Participated · Equity · Oct 2023

Formant provides a data collection and assessment platform that centralizes the complex sensor data produced by deployed robots and brings humans into the loop for managing those assets. The product is hardware-agnostic and supports a wide range of platforms including flying, underwater, mowing, delivery robots, quadrupeds and bipeds. Customers include Blue River (John Deere-owned), security robotics firm Knightscope, and BP. The company reports platform usage at scale, with customers operating on the platform with tens of thousands of robots. Financially, Formant recently announced a $21 million funding round led by BMW i Ventures, following an $18 million Series A announced last January. The new capital will be used to accelerate go-to-market efforts as the company expands from underserved sectors like agriculture toward more mature categories such as warehouse and manufacturing. Formant offers a unified platform that combines remote-controlling of autonomous robots, analytics, and tools to inspect and debug robot behavior (branded as “observe”). The product focuses on operation, assists (teleoperations) and analytics workflows to measure fleet ROI, assist frequency and performance trends. Formant intentionally does not build autonomy itself but integrates data across heterogeneous vendors such as Boston Dynamics, Fanuc and DJI to give operators a single view. Founded in 2017 by Jeff Linnell after he left Google, the company began as an API enabling robots to request human assistance and expanded to a broader fleet-management solution. Its software has been used to run tens of thousands of robots. Formant plans to double headcount over the next 12–18 months, build out engineering and sales operations, expand into Europe, and is hiring in locations including Pittsburgh after acquiring a stealth teleoperations company there. Formant provides a cloud platform that collects robot "shaped data" (LiDAR, depth imagery, video, photos, log files, metrics, motor torques and scalar values) and aligns it so a single human can monitor and intervene across fleets. The software parses those streams, alerts a human "foreman" when the system is uncertain, suggests options for remediation, and turns human decisions into training data to improve automation. Formant is launching a closed beta and reports SaaS pilots across verticals including food manufacturing, heavy infrastructure inspection, construction, training animals and retail use cases. The founders and early team are ex-Googlers with prior robotics startups and acquisitions, positioning the product as a cloud layer for robotics analogous to AWS/Google Cloud for data companies. The company raised a $6 million seed round from SignalFire to fund development and go-to-market ahead of a wider customer launch. Formant sees competition from large tech companies and incumbent engineering firms, and emphasizes enterprise customization and security as differentiators.

Participated · Series B · Jul 2022

Tesorio sells automation solutions that help companies manage accounts receivable by predicting when customers will pay using AI models trained on payment history. Customers connect their ERP and CRM systems to Tesorio; setup averages around five days and model training about 30 days. The company’s models train on an anonymized invoice dataset covering billions in transactional volume and support features such as email reminder templates, self-service payment portals, digital workspaces, and customizable reports. Tesorio reports over 130 customers, including Slack, Box, Twilio, GitLab and Bank of America, and says it has delivered three consecutive years of triple-digit revenue growth, though it is not yet cash-flow positive. Founded in 2015 and originally focused on supply-chain financing, the company pivoted to serving the companies getting paid and has expanded its product and go-to-market efforts. Proceeds from the latest financing are earmarked for go-to-market expansion, product development, and growing headcount from just north of 50 to around 90 employees within the next year. Tesorio aggregates disparate financial and operational data to build cash-flow forecasts and automate levers that affect cash, positioning itself as a Mint-like service for businesses. Its product pulls data from accounting, bank, billing and customer systems and runs AI models to predict payment behavior and overall financial trajectory. Current customers include Veeva Systems, Box and WP Engine, and the company serves firms with roughly 100–3,000 employees, including international customers. The platform has analyzed $56 billion in payments, 10 million invoices and 5 million user activities, and Tesorio says its revenue grew 4x year-over-year in 2018. The company plans to use new funding to expand the product—particularly integrations with other finance systems—and to scale go-to-market efforts.

