• MessageYes (formerly ReplyYes)

  Participated · Equity · Apr 2016

  ReplyYes is a Seattle, WA-based e-commerce over mobile messaging platform that helps brands engage and transact directly with customers. Led by CEO Dave Cotter, the platform leverages artificial intelligence, human-assisted AI and integrated payments to learn from customer feedback and improve the mobile customer experience. ReplyYes aims to help brands increase customer engagement and grow e-commerce revenue through conversational commerce. Current customers include Universal Music Group, The Edit, Origin Bound and Lowercase Alpha. The company raised a new financing round and intends to use the proceeds to expand its platform to lifestyle brands. ReplyYes is a Madrona Venture Labs spinoff led by CEO Dave Cotter that operates a chat commerce platform enabling users to buy products by replying to text recommendations. Its first channel, The Edit, delivers daily personalized vinyl record suggestions to 45,000 users, who can reply "yes" to purchase or provide "Like"/"Dislike" feedback. In eight months the company has sold $1 million in vinyl records through that channel. The product blends AI-driven chatbots with human agents to handle complex requests and improve personalization over time. ReplyYes has launched a second text-based storefront, Origin Bound, for graphic novels and plans to support hundreds of retail channels, including third-party retailers. The 12-person team is working to expand the platform beyond SMS to Facebook Messenger and Twitter.

• Hyper

  Participated · Seed · Aug 2015

  Hyper is a curated video discovery platform launching to deliver a daily selection of the best short-form Internet videos. The startup employs a team of journalists and filmmakers who hand-select roughly six to a dozen videos each day, ranging from one to twenty minutes and spanning artsy to documentary topics. Selections rely on personal taste and recentness—Hyper does not post content older than a couple of days—rather than view counts or social metrics. The small editorial team drives much of the product’s value, which the founders acknowledge could pose scaling and voice-retention challenges. Hyper is currently available only for iPad and plans to roll out an iPhone version in the coming months. The company was built earlier this year by film producer Markus Gilles and cinematographer Jonas Brandau after they left Berlin’s independent film scene. Hyper has been funded with $1.1 million in seed financing.

• Who What Wear

  Participated · Series B · Aug 2015

  Clique Media Group operates a portfolio of lifestyle and beauty editorial brands that combine data science with editorial teams to create shoppable content and products. Its offerings include brands such as Who What Wear, Byrdie, MyDomaine, CollegeFashionista, THE/THIRTY, and Obsessee, plus CMG Studios (an in‑house creative agency) and the INF Network representing 55+ influencers. The company has expanded beyond media into commerce, launching a Who What Wear clothing, shoes, and accessories line at Target and a SHOP/Who What Wear app. CMG plans to use new capital to build out its consumer products division and further expand editorial properties and in‑house creative offerings for advertisers. Operationally, CMG reports a 30mm+ and growing audience, a 57% increase in employees over the last year, and 100% year‑over‑year revenue growth for the past three years. The company was founded in 2006 and was recently named to Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies list. Who What Wear is a shoppable fashion site focused on fashion advice, where every piece of content is clickable and drives readers toward purchases. The site was started in 2006 by Hilary Kerr and Katherine Powers and is one of three media properties under the Clique Inc. umbrella alongside Byrdie and MyDomaine. Who What Wear reports 3.8 million uniques, while the three Clique sites together see 11.2 million uniques. The editorial model has incorporated native advertising and shoppable content since before 2007. The company says the new funding will be used to grow the content business and expand internationally, first into Europe and Australia. Beyond expansion, Who What Wear is also looking to launch its own ecommerce product.

• Rinse

  Participated · Seed · Jun 2015

  Rinse operates a dry cleaning and laundry pickup-and-delivery service that schedules nightly pickups (typically 8–10pm) with standard return times. The company employs part-time W-2 valets rather than independent contractors, which it says enables greater investment in training and customer service. That operational model and lower valet costs helped expand margins and drive double-digit month-over-month revenue growth since launch. Rinse has expanded slowly and is currently live in three cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The startup plans to use new funding to grow into 10 new markets, including New York, Chicago and Boston, with the goal of becoming a nationwide service. Rinse provides on-demand-scheduled garment care that customers buy and book through the company’s app, website or text messages. Its services include launder-and-press, wash-and-fold, dry cleaning, hang-dry, leather cleaning and some garment repairs; it does not handle very high-end items like wedding dresses but arranges vendor cleaning for larger items such as comforters. Operations use part-time valets who drive their own cars along company-set routes for nightly 8–10 p.m. pick-ups and drop-offs, with a personless delivery option for garages, lobbies or lock boxes; Rinse tags bags with QR codes to track items. Pricing is set per garment or per pound with a minimum order example of $22.50 for wash-and-fold; Rinse pays selected cleaners a wholesale rate and bills customers retail to generate revenue, providing stable order flow for partner cleaners. Founded in 2013 by Ajay Prakash and James Joun, the company currently operates in San Francisco and Los Angeles and plans to expand beyond those markets while adding services like shoe shines, re-soling/re-heeling and offering its service as an employee perk for corporate clients. Rinse is a San Francisco–based on-demand laundry service that schedules pickups via an app or website, lets customers text their laundry handler, and returns cleaned, folded garments in heavy‑duty bags. The company employs W-2 laundry workers with benefits and says it provides ways for employees to move up internally. Pricing for on-demand laundry generally ranges $25–$45 per load; a Rinse example in the article cost $68.45 for one 23‑pound load plus a comforter (including a $3.95 rush fee). Co-founders Ajay Prakash and James John drew on industry experience (John grew up in the laundry trade) as they built the business. Rinse was largely bootstrapped before this round and plans to expand to additional areas (including Los Angeles), hire more staff, and add new service offerings such as shoe repair.

• Kisi Security

  Participated · Equity · May 2015

  Kisi provides a cloud-managed keyless access control system that allows companies to manage access to buildings and for employees to use mobile credentials. Its offering includes a globally scalable access control platform, a mobile push-to-entry app for iPhone, Android and Windows, cloud-based access management, and real-time monitoring. The product supports integration with existing and new hardware technologies to enable enterprise deployments. Founded in 2012 by Bernhard Mehl and based in New York, Kisi counts clients such as Cushman & Wakefield, TechStars, Oscar Insurance and Harrys. The company raised $1.5M in funding and intends to use the proceeds to build out advanced features and grow the team’s infrastructure.

No current team members are available.