Participated · Seed · Jul 2024

Reset embeds earned wage access directly into a financial institution’s existing technology stack, enabling members to access earned wages daily and fee-free via a card issued by the credit union. The product is structured to grow direct deposit relationships and drive premium credit interchange revenue for partner institutions. Credit union case study data cited by Reset shows cardholders on average increase deposits by 27%, maintain checking balances 36% higher than prior levels, and generate 20% more in credit interchange revenue; post-launch member surveys reported 100% saying Reset improved their financial stability. Reset has signed multiple multi-year enterprise contracts, generates revenue from subscriptions, implementation services, and interchange sharing, and is piloting with six credit unions representing 1.2 million members and $17 billion in combined assets through FiLab. The company plans to use the new capital to expand sales and implementation capacity, deepen product development, and accelerate current deployments. Reset is led by a founding team with payments and fintech experience and is based in Menlo Park, California.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2023

Sora Finance is a San Francisco-based fintech that provides a SaaS platform for credit management and liability optimization to financial advisors, planners, and employers. Its AI-driven debt financing platform covers home, auto, student, and personal loans and uses an "always-on" lending algorithm to surface affordable rates. Sora onboards clients' existing liabilities and executes advanced credit optimization strategies across all loans to maximize clients' net worth. By partnering with wholesale and retail lenders, the company guarantees advisors' clients the lowest cost of debt. Led by co-founders and co-CEOs Siddhartha Oza and Rohit G. Agarwal, Sora intends to use new funding to accelerate growth and expand operations and business reach. The company currently works with over 125 advisory firms and has $275 million in liabilities under management.

Participated · Series A · Sep 2021

Andes develops beneficial microorganisms that grow with plant roots to capture carbon dioxide and convert it into minerals in the ground, providing a high‑permanence carbon removal solution. The company deploys its technology across working farmland without disrupting existing agricultural practices and reports having removed more than 50,000 tonnes of CO2 to date. Andes has partnered with farmers across the Midwest on 25,000 acres and says enrolling in its Carbon Removal Program can increase farmers' net income by up to 25%. The company also reports a 3X increase in farmer interest this year. In parallel with carbon removal, Andes is developing biological nitrogen technology that integrates with seeds. Andes plans to use the new funding to expand partnerships with farmers, continue developing its microorganism technology, and make its carbon removal credits available to organizations of all sizes. Andes develops a seed-applied microbial technology called Microprime that integrates a library of microbes with seeds so they colonize roots and enable biological nitrogen fixation, reducing reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. The company’s first-generation Microprime-treated corn seeds deliver the equivalent of 30 to 50 lbs/acre of nitrogen; Andes is developing second-generation microbes aimed at roughly doubling that amount. Andes is also engineering microbial strains intended for nature-based permanent carbon capture to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere into soil, initially focusing on microbial-powered corn crops with the potential for gigaton-scale capture if deployed at scale. The technology is positioned as a scalable, grower-facing solution that can save time and input costs while lowering agriculture’s greenhouse-gas footprint; the article notes synthetic fertilizers account for roughly 3% (1.5 gigatons) of global emissions. Andes plans to scale its self-sustaining, nitrogen-fixing seeds across the U.S., expand into South America, and continue R&D on its carbon-capture technology funded by the recent investment. No operating revenue or user metrics are reported in the article.

