• navabi

  Participated · Equity · Jan 2015

  Navabi is an online retailer focused on plus-size clothing and shoes. The company has been around for about a decade and sells fashion aimed at curvy women. It is using newly acquired media support to run in-house produced TV commercials and expand brand awareness. Navabi will leverage ProSiebenSat.1 Group's media assets to reach millions of households in Germany. The articles cite broader market context, noting online retail revenue for clothes and shoes in Germany totaled €16.8 billion in 2018. All previous investors remain on board, including Index Ventures and Verdane. navabi is an online retailer focused on women’s premium plus-size fashion, offering selections from more than 100 brands including Elena Miro, Anna Scholz and James Jeans. Founded in 2009 by Bahman Nedaei and Zahir Dehnadi, the company is based in Aachen, Germany and also has an office in London. navabi trades in more than 30 countries, including the UK, Germany, France and the US. The company’s product assortment emphasizes designer and premium plus-size collections. navabi intends to use new funding to develop its product offer and to support international expansion. The round includes both a cash investment and an advertising budget to boost consumer reach across key European markets. Navabi operates an online marketplace where plus-size women can discover and buy premium designer clothing. The company plans to use the €10m in new funding to support international growth and to explore additional fashion categories beyond premium apparel. Navabi was co-founded in 2009 by Zohejr Dehnadi and Bahman Nedaei and is based in Aachen, Germany. It employs more than 130 people and reported €30 million in revenue, primarily from the UK and the US. Investors in the round include Index Ventures, Dumont Venture, Klaus Wecken, Seventure Partners and previous investors. The company previously raised $2.8M in 2011. navabi operates an online boutique focused on high-quality plus-size designer fashion, offering brands such as Fendi, Kenzo, Roberto Cavalli and Manon Baptiste. The company serves an international customer base across more than 20 countries. navabi targets the plus-size market (from size 44 upwards) and curates designer labels for that segment. Founded in 2009, the company is led by CEO Bahman Nedaei and is based in Aachen, Germany. The business recently completed a funding round and plans to use the proceeds to grow and expand its team. In conjunction with the financing, Seventure Partners’ Dr. Wolfgang Krause will join navabi’s board of advisors.

• doo

  Participated · Equity · Jul 2012

  Doo.net builds native document-management applications that keep files locally while backing them up and syncing to the cloud. Its Windows 8 Metro-style app and a working Mac app provide organization by company, document type, people, and places, and integrate with Dropbox, Google Docs, and IMAP-enabled email accounts. The company opened in beta in mid-June and is developing a Windows 7 desktop client plus mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Founder and CEO Frank Thelen has emphasized betting on Windows 8’s success and the power of Microsoft’s installed base. Doo.net has raised $10 million to date from investors and is using its product launches to drive adoption. The article does not disclose revenue, user counts, or other operating metrics. Doo.net builds a cross-platform document platform that lets users send, receive, share, process, organize, securely archive and access digital documents from any device. The company offers native-looking apps for OS X, iOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone and a web client. It targets consumers and small businesses and emphasizes integrations with telcos, banks, public utilities and storage providers such as Dropbox. Doo plans to offer workflows including signing and paying, and aims to fetch and process data from major players. The company recently launched a beta and has raised a $6.8M first round from DuMont Venture and angel investors Dr. Hermann Simon and Lars Hinrichs. CEO Frank Thelen founded Doo after struggling with receipts, contracts and invoices.

• Doo

  Participated · Series A · Dec 2011

  Doo provides a digital space for important documents, offering storage, sharing, and processing features aimed at consumers and small businesses. The app integrates with established storage services like Dropbox and aims to expedite relevant documents into workflows such as bank transactions and public-utility payments. Services are offered free, with a low-priced monthly subscription planned for users with heavy document storage. The company says it plans applications across major computing, web, and mobile platforms but currently only has an OS X Lion app and a limited number of beta testers. Doo cautions its system currently cannot replace existing document-management tools, and Windows and Linux support will take more time. The company announced a $6.8M Series A to fund product development and to broaden the scope of its AI for new administrative tasks.

• simfy

  Participated · Equity · May 2011

  simfy is a Cologne-based music streaming service that gives users access to over 16 million songs in the cloud and supports listening, playlist creation, and social sharing. The service is available in German, French, English and Dutch and offers both free advertising-financed and subscription-based premium options. simfy reported more than 2 million users and said a healthy percentage are paying premium subscribers. Management aims to reach profitability within the next quarter and targets double-digit millions in revenue this year. The company plans accelerated global expansion across emerging markets with an imminent non-European launch within the next 30 days. Simfy operates a music-streaming service with both a free, ad-supported tier and a paid premium tier that includes mobile apps and offline playback. The company does not cap free listening hours and its pricing is on par with competitors. Simfy pursues B2B distribution partnerships with social networks, ISPs, cable operators and mobile operators to scale reach. It currently operates in German-speaking countries—Germany, Austria and Switzerland—and is planning expansion into other European countries. CEO Gerrit Schumann says the new funding will help consolidate its leading position in those markets and support international expansion plans. The company has signaled further large partnerships, including alliances with VZ networks, O2 and an imminent deal with a major European TV network. simfy is a Cologne, Germany-based provider of music on demand (MOD) services. The company offers music streaming with premium features that allow offline playback and mobile access via an iPhone app. simfy has signed agreements with all major labels (Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI, Warner Music) and important aggregators for independent labels to expand its catalog from around three million to over 6.2 million titles. It also reached an agreement with the German rights society GEMA to ensure songs are licensed and legally available online. simfy received €7m in funding to accelerate growth. The company plans to expand throughout Europe and will begin offering services in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and other countries in the coming months.

• plista

  Participated · Series A · Nov 2010

  Plista operates a contextual advertising platform that places Recommendation Ads on top of existing display advertising to deliver content-matched, preference-based ads. The company emphasizes high relevance and reports average CTRs between 8% and 12%, which it says outperform typical networks. Plista serves roughly 400 publishers, including high-profile German outlets such as Spiegel.de and Amica. Founded in 2009 by Dominik Matyka, the startup targets monetization for publishers and major outlets. The recent strategic investment by NWZ publishing house is expected to provide additional integration outlets for Plista’s platform. Plista is a Berlin-based social recommendation and personalization platform that suggests content to users across sites using collaborative filtering. Its offering includes a widget, API integration and a Firefox/Greasemonkey plug-in that places a ratings box on site elements and rates them to user preferences. The recommendation engine works across sites, enabling suggestions on one site based on content a user liked on another. Plista also includes a social network component for sharing recommendations and following users with similar tastes. The company was featured in TechCrunch50’s DemoPit and demonstrated at Web 2.0 Expo Europe, where TechCrunch UK reviewed the service. Competitors cited in the article include Strands, Outbrain, Aggregate Knowledge and Criteo.

No current team members are available.