Participated · Series D · Aug 2021

Ekuaibao is a China-based e-invoicing provider that offers a SaaS online consumption and reimbursement management platform designed to simplify cost control for businesses. The platform supports online invoicing and expense/reimbursement workflows for enterprises. Founded in 2014, Ekuaibao has scaled through venture financing to expand its product and market reach. The company raised $154M in a Series D led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. The Series D also included participation from Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, Mandra Capital and Future Capital. Previously, Ekuaibao raised $30M in a Series C in September 2019 led by Tiger Global with participation from Future Capital.

Participated · Series A · Mar 2019

Skymind offers an enterprise AI platform and tools—including its core SKIL framework—that let data scientists build end-to-end workflows from data ingestion and cleaning to model training and production. Its tooling aims to close the gap between data science and IT, with particular focus on text and time-series data for natural-language processing and stream predictions. Skymind is the company behind the Java open-source library Deeplearning4j and is a major contributor to the Python Keras framework. Customers include ServiceNow and Orange, and technology partners include Cisco and SoftBank. The company plans to use its new funding to grow its North American team, accelerate customer acquisition and expand into Asia, leveraging lead investor TransLink Capital's expertise connecting North America and Asia. Financially, Skymind just closed an $11.5M Series A and has now raised a total of $17.9M to date. Skymind develops Deeplearning4j, an open-source deep-learning library for Java, and complementary tools for implementing and deploying models (including the Skymind Intelligence Layer, SKIL). Deeplearning4j remains the core product, aimed at enabling the large population of Java developers to build AI solutions. SKIL is positioned to integrate with existing enterprise tooling like Hadoop and is already used by Orange SA for production deep-learning projects. The company employs 15 people who work remotely across Japan, South Korea and Australia, with a small SoMa headquarters. Skymind’s libraries were downloaded 22,000 times in the last month, growing about 17% month over month. Leadership says it will continue to build tools for data scientists and may add packages to democratize reinforcement learning for businesses.

Led · Series A · Jan 2019

Chronicled operates the blockchain-powered MediLedger Network, a Web3 network for the life sciences and healthcare industry that enables automation, trust and automatic settlement for inter-company transactions. The company facilitates working groups with trading partners to create solutions that enable trust and automation and offers trading partners ways to manage revenue, automate manual processes and eliminate revenue leakage. Through MediLedger, Chronicled aims to ensure pricing accuracy and efficiency for health care providers and dispensers. The company is led by CEO Susanne Somerville and is based in San Francisco, California. In February 2022 Chronicled raised US$8.3M and intends to use the funds to accelerate growth and expand operations, team and product. The MediLedger network was founded in 2017 by Susanne Somerville and Eric Garvin, with Ryan Orr and Maurizio Greco. Chronicled builds software tools and protocols that enable decentralized blockchain networks to support multi-party supply chain ecosystems while enforcing cross-organization business rules without exposing private data. The company is piloting the MediLedger Network with major manufacturers, distributors, and solution providers and plans a commercial launch in 2019. It raised $16m in a Series A to expand the MediLedger Network, add service provider integrations, and develop protocols for channel integrity, chargebacks, contracting, and revenue management. Chronicled is opening a development office in Vancouver, BC as part of its growth plans. The company currently employs 50 people and plans to add approximately 20 more over the next year. It is a founding member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Trusted IoT Alliance, and Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative and is active in the pharmaceuticals and precious metals and minerals industries. Chronicled develops a hardware and software platform for authentication, tracking, and social engagement around collectible and vintage sneakers. The platform incorporates smart tags, an open registry, and a mobile app (available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store) to document and guarantee product authenticity, ownership, and provenance. The company has authenticated thousands of pairs of collectible sneakers. It plans to launch its authentication service in the NYC area in April 2016 and is exploring partnerships with sneaker brands to include authenticity chips at point of manufacture. Chronicled intends to implement an encrypted BLE tagging solution and expand its data and analytics capabilities. It recently raised $3.425M in seed funding to build up its customer base and support these product and expansion plans. Chronicled is developing a consumer authenticity technology platform intended to ensure 100% authenticity of consumer products using Smart Labels, an open registry and a mobile app. Products are tagged with small wearable sensors that contain encrypted microchips, registered, verified and traded via the mobile app. The company partnered with Identiv on the development of the encrypted microchips included inside the Smart Labels. Chronicled plans to launch its consumer product for limited-edition sneakers in autumn 2015 and begin a limited rollout in selected U.S. cities in fall 2015. It has secured more than 15,000 pairs of sneakers for the initial launch. The company raised $1.4M in convertible note financing to continue building and launching the platform.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2018

