Participated · Equity · Oct 2018

Pathmatics operates a marketing intelligence platform that gives users visibility into digital ad performance across display, social, video, mobile and native advertising. The product aggregates creative, spend and impression data and maps the path from publisher to viewer, enabling brands and agencies to optimize media and marketing decisions. Clients use the platform to minimize wasted budget, position marketing and anticipate competitors' moves. Pathmatics' data powers Nielsen’s digital ad intelligence offering and Kantar Media’s Facebook intelligence, and is used by agencies including Mindshare, Mediacom and Possible. The company was founded in 2011 by Gabe Gottlieb and is based in Santa Monica, CA. In October 2018 Pathmatics received a $3M strategic investment from Mintel and SPH Ventures, which joined existing backers. Pathmatics provides PathSource™, a patent-pending technology that analyzes digital advertising activity and delivers real-time, actionable intelligence to advertisers, agencies, publishers and ad tech providers. The company was founded in 2010 by Gabe Gottlieb and is based in Santa Monica, California, with an office in New York. Pathmatics sells intelligence to participants across the online advertising ecosystem and continues to develop its proprietary technology. Management intends to use new funding to pursue continued global expansion and to further invest in its technology. The article does not disclose revenue or user metrics.

Led · Seed · May 2016

Founded in 2015 by Brian Bason and based in Atlanta, GA, Bark Technologies offers AI-driven digital safety tools that monitor more than 30 social platforms, text messages, images, videos, chats, emails, and files. Its solutions alert families to concerning behaviors including cyberbullying, depression, suicidal ideation, violence, and online predation, and detect nuanced slang and emoji usage across countries. Families can set custom screen time schedules, block websites and apps, and receive location alerts. Bark also serves institutions, protecting nearly 6 million children at home and in over 3,200 schools and districts across the U.S., Guam, South Africa, and Australia. The company intends to use recent funding to accelerate international expansion and enable strategic global partnerships. To date Bark has raised $67 million in total financing.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2016

CREXi is a Los Angeles–based commercial real estate marketplace, data and technology platform that integrates sales and leasing marketplaces with marketing, analytics and deal-management tools. Led by founder and CEO Mike DeGiorgio, the company aims to simplify the CRE process for brokers, buyers and tenants by eliminating manual processes, enhancing access to properties and enabling faster deal closings. CREXi offers broker services across sales, leasing and auction functions and provides buyer and tenant resources such as comparables and market intelligence. The platform reports six million users and has facilitated transactions on over 300,000 commercial listings totaling more than $1 trillion in property value. The company employs more than 125 people. It intends to use new funding to grow its core broker services and to accelerate refinement and expansion of buyer and tenant resources. CREXi offers a suite of tools that streamlines the entire commercial real estate (CRE) process, enabling brokers to find, manage and qualify leads, market properties, communicate in‑app, solicit and negotiate offers, run competitive bidding, and handle escrow and closings. The company has focused on digitizing CRE transactions to make the industry more liquid, transparent and easier to access. CREXi reports more than 100,000 properties brought to market on its platform, about 200,000 monthly users, and more than 6,000 properties listed each month; it manages roughly $450 billion in property value. The platform emphasizes an intuitive interface and collaboration with brokers and principals to blend technology with traditional CRE fundamentals. CREXi has been around since 2015 and is positioning itself to replace legacy manual processes like faxing and paper-based workflows. CREXi (Commercial Real Estate Exchange) operates a web-based marketplace designed to modernize commercial real estate dealmaking. The platform lets property owners, buyers and brokers list and search properties, view due diligence documents, schedule in-person tours, see listing analytics and submit offers. Its differentiator is a timed "best and final offers" trading capability that invites competing buyers to improve bids. CREXi positions itself as broker-friendly and is already used by brokerages including CBRE, Marcus & Millichap and Cushman & Wakefield. The site went live about three months before the article and had nearly 200 properties listed, totaling almost $800 million in value. CEO Michael DeGiorgio and Chief Product Officer Luke Morris, both formerly of Auction.com, lead the company. The team plans to add DocuSign integration to enable electronic signing of deal documents.

