Participated · Seed · Oct 2022

Ask-AI provides a generative AI answers and insights solution that connects to more than 50 enterprise work systems, ingesting, analyzing and understanding enterprise knowledge. It integrates that knowledge into employees' workflows to boost productivity and support use cases across customer support, success, product, R&D and sales. The platform connects to systems such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Confluence, Jira, Slack, Google Drive and Teams. Customers include Monday.com, Callrail, Yotpo, HiBob, Own and Instawork. The company is led by founder and CEO Alon Talmor and currently has a 40-person team across Tel Aviv and Toronto, with plans to double headcount over the next 12 months. Ask-AI intends to use the new funding to expand operations and accelerate product development. Ask-AI combines artificial intelligence and natural language processing to analyze long texts, summarize them into single-sentence answers, and surface recurring questions and insights across an organization. The platform ingests internal and customer communication sources — including Slack, emails, chats, databases and monitored call-center recordings — to provide business, process and product answers. When it cannot find answers, the system uses those questions to learn and help drive knowledge creation, effectively becoming a central organizational knowledge base. Ask-AI operates on a SaaS model and counts Ownbackup, Yotpo, Armis, Coralogix, Claroty and WalkMe among its customers and design partners. Led by CEO Alon Talmor, the team also includes Prof. Jonathan Berant, Dafna Lavran and Eyal Medar. The company plans to use the new funding to accelerate growth and expand operations and business reach.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2018

Revasum supplies wafer processing equipment to semiconductor manufacturers. In August 2018 the company closed an $8 million pre-IPO funding round. The majority of that pre-IPO financing was managed by Shaw and Partners and came from leading Australian institutional investors. Firsthand Technology Value Fund and other U.S. investors also participated in the round. Firsthand made its initial investment in Revasum in 2016 and has invested more than $14 million to date; as of July 31, 2018 Revasum was the Fund’s third-largest holding. The company announced its intention to seek an initial public offering in Australia. Revasum is a new entrant in the semiconductor equipment industry focused on chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) and grinding technology for 200mm wafers and below. The company targets growth end markets including IoT, power conversion, RF communications, MEMS, LEDs and solar, and offers new and certified refurbished systems worldwide. Revasum’s product strategy emphasizes new product development tailored to the unique needs of device makers in those sectors. Proceeds from its initial round of funding were used to acquire the CMP and grinding technology assets of Strasbaugh. The company is headquartered in San Luis Obispo, California, and is led by CEO Jerry Cutini. Revasum positions itself to serve resurgent demand for 200mm equipment driven by those end-market dynamics.

Participated · Series B · May 2015

Tapad is a marketing technology company that provides unified cross-device marketing solutions to help marketers address media consumption across smartphones, tablets, home computers and smart TVs. Founded in 2010 by Are Traasdahl, the company is deployed by agency trading desks, publishers, marketing technology companies and numerous Fortune 500 brands. Tapad's platform connects consumers across screens and it has licensing partnerships with Datalogix (Oracle), Magnetic and eXelate (Nielsen), among others. Headquartered in New York City, the company also maintains offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Toronto. Tapad closed an $18.5M Series B-2 in May 2015 and intends to use the funds to bolster its licensing business and expand its product offering, including a linear TV measurement platform. The round's backers included Blue Cloud Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Firsthand Technology Value Fund, FirstMark Capital, G&H Partners, Knight Enterprise Fund, Silicon Valley Bank and Zanadu Capital Partners. Tapad is a NYC-based provider of unified cross-device marketing solutions that links consumer identities across smartphones, tablets, home computers and smart TVs. Its products are deployed by agency trading desks, publishers, marketing-technology companies and Fortune 500 brands. Founded in 2010 by CEO Are Traasdahl, the company recently hired Ben Regensburger. Tapad operates multiple U.S. offices, including locations in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. The company closed a $7M Series B-2 round to fund continued growth. It intends to use the proceeds to further develop infrastructure in Europe, continue international expansion and broaden its U.S. product offering. Tapad is a New York-based provider of unified cross-device advertising solutions founded in 2010 by CEO Are Traasdahl. It offers proprietary cross-platform audience buying technology that provides a unified view of consumers across all screens. The platform is used by more than 75 Fortune 500 brands. The company has offices in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. Tapad closed a $6.5M Series B to continue growth in the U.S. and to expand globally. Existing investors FirstMark Capital and Avalon Ventures participated alongside Firsthand Technology Value Fund. Tapad is a New York City startup that brings retargeting to mobile devices, enabling ads to follow users across mobile browsers and apps. Founded by Are Traasdahl, the company has developed a method that uses device signatures, network IDs and publisher login data to connect mobile web visits to in-app impressions while avoiding personally identifiable information. Tapad has been testing its system for about six months with roughly half a dozen advertisers and reports covering 8 to 10 billion mobile impressions a month. Advertisers in tests have seen early clickthrough improvements of about 50% to 150% lift, according to the company. Tapad currently works on Android and planned to launch support for Apple iOS devices the week after the article was published. The startup raised $1.8 million from venture firms and ad-tech angels to scale the product and run it at larger scale.

Participated · Series E · Jun 2014

Phunware provides a Multiscreen-as-a-Service (MaaS) suite of products, solutions and data that enables brands to create and monetize mobile experiences across retail, media and entertainment, healthcare, airports, residential and shopping centers. Launched in 2009 by Chairman and CEO Alan S. Knitowski and based in Austin, Texas, the company offers tools to engage, manage and monetize users worldwide. The company completed a $22m second close of its Series F financing, bringing total Series F raised to date to $40m, with the balance expected to close during the current quarter. Phunware has raised $90m in total since inception. The company said it will use the new funds to continue to expand operations globally. The suite combines products, solutions and data intended for brands and enterprise customers. Phunware offers an integrated services platform that enables brands to add multiscreen application support for content management, location-based services, advertising, alerts and notifications, and business intelligence. The platform supports more than 1 trillion annual transactions across nearly 190 countries and 10 languages. Its customer roster includes E! Entertainment Television, NBC Sports, WWE, NASCAR, CBS, Qualcomm, Edmunds, Jawbone, HomeAway, Turner, UHealth, Transamerica, King, Warner Brothers, AT&T and Adobe. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in Austin, TX. As of the Series E close, Phunware has raised $48.25M in total capital. The recent funding round included a strategic investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation.

Led · Series A · Sep 2013

Telepathy develops a wearable, real-time, hands-free social communication device designed to promote bonds between people. The company was originally established in January 2013 in Japan and is now headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It plans to deliver a software development kit (SDK) to application developers this fall. Telepathy closed a $5M Series A to accelerate product development and expand its team. The company said it will hire UI/UX/HFE engineers, application software developers, server software developers, embedded system developers, and communication firmware developers. Takahito Iguchi is CEO and the company added Peter Hoddie to its advisory board.