• Newcleo

  Participated · Equity · Feb 2026

  Newcleo positions itself as the only company with an advanced project to produce nuclear fuel from recycled material and to deploy that capability in the United States. The company has built in Italy a 10 MW electrically heated demonstration machine that mirrors the complexity of a future SMR and recently installed a Fincantieri turbine. Newcleo has formed a U.S. partnership with Oklo and says recent U.S. policy changes have enabled acceleration of its U.S. plans. It is pursuing a U.S. listing via a SPAC merger to access larger pools of innovation capital. Financially, Newcleo reported approximately €209 million of existing capital and has secured €220 million in new subscriptions tied to the proposed merger, with an implied valuation of about €2.4 billion. The company plans to use the proceeds to progress licensing, move toward construction, build its American fuel facility and reactor, and advance projects in Slovakia and France.

• Clair

  Participated · Equity · Jul 2023

  Clair provides embedded Earned Wage Access (EWA) that lets employees advance earned wages with bank‑issued, no‑interest advances originating from Pathward, N.A. Its product integrates with payroll and human capital management platforms to offer a three‑click, in‑app experience for employees and employers at no cost to employers. Clair reports availability at over 29,000 business locations across 29 industries and facilitates millions of dollars in advances every month; in its Gusto integration 43% of customers take their first advance within two minutes. The company partners with platforms such as Gusto and TriNet and aims to expand distribution through payroll and workforce management providers, which it describes as "workforce super apps," to reach tens of millions of U.S. employees. Clair has raised $23.2M in a Series B and reports $68.7M in total equity funding to date from investors including Upfront Ventures, Thrive Capital, Kairos HQ, and Founder Collective. The Series B is intended to let Clair double down on its product and go‑to‑market expansion while leveraging its national bank partnership to address regulatory and compliance needs. Clair provides on-demand, bank-backed earned-wage advances and instant post-shift pay access through integrations with employers, payroll providers and workforce-management systems. The company’s app also offers savings, check printing and free ATM withdrawals and is used alongside employers’ existing systems. Clair currently works with over 10,000 employers, workforce-management systems and payroll providers and serves more than 50,000 workers. Its core product routes wage advances through partner bank Pathward, which holds FDIC-insured accounts and issues the micro-loans that fund advances. Clair is positioning employer-facing products, including a new Clair for Employers benefits package with a Clair Debit Mastercard offering 3% cash back on gas and groceries. The company is exploring additional offerings such as a dynamic 401(k) and health savings accounts as part of a broader vision to build banking services for the workforce. Clair is a New York City–based fintech that provides free instant earned-wage advances by integrating with HR and payroll systems. It serves both full-time employees and gig workers via online and mobile apps and offers spending and savings accounts, a debit card (including a virtual in-app card), and financial-planning tools. Clair uses its own capital to fund advances and reduces risk by directly accessing payroll data. Its monetization strategy is to convert users into a digital bank, earning interchange fees, and it pays HR and workforce-management platforms to integrate and drive recurring revenue. The company was founded in late 2019 by CEO Nico Simko, COO Alex Kostecki and CPO Erich Nussbaumer and has a roughly 25-person team with about half based in New York. With the new funding, Clair plans to expand product offerings into areas like healthcare and debt repayment. Clair is a New York–based social-impact fintech that embeds instant-pay financial services into workforce management, payroll and gig platforms. Workers who choose Clair as their direct deposit receive a digital bank account and a Clair debit card, enabling free advances on a portion of their earned wages that are deducted at the next payday. Clair generates revenue via debit card interchange fees paid by merchants where the cards are accepted, and banking services are provided by Synapse’s partners, Member FDIC. The company offers turnkey products and APIs to payroll and workforce-management providers to enable instant payments to hourly and gig workers. Clair targets roughly 82 million hourly workers and 57 million gig workers and positions instant pay as a way to reduce reliance on high-interest payday loans. The startup plans additional savings features in its product pipeline and says it aims to help users move off living paycheck-to-paycheck over time, according to CEO and co-founder Nico Simko.

