Led · Equity · Aug 2024

Inspirato operates a luxury travel club offering subscription and travel services and reported roughly 12,000 members and about 12,700 active subscriptions. The company posted second-quarter revenue of $67.4M, down from $84.1M a year earlier, with travel revenue down 19.1% and subscription revenue down 30%. Net loss narrowed to $15.4M in the quarter from a $46.7M loss a year earlier, aided by the absence of a prior $30.1M non-cash impairment. Management is pursuing cost reductions including terminating underperforming leases (extinguishing a $41.2M lease liability and targeting ~$25M in annual lease savings) and three rounds of layoffs, most recently 15% of staff. Inspirato launched a high-end product, Inspirato Invited, with an entry fee above $150,000 and a two-year booking window with fixed nightly rates for ten years. The company also received a Nasdaq extension to regain compliance with market-value requirements through November 22, 2024. Inspirato operates a luxury vacation club that blends a traditional members-only model with peer-to-peer, Airbnb-style listings. The company charges a $17,500 initiation fee and $3,500 in annual dues. It reports just under 8,000 members—nearly double from July 2013—and a portfolio of 240 luxury homes across the U.S., Mexico, Europe and the Caribbean. Inspirato was founded in 2011 by Brent and Brad Handler and recently expanded via a merger with competitor Portico Club. The company has an AmEx partnership offering cardmembers $2,500 off initiation and $400 off annual dues. Inspirato has raised $70 million to date and is using new capital to accelerate growth. Inspirato is a membership-based luxury vacation club that combines exclusively operated high-end rentals with a peer-to-peer sourcing model. Members pay a $15,000 one-time fee and $2,500 annually for access to properties such as Tuscan villas and Napa cottages. Each property is operated exclusively by Inspirato for around four years and the company furnishes units and provides concierge service, linens, and other amenities to maintain a luxury experience. The company says it is renting hundreds of properties and is adding a new one every other day. Inspirato plans to add a seafaring yacht to its offerings next July. The business has attracted rapid venture interest and rising valuations, though the CEO declined to disclose hard revenue figures. The company is led by CEO Brent Handler, who previously co-founded Exclusive Resorts. Inspirato operates a luxury destination club that provides members leased access to a growing portfolio of high-end vacation homes and hotel suites at top global destinations. The company leases rather than owns properties to keep membership fees low, offer more than 50% off market rates, and enable rapid expansion. Since its January 2011 launch Inspirato doubled its portfolio to more than 100 properties and plans to add at least 180 new properties in 2012. Inspirato targets affluent travelers seeking value, flexibility and high service in luxury vacations. Growth has been funded by venture capital, including a recent $20 million investment from Institutional Venture Partners and a prior $17.5 million equity round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers. As part of the investment, IVP partner Todd Chaffee will join Inspirato’s board. Inspirato provides discounted luxury vacation access by long-term leasing of properties instead of purchasing them, allowing the company to avoid broker fees and pass savings to members. The company charges a one-time initiation fee of $15,000 and a $2,500 annual maintenance fee as its primary revenue model. Founders Brent and Brad Handler run the business and use leasing to offer lower nightly rates at high-end destinations. Since launching in January 2011, Inspirato has grown to 900 members and has been adding about 100 members per month. The model targets affluent consumers seeking steep discounts on luxury travel without property ownership. No operating revenue figures beyond membership and fee structure were provided in the article.

