Participated · Seed · Jan 2024

Fundamental Research Labs is developing AI agents tailored to vertical workflows that combine large language models with task planning, tool use, retrieval from company data, and human-in-the-loop controls. The company intends to package agents for specific industries so they can perform multi-step work—such as document review, drafting responses, updating systems of record, escalation, and learning from feedback—rather than serving as a single generic chatbot. Likely early target markets include finance, healthcare, insurance, legal services, and enterprise operations where domain context, compliance, and integrations matter. The startup plans to invest in underlying orchestration, connectors to CRMs/ERPs/ticketing systems, evaluation and monitoring, and administrative controls to meet enterprise requirements. No revenue, user, or valuation metrics were disclosed in the article; the company’s immediate priorities are product expansion, vertical specialization, recruiting engineering and domain talent, and converting pilots into paid deployments. The reporting frames the company’s opportunity as proving that vertical depth, proprietary workflow data, and reliable integrations can differentiate it from horizontal agent platforms and incumbent providers.

Participated · Series B · May 2022

Xepelin offers an end-to-end digital platform that gives SMEs fast access to working capital, invoice financing and other embedded financial products. Since its founding, the company has served more than 70,000 businesses and currently generates roughly US$100 million in annual revenue. Management is focusing on Mexico, where it is pursuing a Sofipo license to broaden its product set and position itself as the “Nubank for SMEs” by 2026. Xepelin employs about 500 people and recently strengthened its tech leadership by hiring former Fintual CTO Martín Ugarte as vice-president of engineering. The company was previously valued at about US$720 million after its 2022 Series B, but that figure has reset to around US$400 million in the latest round. Historically, Xepelin has combined equity and significant debt facilities, including a US$30 million equity plus US$200 million credit Series A in 2021 and a US$140 million debt line from Goldman Sachs. Founders include Sebastián Kreis, Nicolás de Camino, Diego Contreras, Felipe Puntarelli, Carlos Veloso and Guillermo Molina. The firm remains one of Chile’s most heavily funded tech startups and aims to scale regionally toward unicorn status.

Participated · Seed · Sep 2020

Zuper is a field service management platform offering automated workflows, workforce collaboration, and integrations with CRM, payments, and location intelligence. Originally focused on residential repair services, it has expanded to serve small business and enterprise customers across industries including manufacturing, facility and property maintenance, and renewable energy. The platform delivers personalized support, reporting, and analytics and is designed to manage diverse workforces of full-time and contracted labor. In 2022 the company had 150 customers; it now reports 500 customers and more than 50,000 users, has handled over 10 million work orders in the last four months, and processed over $100 million in payments. Zuper is developing a generative AI-powered chatbot called ZIVA, currently in alpha. Management plans to use new funding to grow its mid-market and enterprise base, scale globally, advance technology development, and add about 50 employees in 2024. Zuper builds a platform that connects booking, dispatch, technician workflows and customer engagement through integrations with CRM, payroll and APIs so technicians have job information and parts at their fingertips. The product includes booking tools that match technician skills, ETA notifications for customers, and features to ensure jobs are completed correctly the first time. Customers using Zuper report saving at least 20 hours per week per user and improving customer satisfaction by more than 50%. Over the past 12 months the company saw sevenfold annualized recurring revenue growth, 140% net revenue retention, onboarded 100+ customers across North America, Asia and Europe, and tripled headcount to 55 employees. In 2021 Zuper supported over 3 million work orders, 15 million scheduled hours, and facilitated more than $20 million of transactions through the platform. The company plans to invest the new funding in product leadership for workflows, location intelligence, dispatching, marketing and sales, double headcount, and expand its partner ecosystem. Zuper provides an intelligent workforce and customer management SaaS platform that helps service organizations manage, modernize and transform field and remote workforces. The platform includes a white‑labeled mobile and web application for customers, a back‑office application to manage and govern operations, native iOS and Android apps for workforce collaboration, and Service 360 to grow business with data. It targets residential and commercial cleaning, HVAC, electrical, ISPs, plumbing and landscaping businesses. Since 2016 Zuper has empowered more than 500 service businesses and thousands of users, and has facilitated over 2 million work orders across the U.S., EMEA and APAC. The company plans to invest in platform innovation, sales and marketing to fuel aggressive growth and expansion in North America and other key geographies. It is also hiring across functions in the U.S. and India to support that growth. Founded in August 2016, Zuper is led by newly appointed CEO Anand Subbaraj.

