Participated · Series C · Jun 2019

goTenna is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based mobile mesh networking platform led by founder and CEO Daniela Perdomo. Its core product, goTenna Pro, is a mesh tactical communications system used by wildland firefighters, emergency responders, military forces, law enforcement tactical units, and other government organizations to access resilient data communications and real-time position-location information when centralized cellular networks, Wi‑Fi, and satellite systems fail. The company also develops mass-market mesh networking systems for consumer use. Customers include all branches of the U.S. military, most agencies within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and local and state organizations. goTenna raised $24M in Series C equity and debt financing and intends to use the funds for continued growth, expansion of operations, and research and development of future applications of modular mobile mesh architecture for decentralized connectivity. Silicon Valley Bank provided debt financing for the round. goTenna makes hardware and software that convert smartphones into local, off‑grid communications devices. Its product suite includes goTenna for consumers, goTenna Mesh for broader domestic and international users, and goTenna Pro for public safety and enterprise customers. The company also launched a services product, goTenna Plus, which provides offline mapping, read receipts and location tracking. goTenna has been R&D‑focused but reports selling millions of dollars’ worth of product organically and is working to diversify revenue through services. The startup has more than 23 employees and plans to ship goTenna Mesh in late spring and goTenna Pro in the fall/winter. With $16.8 million in total financing to date, the company says it is on a path to being self‑sustaining. GoTenna produces a 1.8-ounce Bluetooth‑paired device that generates long‑range radio waves to let users send text messages and share location via pre‑downloaded maps without cellular service. The company sells the device for $199 per pair and says it has sold "tens and tens of thousands" of units since shipping initial products last fall. GoTenna has an exclusive three‑month retail launch with REI and is positioned for outdoor use as well as travel and emergency scenarios. The team is about 13 people, and the company intends to use new funding to expand marketing headcount and grow the broader team. Product plans focus on improving existing hardware through software and firmware updates and developing a stack of technologies — firmware, networking protocols and hardware addresses — to enable resilient, bottom‑up communication infrastructure. The company recently closed a Series A to support those hires and product investments.

Participated · Series C · Feb 2016

Curalate offers a suite of visual-commerce tools that use image recognition to tag products in social and on-site images and link them to purchase pages. Its product set includes Like2Buy, Fanreel, Visual Insights, Reveal and Ads, bundled as a monthly SaaS subscription. The platform lets brands surface products from Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and other networks, generate analytics on visually trending items, and buy social ads with proprietary targeting. Since 2011 Curalate has assembled a roster of major retail and media clients including Refinery29, Nasty Gal, Gap, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Sephora, Urban Outfitters, J.Crew, True Religion and BuzzFeed. Co-founder and CEO Apu Gupta led a pivot from an earlier Y Combinator project to build the current company. The startup positions itself to help brands harness user-shot photos and influencer-driven demand while acknowledging competitive risk from more specialized tools. Curalate provides a comprehensive platform for marketing with images, combining advanced image‑analytics algorithms and marketing tools to track visual conversations and identify trends. Its platform supports engagement and commerce across Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. The company serves roughly 400 of the world’s leading brands, including Gap, Neiman Marcus, Campbell’s, Swarovski, Under Armour, Better Homes & Gardens and Michaels. Curalate has been selected for Tumblr’s A‑List and joined the alpha of Pinterest’s MarTech initiative with access to the Pinterest Business Insights API, reflecting deep partnerships with major visual platforms. The company plans to use new funding to accelerate hiring, marketing and product development. Recent financing brought its total funding to $12.5 million. Curalate is a Pinterest analytics and marketing platform that uses advanced image recognition algorithms to enable brands to measure, monitor and grow brand engagement on visual social media sites such as Pinterest. The company was co-founded by Apu Gupta (CEO) and Nick Shiftan (CT0) and is used by brands and agencies across sectors including consumer packaged goods, retail, publishing, luxury, automotive and media. Curalate is based in New York City and Philadelphia, PA. It plans to use the $3M Series A to expand product development and marketing and to extend to platforms beyond Pinterest, such as Instagram, which the company said would be announced in the coming weeks. The Series A was led by NEA with participation from First Round Capital and MentorTech Ventures, following a $750k seed round from the same three investors. In conjunction with the funding, Patrick Chung of NEA and Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital joined Curalate’s board of directors. Curalate offers a visual analytics and marketing service that lets brands search for and track their images across Pinterest, including both brand-posted and consumer-posted content. Its proprietary solutions, based on visual-search techniques, map how pieces of visual content move through Pinterest and potentially lead to conversions on e-commerce sites. The company launched officially after a beta that picked up more than 150 brand customers in two months, including Birchbox, Bonobos, Kraft, Neiman Marcus and Warby Parker. Pricing is offered in three tiers—$19/month, $49/month and $99/month—for varying levels of service and tracking. While Pinterest is the initial focus, Curalate plans to extend its tracking to other image-centric networks such as Polyvore, Fancy, Wanelo and Instagram. Apu Gupta is co-founder and CEO.

