Led · Grant · Mar 2026

Making Space operates a talent acquisition and learning platform that connects more than 50,000 disabled individuals with job-aligned skill development, community support, and career pathways. Its flagship Ascend Fellowship combines cohort-based programming, 1:1 support, and employer engagement to improve hiring, retention, and advancement for disabled professionals. The program has supported over 200 participants and its first cohort of 100 participants produced $111 million in projected lifetime earnings and a cited 123:1 return on investment; the broader Ascend impact is reported as more than $220 million in projected lifetime economic impact. Making Space has trained roughly 5,000 hiring managers and partnered with employers including Red Bull, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola to improve workplace accessibility. With the new grant, the company plans to scale the Ascend Fellowship nationally, pilot and validate responsible AI tools to assist with skill translation and benefits navigation, and expand employer-facing inclusion initiatives to increase retention and advancement opportunities for disabled professionals.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2025

Mobile Pathways develops a technology platform that connects immigrants with legal and employment information via mobile technology and AI. Its core product, Pathfinder, is an AI tool that automates immigration status alerts, centralizes vital legal information, and provides data-driven insights. The company plans to enhance Pathfinder to leverage U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data to speed the work authorization process. The new funding will drive advancements in Pathfinder and allow immigration nonprofits to access Pathfinder’s case history reports for free. Mobile Pathways was founded in 2018 by Jeffrey O’Brien, Poesy Chen, and Bartlomiej Jan Skorupa and is based in San Francisco, CA. The organization positions its technology work around ensuring fair access to justice for immigrants. Bitly began in 2008 as a link-shortening tool and has since refocused on serving businesses with branded short links, analytics on link identity and activity, and device-aware mobile deep links to drive app installs and re-engagement. Its customers include close to three quarters of the Fortune 500. The company reports having transitioned from a “free only” model to a fast-growing, profitable freemium SaaS business. Bitly’s product set is positioned to give enterprises more control and data around links and user interactions. Mark Josephson became CEO in 2014 and leads the company through this enterprise-focused strategy. The company’s last venture funding round was in 2012, according to CrunchBase. Bitly began as a link-shortening service and has recently repositioned itself toward social bookmarking and content discovery. The company launched a major redesign that emphasized broader sharing features, which prompted backlash from users who said it de-emphasized link shortening. Bitly’s CEO characterized the criticism as coming from a “vocal minority.” The company reported that daily registrations have increased by 300 percent since the redesign. Bitly says its vision is to become the primary online service for sharing and discovering interesting content. The new funding will be used to further develop the discovery platform and to grow the team and expand its social web products; the company has now raised $28.5 million in venture funding. Bitly offers a link-shortening, sharing and analytics platform and has launched an HTML5-optimized mobile site for tablets and smartphones. The mobile site is cross-platform (iPad, iPhone and Android), supports offline shortening, and caches up to 100 recent links for access without connectivity. It allows users to preview link contents (including videos), open links in new windows or copy URLs, and access QR codes for any bitly link. Bitly renders analytics with HTML5 graphs and charts on mobile and leverages the large dataset from its link network to build new services, including News.me. The company reported roughly 7 billion clicks on its links in the prior month, indicating substantial engagement. Bitly recently raised $9 million in funding and is said to be continuing to grow despite competition from Facebook and Twitter.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2025

Mobile Pathways, founded in 2018 in San Francisco by Jeffrey O'Brien, Poesy Chen, and Bartlomiej Jan Skorupa, builds mobile technology and AI to connect immigrants with reliable legal and employment information. Its core product, Pathfinder, automates immigration status alerts, centralizes vital legal information, and provides data-driven insights for attorneys and advocates. The organization secured $1 million in funding supported by GitLab Foundation, Firedoll Foundation, AlleyCorp, and Fast Forward to advance Pathfinder's AI capabilities. Planned enhancements include leveraging U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data to speed work-authorization processes and making case-history reports available to immigration nonprofits for free. AlleyCorp is assisting through its Nonprofit ENG(INE) initiative to help scale Pathfinder’s technical development. Mobile Pathways aims to improve legal outcomes and employment opportunities for underserved immigrant communities by combining justice, technology, and AI. Mobile Pathways operates an online platform that sends automated legal updates to immigrants via text and WhatsApp, built by a team of lawyers, coders, and immigrants. The organization partners with over 140 grassroots immigration nonprofits and reaches nearly 4 million immigrants. It provides digital transformation services including mass text updates and data collection from government agencies, nonprofit partners, and individuals. Mobile Pathways has compiled roughly 100 million rows of immigration data and uses trend analysis to surface systemic issues such as asylum seekers waiting about 720 days for a court date. The group is expanding its use of data and machine learning to articulate immigration court outcomes and increase trust in the immigration process. The newly raised funding will support improvement and expansion of digital transformation services for partner nonprofits.