• Apptimize

  Participated · Series B · Aug 2016

  Apptimize offers a platform that helps businesses A/B test, deploy instant updates, track features and stage rollouts for native iOS and Android apps. Its tools enable teams to roll out changes in hours instead of weeks and run staged releases to reduce server strain and gather feedback. The company serves hundreds of customers, including about 100 notable brands such as Hotel Tonight, Trulia, Vevo, Hotels.com and The Wall Street Journal, with apps live in more than 100 countries. Apptimize monetizes via a freemium model that charges based on monthly active users and feature set; the CEO declined to disclose revenue details. The company says enterprise customers see double-digit revenue lift within the first couple of months on the platform. Apptimize is a Y Combinator 2013 grad and focuses product and go-to-market on improving in-app experience and user engagement. Apptimize provides mobile A/B testing and optimization tools, and recently launched Instant Update — a visual editor that lets customers make small app changes without code or app‑store approval. The company positions Instant Update to expand its addressable market from large customers to smaller teams by enabling quick text/button tweaks and faster product iterations. CEO and co‑founder Nancy Hua says Apptimize is installed in “a few hundred” apps and highlights customers including Vevo, HotelTonight, Glassdoor, Strava and Flipagram. The product’s goal is to shrink iteration cycles from weeks or months to minutes for routine changes like onboarding flows. Apptimize faces competition from other mobile testing tools but believes the new features will keep it competitive and useful to a wider set of customers. Financially, the company has just completed a Series A and has recorded total funding of $6.1 million. Apptimize is a Y Combinator–incubated A/B testing platform tailored to mobile apps that launched last summer. Developers integrate a small snippet of code to run multiple experiments that can be enabled and disabled without new app releases. The company recently introduced Visual Apptimizer, a WYSIWYG editor that lets non-developers (e.g., product managers) make live changes such as copy edits or button placement tweaks without coding. Co-founder and CEO Nancy Hua says the visual tool complements Apptimize’s other tooling rather than replacing it. Apptimize aims to become a full‑service platform that developers only need to integrate with their apps. Financially, the company announced a $2.1 million seed fundraise to support growth and product development.

• RadPad

  Participated · Series A · Apr 2015

  RadPad is a mobile apartment rental marketplace launched in January 2013 that provides iOS, Android and web access to rental listings. Its apps and site feature over 600,000 apartments and homes across Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Houston and Miami. The company has surpassed one million mobile downloads. In October 2014 RadPad launched Pay with RadPad to enable renters to pay rent to any landlord by credit or debit card, and since then more than $8 million in rent payments have been processed from renters in 46 states. Rent payments can be completed in less than 90 seconds using Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express or Apple Pay. The company raised $9m in a Series A round, bringing total funding to $13m. RadPad operates a phone-based mobile rental marketplace that lets users search and find apartments or homes among more than 600,000 rental listings. Led by CEO Jonathan Eppers along with Tyler Galpin and Tim Watson, the service launched in Los Angeles and has formally expanded to cities including Chicago and Washington, D.C., while remaining accessible across the U.S. The company plans to use its latest financing to develop new product features and to hire additional staff in technology and operations. The product emphasis is on a mobile-first renter experience and geographic expansion within major metropolitan markets. Financially, the company has raised a total of $3.5M to date. RadPad is a Los Angeles-based mobile rental marketplace app that uses photo-based listings to connect property owners and renters. The company is led by CEO Jonathan Eppers and launched in January 2013. Its core product is a photo-first mobile marketplace that lists rentals across many Los Angeles neighborhoods. RadPad also maintains nationwide listings, mainly in Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The company raised $1M in financing from private investors, including Fork Capital, Post Investments, Michael Huffington and Brian Lee (BAM Ventures & Honest Co.). RadPad is a mobile-first rental marketplace that highlights listings with prominent photos and requires landlords to include three images. It launched as an iOS app and recently released a web version. The app has been downloaded 24,000 times and about 2,500 Los Angeles renters open it daily; 35% of listings are posted directly from smartphones. RadPad currently operates in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and is launching in Austin after investor Post Investment Group encouraged expansion there. The company raised $200,000 from Post Investment Group, angel Tom McInerney, Chris Ovitz, and accelerator Amplify and is now seeking a larger round. The service is free for renters and landlords today, with plans to monetize via premium landlord services such as targeted push notifications.

• BuildZoom

  Participated · Seed · Oct 2014

  BuildZoom operates a marketplace that helps homeowners find and hire construction and remodeling contractors, then supports both parties through project completion. The platform gathers and analyzes data on over 3.5 million licensed contractors and 100 million improvement projects to provide upfront advice to consumers. Led by CEO David Petersen and President Jiyan Wei, the company emerged from Y Combinator in 2013. BuildZoom reports a marketplace with over 12 million annual users and more than 35 employees. Financially, the company has raised a total of $13.5M to date. BuildZoom is a San Francisco, CA-based intelligent marketplace for remodeling and construction services. Led by Jiyan Wei and David Petersen, the platform lets homeowners find and hire contractors and view comprehensive profiles with work history, project photos and customer reviews. The company has collected data and analysis on more than 3.5 million licensed contractors and building permits for over 50 million construction projects nationwide. BuildZoom raised $2.15M in seed funding and intends to use the funds to invest in data science, engineering and customer support operations in its San Francisco office. Investors in the round include Formation 8 (lead), Y Combinator, Streamlined Ventures, Goldcrest Investments, Hydrazine Capital, Signatures Capital, DV Playground, Pankaj Shah and other angel investors. BuildZoom is a Y Combinator-backed online directory that connects homeowners with licensed contractors. The service aggregates public state licensing board data and select Better Business Bureau data to build its database, which now lists 3 million licensed contractors, 25,000 claimed profiles and roughly 60,000 uploaded photos. It combines contractor reviews, web-sourced reviews and business metrics (completed projects, time in business) to produce a "BuildZoom Grade" for each contractor and lets homeowners leave reviews. The company plans to evolve from a discovery/review site into a true marketplace, enabling transactions and cloud-based contract and communication tools so agreements and project management happen online. BuildZoom reports roughly 12% month-over-month growth and about 2,500 contractor sign-ups per month. After launching in March with a small distributed team in San Francisco, the company has been hiring engineers and user-facing staff and plans further headcount expansion.

• VSCO

  Participated · Series A · May 2014

  VSCO offers mobile-first photo tools (notably the VSCOcam app) and publishing products such as VSCO Grid and VSCO Journal, plus online and in-app stores for creators. Its apps provide filters and precision editing that aim to bridge professional camera capabilities and smartphone photography. The company emphasizes curation over social metrics, with a minimalist Grid that hides follower counts and comments. Prior to this financing VSCO was bootstrapping profitably, had nearly 50 employees, and served “millions” of users worldwide. More than one billion images have been created using VSCO’s tools to date. The company plans to build more tools and services, expand the team, and scale infrastructure for its largely international community.

No current team members are available.