Participated · Series B · Jul 2018

Booksy operates a consumer-facing mobile marketplace and a mobile-first SaaS product (Booksy Biz) that helps beauty, wellness and health providers manage appointments, staff, payments and customer acquisition. The platform powers hundreds of millions of appointments each year and serves over 130,000 providers and 38+ million consumers worldwide. Booksy’s Marketplace lets consumers find, schedule and manage bookings with stylists, barbers, nail artists, salons and other service providers. The company said it will use the new financing to accelerate new customer acquisition, expand its marketplace and enhance the platform. Booksy was founded in Poland in 2014 and now has operations in Poland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and France. The company previously raised more than $100M in Series C funding and is backed by investors including Innovia, Kaya and Verdane. Booksy operates a consumer-facing booking app and a companion Booksy Biz app that lets salons, nail bars and barbershops manage bookings, payments and customer relationships. The platform also offers Booksy E-Commerce, a marketplace enabling salons to sell products and helping customers discover local stylists and technicians. The company says 38% of customers book after-hours and that appointment frequency increases by 20% for users; it claims roughly 13 million consumers on the app. Booksy was launched in 2014 by Stefan Batory (CEO) and Konrad Howard and now operates in the US (its largest market), UK, Poland, Spain, Brazil and South Africa. The startup has used M&A to expand, acquiring Lavito in 2018 and merging with Versum in December 2020 to enter Mexico. The company plans to use new funding to expand across North America, enter new verticals and acquire complementary businesses. Booksy is a mobile-first marketplace and SaaS platform that enables appointment-driven beauty service providers to manage bookings, POS, client databases, and basic marketing automation. The consumer-facing marketplace is available online and via an app to help users discover and book local stylists, nail technicians, barbers and artists, showing reviews, services, pricing and availability. Founded in 2013 by CEO Stefan Batory and based in San Francisco, the company targets beauty professionals and consumers seeking local services. Booksy raised $28.5m in a Series B2 and has $48.7m in total funding to date. The company intends to use the proceeds to scale the business, grow engineering, sales and marketing teams, and expand into new U.S. markets. Investors in the round include returning backers Piton Capital and Enern, new investors Industry Ventures and XG Ventures, and participation from several industry executives and angels. Booksy provides an online booking platform for beauty and personal-care merchants, enabling customers to schedule appointments with stylists and other service providers. Founded in 2014 by Stefan Batory and Konrad Howard, the company says it launched in the U.S. in 2017 and has rapidly expanded its footprint. Booksy is currently processing about 2.5 million bookings per month, a key operating metric cited by the company. Management plans to use new funding to drive global growth, recruit high-profile talent, and develop proprietary technologies. Product development priorities include a one-click booking feature that leverages machine learning and AI to predict user buying patterns and suggest optimal dates with preferred stylists. Booksy provides a mobile-first Software-as-a-Service for appointment-based businesses, enabling online bookings, scheduling, CRM, marketing automation, inventory management, point-of-sale, reporting, and employee commission management. The company charges monthly subscription tiers rather than taking a cut per booking, positioning itself against marketplace competitors. Booksy says adoption improves customer loyalty and booking frequency, noting up to 60% of appointments are made outside businesses' working hours. The product aims to move bookings off phones and in-person systems onto the app and web interface to increase convenience and engagement. Booksy plans to add in-app payments, features to help larger merchants manage personnel, and enhanced reporting systems. The company raised a $4.2M Series A to fund these product and functionality investments.

Participated · Series B · Apr 2018

Clark is a digital insurance manager that offers customers a way to view and improve their insurance policies through an app (iOS and Android) and a website. After a quick registration process, customers can see the status of their insurance and receive an algorithm-based analysis of all their rates. The system searches the market to identify better offers and recommend improved policies. The company is present in Germany and Austria and is led in Austria by Dr. Philip Steiner from Salzburg. Clark was founded in June 2015 and employs more than 270 staff, serving a customer base of over 300,000 individuals. The company intends to grow its product and user acquisition capabilities following its recent fundraise. Founded in July 2015 out of fintech company builder Finleap and based in Frankfurt and Berlin, Clark provides an insurance "robo-advisor" accessible via iOS, Android and web. Users grant Clark a broker mandate and the platform analyzes their insurance situation to recommend improved coverage or better pricing. Clark generates the majority of its revenue from management and admin fees paid by insurers on its platform and also earns commission on new policies. The company says it has acquired close to 100,000 customers and manages $310 million in contract volume, a ten-fold increase from its contract volume in 2016. Growth has been supported by partnerships with banks including N26, ING-DiBa and DKB, and Clark has begun offering a B2B white-label product to banks and insurers. The company plans to invest in hiring — especially in technology and marketing — and to focus on growth to cement digital insurance management as a European standard. Clark provides a smartphone app with an insurance‑cockpit and a robo‑advisor that analyzes customers' insurance situations and proposes ways to improve coverage or save money. The platform compares products from more than 160 insurance companies and gives users access to tariffs from 160+ insurers, with insurance experts available for complex cases. Founded in June 2015, Clark's customer base is growing rapidly — already thousands of customers use the service — and the volume of managed insurance premiums has increased fifteen-fold to €30 million since the start of the year. The company currently employs nearly 20 people, most in software development. Clark plans to continue developing its robo‑advisor and app, expand the team and move into a larger office. It recently closed a funding round to support technology development and hiring. Clark operates a digital insurance platform that aggregates offerings from more than 160 insurance companies and presents them to millennials and digital natives. Customers can manage existing contracts in a smart online portfolio that displays relevant contract details and notifies users when switching to a different contract may be favorable. The company was founded in June 2015 by Dr. Christopher Oster, Steffen Glomb and Dr. Marco Adelt and is based in Berlin. Clark raised a second round of funding (amount undisclosed) and intends to use the proceeds to push forward development of the platform. The platform’s core focus is simplifying insurance discovery and contract management for a digitally native customer base. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Series A · Dec 2017

