Participated · Equity · Jun 2018

InvolveSoft is a SaaS-based employee community platform that streamlines corporate engagement including volunteering, team activities, leadership and training, and diversity & inclusion. The company launched its flagship Corporate Volunteer platform in early 2017 and claims access to almost 200,000 volunteer events at any time. It has added Corporate Event Management and enhanced Business Intelligence tools and offers resources for integration into existing HR applications. InvolveSoft reports strong sales traction driven by millennial engagement and targets enterprise customers with Volunteer Time Off programs to raise participation while reducing administrative overhead. The company will use the $2.5M in new funding to build on its SaaS application technology, expand sales channels, and grow its volume of volunteer event content. Leadership includes co-founders Gaurav Bhattacharya and Saumya Bhatnagar and senior talent with HR solutions and high-growth SaaS experience.

Participated · Equity · May 2018

Fantasmo builds a decentralized, sub-centimeter accuracy 3D mapping platform for robot navigation and anchoring AR experiences. The company collects geo-referenced photos, scans them for identifying features like walls and objects, and imports that data into a point-cloud model accessible via its SDK. Fantasmo plans to launch a free Camera Positioning Standard (CPS) and offers TerraOS, an open-sourced operating system with commercial access and premium features for property owners to keep maps up to date. The startup will charge for commercial access and premium TerraOS features while enabling property owners to control how indoor maps are used. Fantasmo is running a private beta and is accepting developers and property owners to participate. The company is Santa Monica–based, was co-founded by Jameson Detweiler and Dr. Ryan Measel, and has 11 employees.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2018

SPIDR Tech builds an automated messaging and communications platform used by police departments to notify reporting parties (victims) and provide status updates on investigations. Founded by former officers Rahul Sidhu and Elon Kaiserman, the company pivoted from actionable intelligence and monitoring to focus on communications after spotting a larger opportunity. Its service sends automated texts and emails with case details, contact information and detective assignments, and is intentionally not used for sensitive cases; in Tucson the company has sent more than 1,000 messages to victims of petty crimes. Departments in Tucson, San Antonio, Grover Beach and Redondo Beach have used the platform, and the company says its messaging can improve public perception and trust. SPIDR is a Techstars New York graduate and positions its product as a way for police to rival private-sector customer-service communications. The company raised $2.5 million from outside investors to support its growth and product rollouts.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2018

Camera IQ is a Los Angeles-based augmented-reality platform for camera marketing that helps brand marketers design and deploy AR campaigns. Its platform enables marketers to create, manage and measure scalable AR campaigns reaching audiences across social media and streaming platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch and Zoom. Led by co-founder and CEO Allison Ferenci, the company has launched tools aimed at driving business objectives through camera-based experiences. In September 2020 it raised an additional $5m in Series A funding, bringing total capital raised to over $14m. Camera IQ plans to use the funds to make key hires in sales and marketing and to accelerate product development. A stated priority is expanding distribution to new platforms to broaden reach for brand campaigns. Camera IQ is a camera experience manager that helps digital marketers create immersive camera-based marketing experiences. Led by CEO Allison Wood and new Chief Product Officer Per Nielsen, the company develops tools for marketers to build camera experiences. The company is based in Santa Monica, CA. Camera IQ closed a $4.3M seed round that included an additional $2M, providing fresh capital for growth. It will use the funds to build out product offerings and to grow its team of camera marketing experts. Investors in the round included Betaworks, Homebrew, WndrCo, Shasta Ventures, Presence Capital, Brilliant Ventures, Greycroft Tracker Fund, Silicon Valley Bank, Act One and Noname Ventures. Camera IQ positions itself as the first camera experience manager, helping digital marketers create new worlds for customers to explore. Its technology integrates OS platforms, AR toolkits and native apps into a single fabric to enable brands to deliver captivating experiences at scale. The company frames camera marketing at the intersection of experience design and spatial analytics. Camera IQ is based in Santa Monica, CA. The article reports that the company has raised a $2.3 million seed round led by Shasta Ventures, reflecting its current reported financing.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2017

Slingshot Aerospace develops AI-powered software that ingests imagery from satellites and small aerial drones and turns it into actionable insights for customers in defense, disaster response and commercial markets. Its flagship product for the military, Slingshot Edge, streams and analyzes real-time drone video to support Air Force Special Operations Command missions. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with an additional office in El Segundo, California, the company focuses on accelerating decision-making by fusing multi-source data through proprietary algorithms. Slingshot won a competitive U.S. Air Force Rapid Innovation Fund SBIR award, reflecting both technical merit and perceived commercial viability. The company has attracted venture backing from ATX Venture Partners and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, which provided matching capital for the new Air Force contract. This dual-sourced financing approach underscores Slingshot’s strategy of pairing government demand with private investment to speed product deployment. Financial details beyond the current $3 million package were not disclosed, and no user or revenue metrics were provided in the article.