• Little Spoon

  Participated · Series A · May 2021

  Little Spoon produces fresh, direct-to-consumer subscription baby and children’s meals, including Babyblends organic purees, Plates toddler and kids’ meals, and its Booster line of vitamins and natural remedies. Babyblends is priced at under $3 per meal and Plates at under $5 per meal. Since launch the company has delivered more than 15 million meals and is on track for more than 300% revenue growth. This year Little Spoon quadrupled its team from 10 to 37 employees. The company is building a community and content platform called “Is This Normal” to engage parents and considers that platform central to its product experience. Management plans to use new funding to expand operations, increase capacity, invest in community and content, and develop new products as it pursues a holistic children's nutrition solution. Little Spoon, launched in 2018, is a direct-to-consumer children’s food and nutrition company offering fresh meals, a recently launched Plates product line, and a parenting community platform called Is This Normal. The company pairs product offerings with a digital community that includes 1:1 Care Team support, anonymous expert Q&A, and the Is The Normal? game. Little Spoon has shipped over 9 million meals and reported revenue growth of over 300% since the start of the pandemic; its Plates launch sold out in the first week and generated a waitlist. The team emphasizes transparency, nutritive standards, and convenience to address gaps in the baby and toddler food category. Little Spoon runs multiple give-back and employer-partnership programs (including #Passthelittleplate and Little by Little) and has partnered with Amazon, Union Square Hospitality, Lettuce Entertain You, La Colombe, and Feeding America; it has donated more than $100,000 in meals to food banks. Little Spoon is a direct-to-consumer, subscription-based company producing modular packages of organic baby food. Members receive personalized meal plans and the site offers a rotating menu of 50 recipes using 80 ingredients. Meals are sold at a fixed price of $3 apiece, and the company says it has delivered 1 million meals to date. Its packaging is 100 percent recyclable, spoon included, which the company says promotes motor-skill development and mindful eating. Co-founders include Michelle Muller, CEO Ben Lewis, CPO Angela Vranich, and CMO Lisa Barnett; the team launched the business a little over a year ago out of New York. The startup plans to use the new capital to expand its line of baby meals. Little Spoon is a prepared baby-food delivery service that ships fresh, refrigerated 4 oz meals for infants. The company produces meals using high-pressure processing (HPP) to lock in nutrients and avoid additives and owns its production facility. Little Spoon ships up to two weeks' worth of meals, pricing meals at $2.99 each in bulk (three meals a day) or up to $4.99 individually, with flavors that change by age. Although the service is available in New York, the company’s food-processing facility is in California and it says products can ship anywhere in a day, enabling geographic expansion. The founding team includes co-founder Michelle Muller (the “chief mom”), CEO Ben Lewis, CPO Angela Vranich, and CMO Lisa Barnett. The startup has taken a couple million from angel investors, including Sean Rad and Kyle O’Brien, and plans to raise more as needed. The article notes several other baby-meal startups have struggled, highlighting market risk for niche meal-delivery ventures.

• Ayenda Hotels

  Participated · Equity · Feb 2020

  Ayenda operates a branded budget lodging chain and describes itself as the largest asset-light, digital hotel chain in Latin America. The company uses an Oyo-like, asset-light franchise model to partner with and brand properties. It runs 280 properties across Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Ayenda was founded in 2018 in Colombia by Andrés Sarrazola and Christian Gómez. Financially, the startup has raised a total of $20 million since founding. Past investors have included SoftBank. Ayenda operates a network of franchised independent hotels, positioning itself as Colombia’s largest hotel chain. The company works with independent properties through a franchise system, requiring applicants to pass up to a 30-day inspection before joining. Founded in 2018, Ayenda runs more than 150 hotels in Colombia, has recently expanded to Peru, and counts over 4,500 rooms under its brand. Rooms list at about $20 per night and the chain offers amenities and around-the-clock customer support; the company hoped to host more than 1 million guests in 2020. Ayenda raised new funding to support continued expansion in Colombia and beyond.

• Kinside

  Participated · Equity · Dec 2019

  Kinside operates a marketplace of state-licensed, safety‑vetted child care providers and integrates with employer benefits so parents can use dependent care FSAs and other payment methods without claims or reimbursements. Since launching in 2019 the platform has grown to thousands of providers and is used by parents at more than 3,000 employers. Kinside pre‑negotiates tuition rates with providers by leveraging employer volume and maintains a proprietary state‑by‑state vetting framework with a national failure rate of about 5%. The company blends FSAs with secondary payment methods to eliminate reimbursement hassles and surfaces real‑time availability through a dynamic inventory system. Kinside was founded in 2018 and is a Y Combinator alum. Future plans include expanding marketplace functionality, developing tools to increase dynamic inventory, scaling to 10,000 employers and one million parents, and using its data to reduce child care “deserts” or help independent owners expand. Kinside offers an app that helps parents use dependent care FSA benefits, search a network of pre-screened early childcare providers, and access a concierge of childcare professionals. The platform pre-negotiates reserved spots and discounted rates and helps providers manage vacancies. Kinside partners with FSA administrators and plans to integrate into HR systems. The company began in Y Combinator and has signed up more than 1,000 employers. Founders are Shadiah Sigala, Brittney Barrett and Abe Han. Since launch, the startup has raised a total of $4 million.

No current team members are available.