Participated · Equity · Jul 2025

Metafide develops SURGE, a gamified predictive trading platform that runs short-interval competitive forecasting contests to harness collective human expertise alongside AI neural networks. The platform is designed to improve market prediction accuracy, particularly in volatile conditions, by blending strategic human play with machine learning. Metafide has a strategic go-to-market partnership with DogeOS to amplify reach within the Dogecoin ecosystem. The company says SURGE won recognition at the Mantle AI Fest and is onboarding initial testers from a community that has grown to more than 120,000 participants. Its waitlist exceeds 110,000 users, which the company intends to convert as it moves toward market launch. Metafide is led by CEO Frank Speiser, a serial entrepreneur, and is focused on scaling user acquisition and engagement following the new funding.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2022

Yummy is a Latin American super app that provides on-demand delivery of items (food, medicine, clothing), ride-sharing (motorcycle and car), grocery delivery in under 20 minutes, and purchase of experiences. Founded in 2020 by CEO Vicente Zavarce and a member of Y Combinator’s summer 2021 cohort, the company has expanded beyond its initial Venezuela and Bolivia markets into Peru and Panama. Yummy partners with over 8,000 merchants and processes roughly 800,000 monthly transactions, reporting 2.5 million registered users (up from about 200,000 a year earlier) and growth of more than 40% quarter over quarter. It operates 21 micro-fulfillment/dark-store centers (with a prior goal of 50 by the end of 2022) and provides thousands of gig-worker jobs across its markets. The ride-sharing unit (motorcycle and car) was the first business unit to achieve profitability; average cart sizes are roughly $14 for prepared food and $30 for groceries. With the new capital, Yummy plans to invest in product development, increase density within existing categories, expand coverage in its more mature markets (including Venezuela and Bolivia), and explore adding a fintech layer to the app. Yummy operates a delivery and ridesharing app that charges users a delivery fee or merchants a fee and is available as a free download. The company says it has more than 200,000 registered users and is processing over 340,000 monthly transactions, with consistent growth of over 35% for the past four months. Yummy has a network of more than 5,000 drivers across 12 Venezuelan cities. The startup launched this month in Peru and Chile and plans to open 50 active dark stores in each country by the end of 2022, targeting delivery of more than 2,000 products in under 15 minutes. Founder Vicente Zavarce started the company in 2020 and intends to use the new funding to accelerate expansion across Latin America and scale both Yummy Delivery and Yummy Rides. Yummy is a Venezuela-based delivery app building a country-wide super app offering food, groceries, alcohol, shopping and last-mile logistics. The company operates dark-store delivery operations and charges a delivery fee or merchant fee, which it says are the lowest in the market. Since launching in 2020, Yummy has connected more than 1,200 merchants, has close to 200,000 registered users and completed over 600,000 deliveries. It reached $1 million in monthly gross merchandise volume and reports revenue growth of 38% month over month. Yummy plans to launch a ridesharing vertical this year and expand its dark-store delivery footprint into Peru and Chile by August, with Ecuador and Bolivia expected by year-end. The company cites high frequency of usage and exclusivity with 60% of Venezuela's food delivery marketplace as a moat for further expansion.

Participated · Series B · Jul 2021

Natural Fiber Welding (NFW) is a Peoria, Illinois–based materials-science company that engineers high-performance, plant-based alternatives to petroleum-derived plastics. Its proprietary green-chemistry platform powers two flagship products: MIRUM, an all-natural, plastic-free leather replacement, and PLIANT, the world’s first naturally cured performance rubber outsole. Together these materials form a regenerative, circular platform aimed at footwear, fashion, automotive, and industrial markets. The company positions its solutions as drop-in replacements that match or exceed conventional materials on performance, durability, and aesthetics while radically lowering carbon footprints. NFW is seeing rising demand from global brand partners and has secured strategic backing from investors such as BMW iVentures, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Allbirds, and Asahi Kasei. The latest capital will be used to accelerate commercialization, expand manufacturing capacity, and support ongoing product innovation. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article.