Participated · Series A · Sep 2018

DataGrail builds a privacy control center that integrates with data-heavy applications to automate data discovery, mapping and compliance. The company offers over 1,400 plug-ins to monitor what data is collected and how it flows across an organization. It recently launched Risk Monitor to automate third‑party application risk assessments and pre-fill Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs). The tool is designed to reduce manual labor for privacy teams and centralize third‑party risk. DataGrail reports revenue has grown 3x since March 2021 and has expanded headcount from about 40 to more than 100 employees, with plans to perhaps double staff next year. Leadership emphasizes gender parity and diversity at the board, executive and management levels. DataGrail builds connectors to popular applications and infrastructure platforms to automatically discover where customer data resides and to help organizations comply with privacy laws. The company reports over 900 integrations (up from 180 in 2019) and can detect when new apps or infrastructure are added, enabling automated data discovery. Its product is aimed at solving privacy-management and data subject request workflows for regulations like GDPR and CCPA. DataGrail is led by CEO and co-founder Daniel Barber and has attracted both traditional VCs and strategic investors. The company currently has 40 employees and plans to grow to 90–100 by the end of the year. Financially, it has raised more than $39 million to date, including a newly announced $30 million Series B. DataGrail is a San Francisco, CA-based data privacy management company. Led by CEO and co-founder Daniel Barber, the company provides a platform to operationalize and manage privacy, including accessing and deleting personal data. DataGrail offers more than 150 pre-built connectors with companies such as Salesforce, Adobe, Oracle, and AWS, enabling businesses to discover and map personal data within seconds. Its features allow companies to process privacy requests and manage consent and preferences. The company says the funding will enable it to accelerate growth and meet demands from customers and prospects. DataGrail provides a purpose-built privacy management platform that enables users to comply with worldwide privacy laws including Europe’s GDPR and California’s Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). The system directly integrates with more than 100 business systems such as Salesforce, Adobe, Oracle, AWS and Azure to discover and map personal data in seconds. It operationalizes the privacy request workflow in minutes and unifies email preferences across all customer-facing applications. Customers include Databricks, G2, and Intercom. The company intends to use the funds to expand its business reach and grow adoption. DataGrail is led by CEO and co-founder Daniel Barber and is based in San Francisco; it has raised $9.2M to date. DataGrail offers a compliance platform that helps companies manage personal data requests and meet multiple legal frameworks, including GDPR, ePrivacy and California’s CCPA. The company’s system gives users visibility into what data companies hold and how it is used. DataGrail is already deployed at customers such as Databricks and Outreach. The company was founded in February 2018 by Daniel Barber, Ignacio Zendejas and Earl Hathaway and is based in San Mateo, CA. Following the fundraise it intends to use the proceeds to hire across the business. The articles state the Series A valued the company at $16M.

Participated · Seed · Sep 2017

Passage AI develops AI-powered conversational interfaces and a no-code bot-building tool that can be deployed anywhere in as little as two weeks. Its deep learning model understands natural language text and speech to identify intents, extract pertinent information, respond to queries, and search large datasets. Founded in 2016 by Madhu Mathihalli, Ravi Raj and Mitul Tiwari, the company is based in Mountain View, CA. Passage AI targets retail, telecommunications, automotive and education industries to automate routine tasks and provide instantaneous responses to common questions. The company raised $7.3M in a Series A led by Blumberg Capital, bringing total funding to $10.3M. Bruce Taragin of Blumberg Capital will join Passage AI’s board as part of the investment. Passage plans to use the proceeds to expand into additional industries and international markets. Passage.AI builds AI-enabled conversational interfaces that let businesses automate and improve customer interactions across messaging and voice platforms. Its chatbot responds to customer messages by querying content using an NLP platform. The technology is available for platforms including Facebook Messenger, Slack, SMS, Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Passage.AI's solutions are deployed by enterprises such as Kohl’s and educational organizations including Udacity. The company was founded in 2016 by WalmartLabs alumni Madhu Mathihalli and Ravi Raj, and LinkedIn alumnus Mitul Tiwari. Passage.AI raised $3M in funding, providing capital to support its product and deployments.