,000 clients globally. Wahed plans international expansion, targeting large Muslim markets including Indonesia, Nigeria, India and the CIS, and is developing a subsidiary in Saudi Arabia. The company launched in Malaysia after receiving the country’s first Islamic Robo Advisory license and is considering listing an Islamic ETF on the Saudi stock exchange. According to Crunchbase, Wahed has raised a total of $40 million since its 2015 founding by Junaid Wahedna. Wahed Invest operates a Halal digital investment platform that lets savers invest in globally diversified, ethically responsible portfolios of stocks, Sukuk (Islamic bonds) and gold with a £100 minimum. Portfolios are approved by an Ethical Review Board and the platform is designed to provide a non‑lending savings solution for Muslim customers. Founded in New York in 2015 by Junaid Wahedna, Wahed launched in the US in 2017 and expanded to the UK in August 2018. The company is registering for an E‑Money License with the UK FCA as it scales internationally. Wahed plans launches in the GCC and ASEAN markets and aims to serve up to 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. Financially, it has raised nearly £12m since inception, including an additional £6m this year, and its valuation has risen to over £75m. Wahed Invest is a New York City–based digital halal-focused ethical investing platform and SEC-registered investment advisor led by CEO Junaid Wahedna. The platform enables users to invest in ethically responsible portfolios approved by an Ethical Review Board that screens out companies involved in liquor, firearms, gambling and tobacco. Customers can rollover IRA and 401(k) assets onto Wahed's platform. The company announced plans to enable people in the U.K. to invest in halal-compliant entities by the end of 2017. Wahed closed a $7M seed funding round. Backers included Cue Ball Capital and Beco Capital.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2022

Ianacare provides tech-enabled support and resources to family caregivers through employers and health plans. It offers a free mobile app that organizes family and friends into personal social circles for coordinating tasks and an enterprise solution launched in March 2021 that includes five layers of support. One key feature is unlimited access to online chat, phone, and video with professional caregiver coaches, and the platform can detect gaps in home care and proactively connect caregivers to resources. Ianacare partners with employers like Anthem and its enterprise offering currently covers more than 400,000 lives, with plans to exceed 1 million lives as it launches with larger employers in 2022. In a study of working family caregivers at Anthem conducted by Healthcore, users reported an 83% increase in productivity, a 30% decrease in stress and burden, and 96% said they felt supported by their employer. The company has seven full-time employees and plans to grow to more than 25 by the end of the year to scale sales and operations to meet rising employer demand. Ianacare emphasizes scalability to unify fragmented resources and deliver personalized home-care infrastructure at scale.

Led · Series A · Oct 2021

Seraphina Therapeutics develops FA15™ (pentadecanoic acid, C15:0), a proprietary, vegan-friendly powdered ingredient marketed as fatty15, the company's first essential fatty acid supplement. The product is positioned to support cardiometabolic, immune, and liver health and is sold direct-to-consumer via a subscription platform. Seraphina plans to use new capital to expand its recurring DTC subscription business and to develop ingredient opportunities to fortify foods and beverages with C15:0. The company holds exclusive licensing rights to more than 30 U.S. and international patents, including USPTO patent 11,116,740 issued September 14, 2021, and has received GRAS status for FA15™. Early consumer adoption has been strong—Seraphina sold out its initial offering within six weeks—and retention metrics are high (more than 85% of customers renew; average monthly retention above 90%). The company is running a 12-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial to evaluate FA15™'s physiological effects. Seraphina Therapeutics developed fatty15, a consumer dietary supplement that delivers the pure fatty acid C15:0, which the company says promotes cellular resilience, enhances mitochondrial function, and activates receptors that regulate immunity, metabolism, mood, sleep and appetite. The C15:0 discovery was led by founders Drs. Eric and Stephanie Venn‑Watson following research that included studies of bottlenose dolphins; independent studies and a large-scale 14-year study of more than 14,000 people are cited linking higher C15:0 levels to better survival and health. Seraphina launched fatty15 as a vegan-, dairy- and gluten-free supplement sold in refillable glass bottles and is also advancing FA15™, a pure powder form of C15:0, as a food ingredient. The company says it continues to study C15:0 as a potential prescription therapeutic for related nutritional deficiencies. Seraphina is a spinout of Epitracker, Inc. and is headquartered in San Diego.