Participated · Series B · Dec 2023

Lolli operates a rewards app that awards users bitcoin or cashback for purchases, partnering with merchants so users can earn on online and in-store spending. The app currently partners with more than 25,000 stores and aims to expand to over 100,000 stores by 2025. Rewards can be as high as 30% back, with an average of about 7% returned in bitcoin or cashback; since inception Lolli has given over $10 million in bitcoin rewards. Lolli launched Card Boosts last year, letting users add bitcoin rewards to debit and credit cards — a product the company calls a major growth driver. Active shoppers increased more than 35% year-over-year as of October 2023. The company plans to use new capital to build more products, secure big partnerships, expand financial education, and roll out its rewards program to enterprise partners. Lolli operates a bitcoin rewards platform and recently launched a mobile app that converts typical fiat cashback from merchant partnerships into bitcoin for users. The app currently offers an average of 7% back in bitcoin and users have earned more than $3.5 million in bitcoin rewards to date. Lolli has direct partnerships with roughly 1,000 merchants across e-commerce sites. The company plans to use new funding to expand operations, further develop the mobile app, and be more active in the gaming community to drive user growth. Lolli currently has 20 employees and intends to double its headcount over the next year, hiring engineering, marketing, and support staff. The firm leverages social media influencers and gaming talent to distribute bitcoin and expand its user base. Lolli operates an e-commerce bitcoin rewards app that incentivizes shoppers by sending bitcoin to a wallet as cashback. The company partners with more than 1,000 merchants and has over 250,000 users. Lolli reports users have earned over $3 million in bitcoin rewards to date and offers an average of about 7% bitcoin-back rewards at retailers such as Kroger, Microsoft, Booking.com and Ulta. Co-founder Alex Adelman says the product began as a way to educate people about bitcoin and was attached to everyday shopping. The company frames its mission around financial empowerment and inclusion and aims to make bitcoin more accessible by enabling people to “stack sats” through shopping. Lolli is a consumer-facing shopping app that pays users cryptocurrency rewards for purchases at partner stores. The company supports over 1,000 top stores and is available only to U.S.-based customers. Lolli recently renewed its partnership with Samsung, enabling users to earn up to 4.5% back in Bitcoin on Samsung purchases, and has added support for Garmin and Fenty Beauty. In November it attempted to offer crypto awards to American users of Alibaba, but that partnership fell through. Financially, the startup completed a $3 million seed round in May. Founded in 2018, Lolli was included on CNBC’s “Upstart 100” list in 2019. Lolli is a rewards platform that allows users to earn bitcoin when they shop at partner brands. It operates via a browser extension (Chrome and Safari) that notifies users on partner sites and assigns bitcoin rewards at checkout. Users can spend, save, or convert earned bitcoins to cash from the Lolli wallet, and the company says it stores users' bitcoins in offline cold storage. Lolli reports arrangements with over 500 brands, including Hilton, Marriott, Walmart, and Forever 21, offering "up to 30 percent back in bitcoin." The company reports over a 9 percent conversion rate and says it has already generated over six figures in sales for its merchants. CEO and co‑founder Alex Adelman stated the platform has created a "real use case" for bitcoin.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2020

Dorian provides a no-code mobile platform (iOS and Android) that converts written fiction into interactive, free-to-play choose-your-own-adventure games where readers can spend in-app currency to unlock alternate routes. The app splits in-app purchase revenue 50/50 with authors and pays creators via Tipalti, enabling continuous monetization rather than one-time fees. The company reports around 250 monetizing creators, with top creators making roughly $15,000 in annualized revenue and a few treating Dorian as a full-time job. Dorian supports fan works within its ecosystem via creator agreements that let original authors retain IP and set royalty splits for derivative works; it has also run licensed events with partners like Lionsgate. The product includes livestreaming so creators can play or showcase stories to build audiences, and the company employs human moderation plus host/reporting tools to manage content. With plans to grow the team and license more IP for in-app events, Dorian is also prioritizing hiring and support for Ukrainians affected by the war. Dorian offers a no-code engine and flowchart-style interface that enables fiction writers to design characters and scenes from visual assets, connect story branches, and create player choices without programming. The platform supports real-time collaboration between writers and provides detailed analytics to track reader responses and optimize monetization. Writers publish directly through the Dorian app and retain ownership of their resulting intellectual property. In early tests with about 50,000 players, writers were able to improve monetization by roughly 70% after one or two iterations. The company is currently invite-only and plans a broader launch later this year. Dorian is led by co-founder and CEO Julia Palatovska, who previously headed business development at G5 Entertainment. Dorian is building an "immersive fiction" mobile app inspired by experimental choose-your-own-adventure storytelling such as Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. The product lets users make decisions that shape nonlinear narratives and supports social collaboration so players can make choices together. The company plans to deliver multiple stories aimed initially at millennial and Gen Z women and to create a platform combining fiction with social gameplay. Dorian emphasizes female leadership and diverse, authentic female role models; CEO Julia Palatovska leads a team including Jordan Lee and Heather Logas, all with mobile games backgrounds. The San Francisco-based startup has raised $2 million in seed funding to support content development. Investors are primarily game-focused firms and industry angels, reflecting interest from the gaming investment community.