Participated · Series B · Jan 2016

Policygenius is an online insurance marketplace that enables users to discover coverage gaps and compare tailored policies through its Insurance Checkup™ and proprietary quoting engines. Founded in 2014 and based in Brooklyn, New York, the company has built integrations with major carriers and proprietary technology for quoting, underwriting, and fulfillment. It focuses on life, disability, home, and auto insurance and has invested in exclusive, integrated no-exam life offerings to address COVID-related medical exam impacts and improve the customer experience. Policygenius also offers Policygenius Pro and continues expanding its core businesses. In 2021 the company wrote $40 billion of new life insurance coverage, nearly 70% more than in 2019, and its home and auto new written premiums grew more than 6x from 2019 to 2021. Policygenius is on pace to be the single largest distribution platform for term life insurance this year. Policygenius provides a digital experience that guides consumers through the entire insurance buying process for multiple product lines, including life, home, auto, disability and renters. The company has built integrations with major insurance carriers and technology for quoting, underwriting and fulfillment to streamline purchase flow. In 2019 it launched a new property and casualty offering that scaled to more than $10 million in revenue in less than 12 months. Policygenius plans to use new funding for hiring and to unveil broader consumer financial protection products in 2020. The company was co-founded in 2014 by Jennifer Fitzgerald and Francois de Lame and operates from New York City and Durham, North Carolina. Its platform emphasizes carrier integrations and end-to-end digital underwriting and fulfillment. PolicyGenius has built an online marketplace and quoting engine that lets consumers answer questions, compare multiple insurance carriers and view side-by-side policy options. It began with life insurance and expanded to health, renters, long-term disability and pet insurance, and it also offers an "insurance checkup" tool to identify coverage gaps. The company reports that since its $15 million financing in January 2016 it has grown monthly revenues 7x and doubled its employee base. With the new financing it plans to expand into property and casualty policies and deepen partnerships with carrier partners. PolicyGenius has raised $52 million in venture funding to date. Co-founder and CEO Jennifer Fitzgerald said the company selected Norwest for its work with strong consumer-facing brands. PolicyGenius is a Brooklyn-based online insurance brokerage offering content, advice, online quotes and an application process for life, long-term disability, renters, and pet insurance. The company emphasizes its content and an insurance checkup tool as core product features. PolicyGenius had reached 800,000 users by the end of 2015. It operates as a broker and charges insurers a commission for each policy it places. CEO Jennifer Fitzgerald declined to disclose how many users became policyholders, so conversion and revenue figures were not provided. Fitzgerald said the company could in future white-label insurance products from carriers and sell them under its own brand. PolicyGenius operates a multi-product consumer insurance advice and shopping platform offering life, long-term disability, renters and pet insurance comparisons. Launched in July 2014 by Jennifer Fitzgerald and Francois de Lame, the company guides users through an Insurance Checkup™ — a five-minute Q&A that produces a personalized review of insurance needs. The platform combines expert content, partnerships and affiliate channels to expand accessibility and reach. PolicyGenius plans to strengthen existing product lines and refine individual insurance quoting engines. The company will scale its marketing and production teams in its Brooklyn offices and use strategic investor insight to quickly test and iterate new tools and services. The business recently completed a Series A financing to support these initiatives.

Participated · Series A · Dec 2015

BrightFunnel builds attribution and predictive analytics tools that connect marketing activity to revenue and forecast the impact of upcoming campaigns. Its platform tracks marketing “touches” throughout the buyer journey, with the company reporting that 47% of marketing touches occur during the sales cycle. CEO Nadim Hossain frames the product as a data-driven map to optimize the path to revenue, likening the long-term goal to a “Google self-driving car for marketers.” BrightFunnel says its revenue has been growing 14–15% month over month. Its customer base includes Cloudera, Five9 and New Relic. The company is positioning its product to give marketers continuous, measurable influence over sales outcomes. BrightFunnel provides marketing prediction software that shows which campaigns and channels are performing well and points marketers to actions likely to increase revenue. The product integrates with marketing automation platforms including Marketo, Pardot, Act-On Software, and HubSpot. The company positions itself to solve marketers' "last-mile" attribution problems by tracking detailed multi-touch paths (the article cites covering 10, 20, 30 touches). CEO and co-founder Nadim Hossain has described the long-term vision as building the 'Google self-driving car for marketers,' aiming for greater automation of marketing campaigns. In the prior 10 months the team doubled in size and the customer base tripled, with customers including Nimble Storage, HootSuite, and ServiceMax. The company recently raised new capital to continue product development and customer growth. BrightFunnel builds predictive marketing analytics tools that estimate the revenue impact and timing of marketing campaigns and identify which marketing "levers" drive increased revenue. The product integrates with marketing automation systems including Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, Act-On, and HubSpot. Current predictions are reported to be within roughly 10–20% accuracy for conversion and sales cycle timing. The company offers features for analyzing performance trends by campaign and channel. CEO and co-founder Nadim Hossain, formerly VP of marketing at PowerReviews, positions the product as moving toward a fully automated marketing-planning system—described internally as a "Google self-driving car for marketers."