Led · Series C · Jun 2021

idwall is a RegTech focused on identity validation, digital onboarding and anti-fraud/compliance solutions for B2B customers while also offering a consumer identity app called MeuID. The company aggregates more than 250 data sources and has historically generated over 65 million query reports for clients. idwall serves 300+ clients across segments, including Cielo, iFood, Claro and Quinto Andar; its customer base includes 15 banks and seven financial unicorns. The startup has grown rapidly: between 2017 and 2020 it recorded 1,458% total revenue growth with a 144% average annual growth rate, and increased financial-contract revenue 588% versus 2019. The team totals about 150 people with a plan to double headcount by the end of 2021. idwall says it will use new funding to accelerate growth, launch new products and expand hiring and training to scale operations and product development. idwall began in mid-2016 as an automated background-check solution and has expanded into a suite of identity and data-validation products, including face match, OCR, and automated background checks. Its APIs verify IDs by checking public and private databases, authenticating documents, confirming ownership, and running background checks—processing verifications in under three minutes, the company says. idwall offers a MeuID wallet to store documents and serves more than 180 customers, including over 100 fintechs; named customers include Zazcar, Loggi, Movida, 99 and iFood. The company cites Zazcar’s reduction of identity-fraud car thefts to zero as a customer outcome. idwall plans to further expand its services by the end of 2020. To date it has raised capital and continues to grow amid rising demand for automated onboarding in Brazil. IDwall offers document validation, background-check and identity verification solutions. Its platform includes a real-time alert system that lets users verify customers' data during signups and purchases. The company also provides implementation and consulting services for its solutions. IDwall raised $600K in funding led by Monashees Capital and Canary and will use the proceeds to continue expanding operations. The company previously raised funding from 500 Startups and other strategic angel investors. IDwall was founded in July 2016 by Lincoln Ando, Renan Esposte and Raphael Melo and is based in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Mountain View, California.

Participated · Series C · May 2014

Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com and WooCommerce and is poised to incorporate Tumblr into its product family. Its core offerings center on the WordPress publishing platform and associated e-commerce tooling via WooCommerce. Founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg has said the company aims to become the operating system for the open web, with a goal of powering every website. The article frames Automattic as expanding its footprint across publishing and e-commerce. Financially, Automattic completed a large funding event reported in the article, which is intended to support its continued growth and strategic goals. No specific operating metrics were reported in the piece. Automattic operates WordPress.com and maintains the open-source WordPress platform used to build websites and blogs. The platform has evolved from simple blogging software into a fuller content management system, now supporting verticals such as restaurants, hotels, schools and musicians. According to the article, WordPress powers 22% of the world’s top 10 million websites. The company has historically used a freemium model, charging for advanced tools like custom domains, large media uploads and CSS customization while keeping core features free. Automattic was described as healthy and cash-generating until recently, when CEO Matt Mullenweg concluded the company was capital constrained after taking over earlier this year. The article says the new funding could be used to pursue better monetization, invest in backend/features and push into lucrative verticals to compete with Squarespace, Wix and Weebly. Automattic builds and operates WordPress.com, a web publishing platform. Founder and president Matt Mullenweg aims to grow the company from roughly 200 employees to thousands and to have WordPress.com power a majority of all websites. WordPress.com currently powers 19.9% of websites, up from 17% in 2012 and 14.9% in 2011; market-share data is available back to 2010 (12.3%). Growth priorities called out include mobile, social collaboration, building virality, and the platform’s freemium SaaS model. Product roadmap items mentioned include WordPress 3.7 (platform improvements) and 3.8 (dashboard/interface iterations). The company has added about 70 employees this year and now employs just under 200 people. Automattic builds and operates WordPress and related web-publishing products. The company is led by founder Matthew Mullenweg alongside CEO Toni Schneider and is based in San Francisco. At the time of the article it had over 150 employees, including nearly 130 focused on product development and support, and expected to grow to 200 by the end of 2013. Automattic did not need to raise capital directly and positioned itself as an independent, long-term company. The firm emphasized focusing on product and growth rather than pursuing a near-term liquidity event. A minority of stockholders elected to sell shares while the vast majority retained their stakes. Automattic develops the WordPress open-source blogging software and related services including the Akismet spam filter, WordPress.com, Gravatar, and the upcoming BBPress hosted bulletin board product. The company plans to use its new funding to further develop Akismet and the downloadable WordPress software as well as WordPress.com, Gravatar, and BBPress. WordPress.com recently increased its storage cap to 3GB, surpassing competitors like Blogger and TypePad. Automattic and its CEO were honored twice at the Crunchies in the categories “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Best CEO.” The company was rumored to have turned down a $200M acquisition offer last October. Automattic has raised a $29.5M Series B to support these product and platform initiatives.