The Venture Codex

Led · Series A · Aug 2019

CodeCombat builds playable, classroom-focused computer science programs that let students type real Python and JavaScript in the browser. Its new product, Ozaria, is an immersive story-driven game that teaches computational thinking, provides formative assessments, and supports capstone projects and portfolios. The first unit, Prologue: The Sky Mountain, is available free for educators, with additional content planned later in the year. Ozaria supports Windows PCs, Chromebooks, and Macs via modern browsers and integrates with Clever and Google Classroom. CodeCombat highlights teacher resources and data on student progress to help classroom implementation. The company reports that over 12 million people have learned to write Python and JavaScript using its platform. CodeCombat provides a classroom-focused computer science learning platform that lets students type real code from day one and enables teachers without CS backgrounds to teach coding. The curriculum is designed to cover middle- and high-school state standards, the AP CS exam, and even elite programs such as a Stanford undergraduate computer science course. The company has launched a new classroom offering after beta testing by more than 25,000 students in grades 3–12. CodeCombat is led by Co‑Founder Nick Winter. The company closed a $2M seed funding round and intends to use the proceeds to finalize its new classroom product. It is based in San Francisco, CA.

Participated · Series B · Jun 2019

Troops builds a Slack-integrated CRM interface that surfaces Salesforce data and email-driven signals inside Slack, automating routine sales management tasks and deal visibility. Its product lets employees search records, schedule automatic reports, and receive notifications when deals close. Customers include Envoy, WeWork, HubSpot and a few hundred other monthly paying subscribers using the messaging interface. The team chose to build on Slack’s platform and developer ecosystem rather than an independent product, betting on Slack’s growth. Troops was launched in 2015 by Dan Reich, Scott Britton and Greg Ratner and is based in New York. Leadership says they see broad future adoption of tools like Troops across customer-facing teams as Slack’s platform expands. Troops offers a Slackbot-driven platform that integrates Salesforce, Google Apps, and Slack on the front end with back-end data processing and analytics to help sales teams configure intelligence and enter information into Salesforce. The product emerged from stealth and is now freely available to users. It focuses on automated, AI- and bot-driven prompts that monitor and manage sales actions such as when to call prospects. The company plans to add additional services beyond its initial Salesforce integration. Troops expects to support thousands of users and is building out back-end capacity to handle that growth. Current financing will fund new product and engineering initiatives to scale the service. Troops builds a Slackbot that uses artificial intelligence to surface and display CRM information during Slack conversations, making customer data accessible without switching applications. Its initial focus is Salesforce, though the product could work with other CRM systems. Founders Dan Reich, Scott Britton, and Greg Ratner created the company to make CRM interactions more conversational and less form-driven; Reich cites his Salesforce experience after Buddy Media's acquisition. Troops is focused on the enterprise and is keeping its Slack integration as the primary channel while planning to extend the bot to other messaging platforms (unspecified). The product is currently in closed beta, having been tested with roughly 70-80 companies and is available via a waitlist. Financially, Troops has raised $2.6 million from First Round Capital and numerous angel investors and plans to offer the product free initially before introducing premium paid features.

Participated · Seed · Apr 2017

Work Today is described as the world’s largest labor marketplace that connects workers to jobs and businesses to workers anytime, anywhere. Built by marketplace and technology entrepreneurs, the company uses an automated, conversational model to simplify the job opportunity delivery system. Its automated systems deliver job opportunities, connect workers and businesses, and aim to enhance daily lives. According to published reports, Work Today has closed a $1.1M seed round. Investors in the round include Mucker Capital, Social Capital, Hone Capital, Belgian fund E-Merge, and GAN Ventures.