Participated · Series A · Jun 2024

Hoodie Analytics is a Chicago-based cannabis data and technology company that offers a market insights and product data management platform. Led by CEO Wes Shepherd, the platform tracks daily movements of the cannabis market and gives users access to people, processes, and data aimed at building winning brands. The company recently launched its new platform and plans to use the financing to accelerate market expansion. Hoodie strengthened its leadership and governance with the appointment of David Navama and the addition of Timur Sultanov to the board, alongside observers Andy Sturner and John Campbell. The business is focused on scaling its product and commercial reach within the cannabis sector. Hoodie Analytics operates a cannabis data and technology platform that tracks over 3.5 million daily unique offers across more than 8,000 dispensaries in the U.S. and Canada, capturing pricing, promotion, stocking status, distribution, and share-of-shelf metrics. It delivers next-day insights, enabling businesses to access market trends and data within hours. The company combines massive-volume data processing with application development and an easy-to-use interface intended for roles from brand salespeople to dispensary inventory managers. Hoodie aims to track every product in every dispensary every day and to build a product graph that connects industry participants. The executive team includes alumni from IRI, Nielsen, NPD, and Numerator. Hoodie says the recent fundraising will allow it to massively scale product and sales efforts and has added strategic advisory board members to support growth.

Led · Seed · Jul 2020

The Better Meat Co. is a Sacramento, Calif.-based maker of plant-based meats that uses fermentation to produce Rhiza mycoprotein ingredients. Rhiza mycoprotein is described as an all-natural, whole-food, complete protein and clean-label ingredient that is shelf-stable, free from common allergens, neutral in taste and color, and delivers a meat-like texture. According to the company, adding Rhiza to meat improves nutrition and mouthfeel while reducing saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and develop new products. Its leadership team includes CEO Paul Shapiro, CFO Nikhil Prashar, EVP of Tech Moran Farhi, and VP of Ops Andrea Choe. The company has raised a total of $43M to date. The Better Meat Co. is a Sacramento-based food tech company that supplies a mycoprotein ingredient called Rhiza to food manufacturers. It transforms microscopic fungi via fermentation into Rhiza and operates as a business-to-business ingredients supplier. The company produces Rhiza at a Sacramento pilot plant that uses a 9,000-liter fermentation system and has completed 100 harvests. The Better Meat Co. reports seed-to-harvest production in just a few hours and significant cost reductions, claiming cost parity with commodity beef. The company recently received a “no questions” letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognizing Rhiza as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). It plans to use new funding to scale Rhiza production further. Better Meat Co, based in Sacramento, makes white-label plant-based formulations designed to be blended with animal meat to create hybrid products for beef, chicken, crab, fish, pork, and turkey. Its 'meat enhancers' are allergen-free and positioned as cost-competitive with similar animal-derived ingredients. The company sells B2B to food manufacturers seeking to boost sustainability, nutrition credentials, and cost effectiveness of animal-derived products. Customers include Perdue Farms, which used Better Meat Co's formulations in its Perdue Chicken Plus range of nuggets, patties, and tenders. Better Meat Co emphasizes partnership with major meat companies to drive environmental and public health impact. Financially, the startup has raised $8.1 million in a seed round and previously raised $1.6 million in pre-seed financing, bringing total capital raised to just shy of $10 million. Better Meat Co creates proprietary plant-based ingredient blends formulated to mix invisibly into meat products; its first product, Albina 100, combines wheat protein, mushroom, pea fiber and umami extracts. Albina 100 is shelf-stable, described as looking like a packet of croutons, and is specifically formulated for ground pork applications such as sausages, meatballs, chorizo, and dumplings, with future formulations planned for beef, chicken and other meats. The company says a 30% blend of Albina 100 into ground pork maintains similar protein while reducing saturated fat and cholesterol by about 30% each and calories by about 12%. Better Meat Co reports that roughly 80% of consumers in blind taste tests preferred meatballs made with 30% plants. The team emphasizes trade secrets and processes including extrusion as their IP approach rather than patents. The company is targeting foodservice initially while remaining open to CPG partners and aims to be cost-competitive with the meat it replaces.

Participated · Series C · Sep 2014

IEX is a stock exchange. The company was reported to have received an investment from crypto firm FTX. The size of FTX’s investment was not revealed, though an FTX spokesperson said it will become a “significant” shareholder in IEX. The reported purpose of the stake is to help strengthen crypto markets. The article did not report any operating metrics (revenue or users) or other financial details. No additional investors or terms were disclosed in the coverage. IEX is an equity trading venue that builds a fair-access marketplace for institutional investors, using a proprietary anti-colocation architecture and simplified pricing and rule set. The platform was seeded by a consortium of buy-side investors, including mutual funds, hedge funds, and family offices, and is designed to prioritize investor protection. IEX operates a fair-access platform for any qualified broker-dealer and emphasizes fairness for traditional investors and issuer companies. The company has seen rapid growth: since Q1 2014 it has tripled daily trading volume and recently exceeded 100 million shares per day in participant volume. IEX plans to use new financing to pursue registration as a U.S. national exchange and to explore other opportunities to leverage its brand and market position. IEX was featured in Michael Lewis's book Flash Boys.