Participated · Series A · Mar 2022

Stilt started as a provider of financial services for immigrants and is Y Combinator‑backed. It recently launched Onbo, an API-powered credit-as-a-service product that lets businesses build and offer credit products without a bank sponsor. The company says it can manage origination, payments and credit reporting for partners and can provide debt capital of up to $1 million to customers. Stilt reported a 4x increase in annual recurring revenue in 2021 but declined to disclose hard revenue figures. The company currently has a team of about 30 and plans to use new capital to grow the team, accelerate product development and expand marketing. Stilt holds state lending licenses and an existing compliance framework, which it cites as a differentiator for scaling B2B partnerships. Stilt offers lending and banking products designed for immigrants and people without Social Security numbers or traditional credit histories. Its loan underwriting considers bank transactions, education, employment, visa status and uses proprietary machine-learning models drawing on diverse financial and non-financial data. The company has publicly launched no-fee checking accounts (powered by Evolve Bank & Trust) with spot-rate remittance to about 50 countries and the ability to apply for credit lines and pre-approved loans through accounts. Since opening checking to existing customers in September, active checking accounts have grown ~50% month-over-month. Stilt reports average loan interest rates of about 12%–14%, positioned well below alternative products that can charge 30%–100%. The firm says loan performance remained steady through the COVID-19 pandemic and many customers use loans to build U.S. credit histories. Stilt offers personal financial services and loans tailored to immigrants who lack Social Security numbers or traditional credit reports, using proprietary models to score applicants. Its core products have included consumer loans (the company says it has lent tens of millions of dollars over the past four years) and it launched FDIC‑insured pre‑approved global bank accounts. Stilt underwrites borrowers by analyzing a wide range of financial and non‑financial data—universities, roughly half a million employers, millions of job positions, credit bureau and bank data, and visa type—and further lending is tied to performance of a user’s first loan. Interest rates on loans are generally about 13.5%–14%, presented as a better alternative to payday or extremely high‑cost options. Financially, the company closed a $7.5 million equity seed round and secured about $100 million in debt capital to fund lending. Stilt says demand has increased during the COVID‑19 pandemic while loan performance has remained steady. The company plans to expand beyond personal financial services into products for small businesses in the future.

Participated · Series B · Mar 2021

Retail Zipline offers a communications platform used by retailers to translate corporate strategy into in-store execution and to engage frontline employees. The product supports both engagement (executives messaging associates) and execution (coordinating tasks, promotions and store operations). During the COVID-19 pandemic the platform was repurposed to communicate health and safety protocols, furloughs and closures, and the company says it doubled its customer base and grew revenue 2.5x. Customers named in the article include Sephora, AEO, L.L.Bean, Gap, Hy-Vee, Lush Cosmetics, BevMo, LL Flooring, Cole Haan, TOMS and Torrid. Retail Zipline’s leadership argues that stores will remain important as omni-channel hubs and that the product will help retailers meet increasing operational complexity. Fifth Wall also sees potential to expand the platform into other built-world industries such as real estate, property management and construction communications. Retail Zipline offers a communications platform for retailers that combines messaging, task management, a centralized library of documents and multimedia, and a survey tool to capture store feedback. The product is designed for store-floor employees rather than desk workers, aiming to reduce missed priorities and message overload. CEO Melissa Wong founded the company after observing disconnects between headquarters and stores while working in corporate communications for Old Navy; CTO Jeremy Baker co-founded the company and helped tailor the product to frontline workers. Customers include the LEGO Group and Lush Cosmetics, and the company says it works with retailers ranging from Gap, Inc. to smaller chains like Toms Shoes. Financially, Retail Zipline announced a $9.6 million Series A raise in the coverage article.

Participated · Series C · Jun 2020

Codefresh is a Mountain View, CA-based, Kubernetes-native continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) platform. Led by co-founders Raziel Tabib (Co-Founder & CEO) and Oleg Verhovsky (Co-Founder & CTO), the platform is git- and cloud-agnostic. It reports adoption by DevOps teams at Epic Games, Gap, Vivint, TBS, and others. In June 2020 the company raised $27M in a Series C round, bringing total funding to $42M. Codefresh said it will use the funds to expand its open source and continuous delivery offerings. Red Dot Capital Partners led the round and will add Yaniv Stern to the board; other participants include Shasta Ventures, Vertex Ventures, M12: Microsoft’s Venture Fund, Viola Ventures, Hillsven, and CEIIF, and Isaac Roth of Shasta joined the advisory board. Codefresh provides a CI/CD platform specifically focused on automating application deployments to Kubernetes. The company emphasizes speed, claiming teams can see "up to 24X faster development times" when using its service. Codefresh hit general availability in 2017 and currently reports about 20,000 users, including customers such as Giphy. With this product focus, the company aims to address gaps in toolchains that have not kept pace with Kubernetes adoption. Following its latest fundraise, leadership says it will aggressively accelerate its roadmap and expand its customer base. The company has now raised a total of $15.1 million. Codefresh provides an end-to-end container lifecycle management platform that enables enterprises and startups to benefit from microservices and Docker-based technologies. The solution integrates with container technologies and toolsets such as testing, orchestration and registries. It is already used in production by dozens of companies, including IronSource, JFrog and HPE. Led by CEO Raziel Tabib and CTO Oleg Verhovsky, the company plans to expand adoption in the container-based development market. The company intends to use the funds to further accelerate growth of its engineering, customer success, and business operations. Codefresh is based in Mountain View, CA.