Participated · Series A · Sep 2022

Vendease operates a food procurement platform that shifted from a pure marketplace to buying discounted products in bulk, warehousing them, and delivering to restaurants and food businesses via third‑party logistics. Its stack includes inventory management, warehousing, logistics and embedded financing (BNPL via partner banks) aimed at moving food efficiently from production to consumption. The platform serves more than 2,000 customers and reports having moved approximately 400,000 metric tonnes of food. Vendease says it has helped customers save about $2 million in procurement costs, nearly $500,000 in wastage, and over 10,000 person‑hours, while cutting delivery times from 24 to 12 hours. Businesses have accessed more than $12 million in inventory via the embedded finance product; revenue has grown 5x over the past year, though the company has not yet monetized its lending business. Vendease plans to deepen operations, consolidate its presence across eight cities in Nigeria and Ghana, expand into new markets, and build new products to increase customer efficiency. Vendease operates an online marketplace that connects suppliers and farms with restaurants and other food businesses, matching orders to suppliers based on price and quality. The company has built an operational technology stack — logistics, storage, payments, inventory management and embedded finance — to control movement of food supplies and offer delivery within 24 hours via its own or third-party logistics. It enforces quality-control measures at delivery and in warehouses and offers free replacement for any unsatisfactory orders. Vendease provides predictive price analysis and storage solutions to help customers hedge against Nigeria’s volatile food inflation. Financially, the company reported an annualized transaction volume of $12.9M and $1.2M in annual recurring revenue, with revenue growth of 17x year-over-year; over 1,000 businesses have accessed more than $3M in supply-chain finance. Operational metrics include roughly 100,000 metric tonnes moved, approximately $480,000 saved for customers in the last nine months, and about 5,000 person-hours saved. Vendease plans to use funding to expand into additional cities and other countries before the end of Q1 next year, continue building its tech stack, and deepen financial products such as buy-now-pay-later through partnerships with payment platforms and banks.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2021

Super.mx operates as an MGA that uses proprietary models for underwriting and automated claims payments to streamline buying and payouts. The company sells a variety of products, starting with earthquake insurance and later adding COVID and life coverage. It has sold "thousands of policies" and is focused on increasing the number and variety of products it sells. Near-term product plans include property, renters and health insurance, and the company intends to expand beyond Mexico into other Latin American markets. The founding team comprises former insurance executives with regulatory, product and parametric insurance experience, positioning the firm to address underinsurance in the region. Super.mx emphasizes mobile-first, fast-payout experiences to overcome consumer mistrust of incumbents and increase digital insurance adoption.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2021

Termii is a YC-backed API-based communications platform that enables businesses—particularly fintechs—to engage customers via SMS, voice messaging, mobile tokens, alerts and two-way support. Founded in 2017, the company serves a growing base of enterprise customers through both APIs and a no-code campaign dashboard. Termii reports that over 10,000 businesses now rely on its platform monthly, up from 500+ fintech customers in 2021, and message transactions climbed from one million to 400 million. Annual recurring revenue reportedly increased 30x over that period. The company recently launched TermiiGo, a B2B2C mobile app offering time-based OTPs, direct-to-mobile notifications, local/international calling and global eSIM activation under an MVNO-like model. Termii plans to expand product offerings (calls, OTPs, eSIM) and enter Francophone African markets beginning with Ivory Coast, with planned physical launches in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana and the U.S. Termii offers an API-based communications platform-as-a-service that enables businesses to send multichannel messaging (WhatsApp, voice, SMS) and perform customer verification and authentication. Founded by Gbolade Emmanuel and Ayomide Awe and launched in 2017, Termii targets B2B2C customers and has attracted more than 500 fintech startups and over 1,000 businesses and developers to its platform. Instead of a subscription model, Termii uses a virtual wallet tied to a bank account and charges per message and per successful verification, accepting mobile money, bank transfers and cards. The company saw rapid traction after joining Y Combinator in early 2020, with messaging transactions up 1,000% that year and ARR rising 400%. Revenue is reported to be growing about 60% month-on-month and 68% of messaging volume is tied to online financial transactions; Nigeria accounts for 76% of transactions while Algeria represents about 15%. Termii plans to use the new seed capital to expand across Africa, including a physical presence in Algeria, and to roll out additional messaging offerings. Termii was founded in 2014 by Gbolade Emmanuel (CEO) and Ayomide Awe (CTO) and rebranded in 2017. The company offers a Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) focused on delivering dependable communication channels for African businesses. Termii is now a Delaware company with operations in Silicon Valley while maintaining a primary market focus in Africa, particularly Nigeria. The founders spent three months in the Bay Area as part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2020 batch, with Demo Day delivered over video due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of YC, Termii received a $150,000 investment in exchange for 7% equity. The company has previously received funding from Future Hub (backed by Transsion) and Microtraction and intends to continue operating across multiple locations with a focus on Nigeria. Termii is a Nigerian communication and collaboration platform offering an API-based communication infrastructure that drives repeated interactions between customers and brands through multi-channel real-time messaging and a per-billing wallet system. The product focuses on customer retention by segmenting users and delivering personalized marketing messages and includes customer authentication and verification APIs. The company was started in 2014 as a team-networking platform by co-founders Gbolade Emmanuel and Ayomide Awe, rebranded and officially launched in October 2017. Termii is headquartered in Lagos and serves customers in Nigeria, Morocco, Ghana, and Benin Republic. The startup has grown from about 100 businesses at launch to roughly 1,000 clients, including hundreds of top brands such as Bankly and Fundall. It intends to use the $30,000 seed from Future Hub to optimise the platform across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya and upgrade authentication and verification APIs; until now it has been sustained by founders' investments. Termii is a corporate networking and collaboration platform that integrates social and business tools to help businesses improve office collaboration and productivity. Its core product includes co-working remote workspaces, real-time Team Note document editing, staff grouping, task assigner, and a presentation board supporting video and slides. The platform offers an enterprise version with tailored features, and it has a community of more than 1,000 investors who can access venture stories and progress updates. Termii recently partnered with Newswire to connect ventures to over 100,000 journalists and more than 50 media outlets. The company has secured about $10,000 in funding (excluding investor-provided office space), is generating revenue from paying users, and has revised pricing to attract younger startups. CEO Gbolade Emmanuel says the company is developing beta services to improve revenue streams and plans continental expansion to markets including Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2020