Finiata provides a fully automated factoring platform that purchases outstanding invoices—starting from as little as €1—with no minimum sales volume or prior bank history required. By leveraging proprietary credit-scoring technology developed by former Kreditech team members, the company claims a 70 % approval rate and can deliver liquidity to customers that traditional banks often overlook. Users pay nothing on their first invoice and are subsequently charged a 2.3–3.3 % monthly fee on the factored amount, positioning the service as both fast and competitively priced. The startup explicitly targets the "WeWork generation" of freelancers and SMEs operating out of co-working spaces, but it also sees appeal among more established small businesses seeking flexible working capital. Management believes that lower variable costs and scalable digital acquisition will allow it to reach a large segment of Germany’s €200 billion annual factoring market, which has been growing at roughly 10 % per year. The founding team includes multiple ex-Kreditech executives, adding depth in fintech risk management and underwriting. Finiata has secured €3.5 million in funding, combining equity and debt, to fuel product development and market expansion.

Led · Equity · Oct 2017

Brainly is a crowdsourced homework-help platform that connects students (primarily ages 13–19) and parents in a peer-to-peer Q&A format. The company’s user base has grown from 150 million in 2019 to about 350 million today, including roughly 30 million users in the U.S., which is its only market currently being monetized. Its core product is an open-ended question-and-answer network for homework help (often compared to a Quora for homework). Brainly is testing additional services including tutoring (about 150,000 sessions run to date), video content, and AI-driven personalization tied to local curricula. The company plans to use new funding to build out tools for students and parents and to accelerate expansion in emerging markets such as Indonesia and Brazil. To date Brainly has raised roughly $150 million in known funding. Brainly is a Quora-style, crowdsourced platform that helps students find and contribute answers to homework questions across subjects like math, history, science and social studies. The company operates a freemium model: the majority of users access the site for free and see ads, while some pay $3 per month for additional features and no ads; Brainly would not disclose how many paying users it has. Content moderation combines user reports, human moderators and algorithms, and regular contributors can be invited into a paid answering program. Brainly reports 150 million users in 35 markets, up 50% from 100 million in 2018, with about 10 million users in the U.S. The company was founded in Poland in 2009 and originally launched as “Zadane.” Brainly plans to use funding to expand in the U.S., pursue monetization, and continue growing across multiple languages and high-growth markets such as India, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil. Brainly operates a Quora-like homework Q&A service used by students, offering peer-to-peer help across multiple subjects. The platform reaches over 100 million users and reports about 100 million kids ages 12 to 18 use it every day. Its user base spans 35 countries and the product is available in 12 languages. Brainly claims it has captured roughly 10% of the market of kids in that age group. Most growth has been outside the U.S.; the U.S. accounts for about 8 million of its users. The company is focused on expanding its presence further in the U.S. Brainly is a seven-year-old social learning network in the education-technology space. The company was founded in Kraków, Poland and now maintains a second office in New York. Brainly's core product is positioned around social learning and peer-driven educational support. The company received a $15 million Series B led by Naspers Ventures, signaling outside capital support for growth. Naspers' involvement—through its newly formed U.S.-focused Naspers Ventures unit—could help Brainly attract talent and expand its presence in the U.S. The investment is noted as Naspers' first ed-tech bet. Brainly operates a social learning platform that enables students to help each other with schoolwork. The company reports more than 30 million monthly visitors and says it is live in 36 countries. Brainly has more than doubled its user base over the past year and sees over 8,000 questions asked on its sites every hour. Founded in 2009, the startup is expanding its presence in the US after launching operations there earlier this year. To support that push it will open a new office in New York City and build a US-based management team led by CEO Michal Borkowski. The recent financing is intended to accelerate Brainly's US expansion.