Participated · Series A · Mar 2022

Instant Teams operates a remote talent marketplace that builds and manages remote teams drawn from a 26,000+ database of military-connected, remote-certified workers. The platform supplies enterprise and high-growth customers with pipelines of talent for customer support, sales, data analytics and operational support roles. Customers include Assurance IQ, Amazon, Walmart, Expensify, Seesaw and the Department of Defense. The company employs over 500 remote team members across the globe. Founded in 2016 by military spouses Liza Rodewald and Erica McMannes, Instant Teams focuses on expanding its corporate and enterprise offerings and growing its military market share. The company intends to use recent financing to accelerate its marketplace technology and corporate structure to support that expansion. Instant Teams operates a software-as-a-service platform called Arti that automates the process of building and managing distributed, pre-vetted teams and connects military spouses with remote work opportunities. The platform enforces four layers of vetting for candidates and provides connections to employers plus participation in customer Slack groups to keep workers engaged. Last year, workers on the platform contributed 40,000 hours of work to over 40 customers, with common roles in administration, marketing, customer success, and tech support. Cofounders Liza Rodewald (CEO) and Erica McMannes (COO) launched the product after manually testing their team-building process. With new funding, the company plans to hire executive leadership, scale sales, continue in-house product development, and grow its presence in Baltimore while Rodewald remains based in Honolulu. At the time of the announcement the company had an 11-member distributed team and eight open positions.

Led · Equity · Jan 2018

Igloo is a Canada-based enterprise collaboration platform that integrates tools like Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft and Google productivity suites, Dropbox and Box to help employees communicate and access documents. The company positions itself as “Solutions as a Service” with a plug-and-play architecture to avoid locking customers into a single vendor. Igloo is active in 80 countries, has about 1,000 paying customers, roughly 10,000 organizations using a free version, and “well over” 1 million users; it added 190 paying customers in the last year, a 79% growth rate. The company plans to use the new funding to expand its product into business areas beyond HR, marketing and IT and to accelerate growth. Financially, the new $47M round brings total funding to $56M; Igloo did not disclose valuation but it is reported to be well north of $100M with a stated goal of reaching $500M in the next year or two. Andrew Lindner of Frontier Capital will join Igloo’s board as part of the financing. IGLOO Software is a Kitchener, Ontario-based provider of cloud-based social business software. Founded in 2008 and led by CEO Dan Latendre, the company enables modern business collaboration and aims to make people more productive and agile. IGLOO operates across the United States, Canada and EMEA and its customer base spans six continents, including Cisco, Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, Deloitte and the ATP World Tour. The company raised $5M in a Series B financing led by RBC Venture Partners, with participation from the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund. IGLOO said it will use the funding to expand the business, accelerate product development, grow its ecosystem of partners and broaden its reach.

Led · Equity · May 2017

Dinova operates a proprietary marketplace connecting expense-account diners to restaurants across the U.S. The company’s marketplace includes more than 14,000 restaurants and corporate partners spanning hundreds of Fortune 500 companies and over one million small- and medium-sized businesses. Dinova influences more than $6 billion annually in travel and entertainment/business meals expenses. Founded in 2009 and based in Johns Creek, Georgia, Dinova serves local independents as well as national full-service and limited-service restaurant brands across price levels and cuisines. Proceeds from the investment will be used to finance ongoing growth strategies and provide liquidity to early-stage investors. CEO Vic Macchio will continue to lead the company and said the firm expects its greatest years of growth are still ahead.

Led · Equity · May 2016

Zephyr provides real-time, on-demand enterprise test management solutions that give visibility into the quality and status of software development projects. Its products are sold directly to enterprises and through the Atlassian Marketplace. The company serves more than 8,500 customers in over 100 countries across industries including finance, healthcare, media, automotive, IT services and enterprise software, with customers such as LG Electronics, Adobe, HSBC, Honda, Oracle, Citibank, Amex, GE, Starz and Hyundai. Zephyr is based in Newark, California, with additional operations in London and Bangalore, and Samir Shah is founder and CEO. The company raised $31M in funding to support key growth initiatives. The proceeds will be used to enhance the product portfolio and scale sales and marketing capabilities.

Participated · Series B · Dec 2015

Ai Kongjian’s core product is standardized renovation packages highlighted by “¥699 per m², 20-day construction, and self-employed workers,” combined with deep user engagement and digital operations. The company reported about 400 orders per month in Beijing after early traction. It uses a city-partner expansion model in which headquarters retains 60% and local partners take 40%, supplying management and technology while local firms execute projects. Since June it began rapid nationwide expansion; by October it opened branches in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu, and following the B round its showroom network reached 12 cities with seven new showrooms unveiled. Management emphasizes heavy vertical focus and has invested in digitizing frontline staff (mobile ERP, CRM and integrated back-end systems) to improve efficiency and control costs. The company intends to use new funding to accelerate national expansion, brand promotion, new-technology R&D and information-system construction.