Participated · Series A · Mar 2015

CloudMine provides a cloud mobile platform that offers a mobile-optimized suite of services for enterprise developers to build and deploy mobile applications. The company targets highly sensitive verticals such as healthcare, pharmaceuticals and retail and emphasizes security and compliance, including HIPAA and HITECH. Customers include Mylan Specialty, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Barnes & Noble College and Digitas Health. Founded in 2011 and led by CEO Brendan McCorkle, CloudMine is based in Philadelphia, PA. The company intends to use the funds to add features to its product and expand marketing and sales functions. It recently closed a $5M Series A financing to support those plans. CloudMine is a Philadelphia-based startup that provides a back-end as a service platform for mobile application developers. The platform lets developers quickly generate API keys to cloud-enable applications and eliminates the need to build custom backend solutions. That approach allows developers to focus on building mobile apps and bringing products to market faster and at lower cost. The company is led by co-founders CEO Brendan McCorkle, CTO Marc Weil, and Technology Lead Ilya Braude. CloudMine is a member of the inaugural class of the Project Liberty Digital Incubator, established by Philadelphia Media Network, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Ben Franklin, Dreamit Ventures and Drexel University. Dreamit Ventures also backs the company. CloudMine provides a platform of RESTful APIs and SDKs that let app developers offload backend work—schema-free data storage, user account creation/management, and server-side business logic. The service is positioned as a B2D PaaS so developers can focus on product and iteration rather than infrastructure. CloudMine moved from a closed beta, where testers reported it halved the time to configure backend solutions, into open beta at the time of the article. Developers can sign up for free and immediately receive an API key for their first app, with easy key generation for additional apps. The company is part of the current DreamIt Ventures Philadelphia accelerator batch. DreamIt invested $20K of seed funding in CloudMine’s backend solution. The co‑founders are Ilya Braude, Marc Weil, and Brendan McCorkle, with prior experience at Eastern Research, Apple, Oracle, and Textaurant respectively.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2015

Jet.com is an e-commerce marketplace that set out to compete with Amazon. It generated significant pre-launch buzz and raised capital aggressively before debuting as one of the largest online marketplaces. The company has made changes to its business model, including dropping a yearly membership fee, which has drawn criticism and confusion from some observers. Operational metrics cited in the article show gross merchandise volume of $33.2M in October, a 65% increase from September. Financially, Jet has raised a fresh $350M with verbal agreements for an additional $150M and had previously raised $140M in February; the article implies a post-infusion investor valuation of about $1.35B (the firm was said to be $1.0B pre-infusion and $600M in February). The piece closes by noting that, with this capital, “now it’s time to put more points on the board.” Jet is an e-commerce startup that says it delivers radical price innovation by dynamically adjusting prices in real time based on a shopper's basket. The company guides customers toward orders that are economically more efficient to fulfill and says it profits primarily from an annual membership fee. Because Jet only profits from membership fees, it claims the full benefit of operational efficiency is passed back to customers as lower prices without sacrificing service or experience. The startup raised an additional $140 million to help pursue its pricing strategy and better undercut competitors like Amazon. Co-founder Marc Lore described the companys basket-based pricing model in detail to TechCrunch. The Wall Street Journal reported the new round would bring Jet's valuation near $600 million. Jet.com is a stealth ecommerce startup based in Montclair, New Jersey. The company plans to launch its product in 2015 and is actively hiring technology staff, particularly iOS and Android developers. Financially, Jet.com raised $20M in new venture capital funding in the most recent round. It also secured a $5M facility from Silicon Valley Bank. Prior to this financing the company had raised $55M from New Enterprise Associates, Bain Capital Ventures, Accel Partners and MentorTech Ventures. The company remains in stealth as it builds toward its planned product launch. Jet is an e-commerce startup focused on building a new, technology-driven shopping experience. The company says it will make use of the latest advancements in technology to empower customers. Jet aims to bring unprecedented transparency and efficiencies to the overall e-commerce market. It positions its work as transforming the customer experience in ways not previously possible. Jet is based in New York, NY. The company recently completed a $55M Series A financing led by NEA with participation from Accel Partners, Bain Capital Ventures and MentorTech Ventures.

Participated · Series B · Apr 2014

Quad Learning partners with community colleges to run the American Honors program, offering honors-level coursework and a pathway to four-year universities. The company provides individualized student advising, instructional design support for faculty, and a student learning platform. American Honors is offered at five community colleges and participants have access to a national network of over 30 public and private four-year universities interested in admitting graduates. Quad Learning is led by CEO Phil Bronner. The company intends to expand its platform. The article reports a Series B financing, signaling outside investor support for growth. Quad Learning, founded in 2012 by Phil Bronner and Chris Romer, partners with community colleges to jointly develop and deliver American Honors, a competitive two-year honors program for high-ability students who want to transfer and earn a Bachelor's degree. The company's core offering is the American Honors program run in partnership with community colleges. Quad Learning is based in Washington, D.C. In February 2013 the company raised $11M in funding. Backers included New Atlantic Ventures, Swan and Legend Fund, NEA, Comcast Ventures and other investors. The article notes the company is currently hiring.