NEX, founded in 2018, develops AI-powered motion-tracking entertainment and training apps for mobile devices. Its products include HomeCourt (launched in 2018) and the newly launched Active Arcade, which merge mobile vision AI to turn phones into motion-based games. HomeCourt has been used in more than 200 countries and was demoed alongside Steve Nash at an Apple iPhone special event. The company’s mission is to make motion-based entertainment universally accessible and to encourage more play and movement for kids and adults. NEX raised $25 million in a Series B announced in September 2021 to coincide with the Active Arcade launch. The company operates out of San Jose and Hong Kong and was founded by David Lee, Philip Lam, Reggie Chan, and Tony Sung. NEX Team’s flagship product, HomeCourt, is a mobile app that uses phone cameras and computer vision to measure shot trajectory, jump height, body position and other variables to help players improve shooting form. The app tracks makes and misses and provides feedback on release speed, foot placement and shot mechanics. CEO and co-founder David Lee describes the company as a "mobile AI" business applying computer-vision technology to sports rather than a pure basketball company. HomeCourt targets casual players but the company also sees use cases in recruiting and athletic centers on college campuses. To boost engagement it is rolling out bite-sized challenges and plans a social layer for content and community. TechCrunch reports the company recently raised $4 million from a group of institutional and individual investors.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2018

Thunkable provides no-code tools that enable people with no developer skills to build native Android and iOS apps using a blocks-based, drag-and-drop interface. The platform emphasizes simplicity for beginners while offering expanded options for more complex functionality. Thunkable traces its roots to work by its co-founders Arun Saigal (CEO) and WeiHua Li (CTO) on MIT’s App Inventor Project. It reports more than 3 million consumer and business users and over 6 million apps built on the platform, with consumers still the majority but a growing B2B segment—about 40% of the Fortune 500 are listed among customers. The company plans to use new capital to develop more Android and iOS tools, build a wider marketplace for third-party templates and tools, and increase focus on business and enterprise customers. To date Thunkable has raised $41 million, including the new round. Thunkable offers a drag-and-drop app builder that lets non-coders and first-time developers create native Android and iOS apps from a single platform, now launched as Thunkable ✕. The product supports integrations such as Google Maps, Microsoft Image Recognition, Stripe payments and other APIs, which the company says differentiates it from template-based rivals. Thunkable ✕ packages apps natively for both Android and iOS and the company states compatibility with Android 4.1+ and iOS 8.0+. The prior Android-only product remains available as Thunkable Classic Android; an iOS beta was launched in September 2017 to gather feedback for the cross-platform release. Thunkable reports more than 500,000 users, over 1M apps built on the platform and a combined 16M monthly active users across 195 countries. The company says it sees major opportunities among first-time app developers globally, with growth in both emerging and developed markets. Thunkable is an MIT spin-out offering a browser-based drag-and-drop app builder that uses a blocks programming language to let non-developers and developers build fully native mobile apps. The two co-founders, Arun Saigal (CEO) and WeiHua Li (CTO), built the product atop the MIT App Inventor open-source code but intend Thunkable itself to be proprietary while accepting future community contributions. The platform supports native Android apps (with live on-phone testing), Material Design, Google Maps, templates and human support, and the team says apps built on the platform can access device hardware. Thunkable inherits a large community—about 4.3 million registered users and roughly 13 million apps created historically—and reported roughly 50,000 sign-ups about a month after launching its free builder; earlier growth had reached ~300,000 monthly active users. The company plans a freemium monetization model with tiered pricing for individuals, SMEs and enterprises, potential $5–$10 individual pricing, enterprise white-label/hosting options, and aims to add an iOS build and collaborative editing features within its roadmap.