EarlyBird operates a community-focused app that lets parents create custodial UGMA accounts to invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other securities on behalf of their children. The platform emphasizes social features: every investment can include a video memory to contextualize the gift. EarlyBird currently focuses on the 0–7 demographic but plans to serve the full 0–18+ lifecycle and to transition teens to take ownership at 18. Product roadmap includes multiple customized portfolios, the ability for parents and children to pick individual stocks together, and exploration of integrating 529 college-savings plans. The company reported total funding of $10.9M and will use the new capital to scale its community-based investing features and expand its investment services. EarlyBird positions itself as both a savings vehicle and a time-capsule for family milestones. EarlyBird is a Chicago-based gifting platform that enables parents, family, and friends to collectively invest in a child’s financial future. In minutes, parents can set up an investment account, choose from a range of diversified portfolio options, and start investing on behalf of their child. The platform also lets a child’s broader network send gifted capital accompanied by video and photo memories for birthdays, holidays, and other occasions. EarlyBird plans to expand its community-first approach to childhood investing and to broaden the types of assets users can gift and invest in, including cryptocurrencies. The company intends to use new funding to grow its engineering, product, marketing, and operations teams. The product and roadmap details reflect the company’s current focus rather than disclosed financial metrics or user counts. EarlyBird offers a mobile app that simplifies creation and management of custodial UGMA accounts, enabling parents to invite family and friends to contribute investments and attach short video “memories” to gifts. The product includes fixed and customizable ETF-based portfolios from conservative (bond) to aggressive (equity), a rebalancing engine, and age-based financial literacy features that progressively expose children to their accounts. Accounts are held with Apex Clearing Corporation, a registered broker-dealer and SIPC member, which protects investments up to $500,000; EarlyBird plans to transition to its own broker-dealer in time. The company charges a $3 per month management fee (and $1 per month for each additional child) and is currently a very early-stage startup only weeks old. EarlyBird says it will expand into 529 plans within a year and may add brokerage lending and other revenue programs once it has a sizable user base and assets under management. The app is free to download on iOS. The company was founded by CEO Jordan Wexler and COO Caleb Frankel.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2020

Teal is a Miami, FL–based company that empowers people to grow their careers on their own terms through a suite of web-based career tools. The company’s free platform includes a Job Tracker, Resume Builder, and a Chrome extension designed to accelerate job searches. Led by CEO and founder David Fano, Teal has been used by over 65,000 people to get jobs at companies such as Google, Apple, TikTok, Spotify, and Bumble. Teal raised $6.3M in seed funding to support product and growth initiatives. The company plans to use the funds to expand its job-search tools and build a recommendation engine that helps people learn the right skills to advance in their chosen careers. Investors in the round span institutional firms and angels, alongside prior backers. Teal launched in November 2019 and originally offered a hands-on service called Career Agent that handled much of the job-application process. The company pivoted to a more scalable product, Career Assist, a curriculum for cohorts of 20–30 people that includes an eight-class, four-week program led by experts on resumes, outreach, and interviewing. Career Assist moved from a free offering to a paid model priced at $149 for full access. Since April, more than 200 people who completed the course have landed new jobs. Teal pairs members with peers for mutual support and plans to expand beyond job search help to guide workers through other career events like negotiations, promotions, and resignations. The company is focused on consumers rather than selling B2B into HR teams and intends to use its user data to provide more generalized, scalable career advice.