Participated · Equity · May 2023

Glass operates Glass Commerce, an e-commerce marketplace that enables compliant transactions between government buyers and verified vendors, including small businesses, without bids or paperwork. The platform simplifies procurement workflows and focuses on streamlining every single transaction, beginning with small purchases. Led by Founder and CEO Paola Santana, the company targets government agencies and leverages procurement data to speed adoption. Since 2020, Glass has supported government agencies to procure over 5.8 million items from verified businesses across 31 federal, state and local agencies, including the State of Illinois and the City of Seattle. The company plans to use recent funding to accelerate adoption of Glass Commerce and expand its footprint among public-sector buyers.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2022

Formic Technologies designs, develops and maintains industrial robots and automation systems, focusing on tasks such as palletizing and packaging. The company combines proprietary software with hardware deployments to provide optimized automation solutions tailored to individual client needs, primarily serving small and medium-sized businesses. It bundles these solutions with a financing model and subscription-based service to lower the upfront and ongoing burden of robot deployment and maintenance. Formic offers deployment, installation and maintenance services to accelerate automation adoption in manufacturing. The company says it will use the investment to develop a new business model that makes its automation solutions more accessible to customers. Formic is based in Chicago, Illinois; the amount of the recent investment was not disclosed. Formic delivers fully supported Robots-as-a-Service automation to U.S. manufacturers, handling deployment, continuous monitoring, maintenance and guaranteed performance rates. Founded in 2020 and based in Chicago, the company charges customers a low hourly rate that removes capital and operational barriers to automation adoption. In 2.5 years Formic’s fleet completed 100,000 production hours at more than 99% uptime and expects another 100,000 hours in the next 170 days; it reports rapid growth in deployed systems, customers and repeat business. Formic highlights a 97% renewal rate and says 75% of its customers are automating material handling for the first time. The company plans to expand its standardized equipment fleet, increase its U.S. support network to shorten response times, and enhance its equipment-agnostic AI-driven motion-planning, predictive maintenance and customer-facing software. These moves are intended to accelerate deployment timelines and broaden access to automation for small- and mid-size manufacturers. Formic Technologies provides turnkey robotic solutions to American manufacturers via a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model, delivering, installing, and maintaining robots billed by the hour. It sources equipment from partners such as Universal Robots, FANUC, KUKA and ABB and owns the programming, installation, and servicing so customers avoid upfront investment. The company emphasizes systematized deployment and in-house equipment financing to reduce complexity and cost for factories. Early customers include Polar Manufacturing and Georgia Nut, and Formic positions its offering to address labor shortages and supply-chain pressures. Financially, Formic raised a $26.5 million Series A, has secured access to more than $100 million of debt capital, and is valued at over $100 million. The company has expanded its board and management team to scale rapid deployments.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2021

Localized operates a career-tech platform that enables employers to recruit from schools without attending in-person career fairs and gives students industry insights from professionals who share their language and roots. The company was founded in 2017 by Ronit Avni and has operations in MENA. Localized focuses on unlocking educated talent for global companies and improving the student-to-employer hiring pipeline. The startup says traction was accelerated by COVID as companies seek diverse, remote talent sourcing channels. Financially, Localized has just secured a $2.2M Seed investment round. The funding is positioned to help the team scale its platform and expand its reach among employers and university programs. Localized uses technology to bring career guidance to college students in emerging markets, connecting them with mentors and associations as they seek employment after graduation. The platform is multilingual and operates in Arabic and English. Localized is live in the Middle East and North Africa across more than 65 career centers, universities and student organizations. The service targets students transitioning from college to the workforce. The company announced plans to expand to India this year. It recently closed a $1.2 million funding round.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2021

The Beans is a San Francisco–based company building a financial operating system tailored for caring professionals and the organizations that employ them. Its platform uses AI to manage cash flows and automatically execute financial tasks such as saving, debt repayment, and tax optimization, turning complex financial decisions into everyday peace of mind. In addition to individual tools, the company provides workforce-development resources to employers, aiming to relieve employee financial stress and improve retention. Recent product enhancements extend its reach into healthcare networks, educational institutions, and nonprofits, where large numbers of frontline employees face persistent financial pressure. The company plans to leverage new capital to deepen personalized recommendations and intelligent cash-flow automation features while scaling distribution partnerships across the healthcare and education sectors. Led by founder and CEO Melissa Pancoast, The Beans positions itself as both a fintech solution and an employee-benefits platform. No operating metrics such as revenue or user counts were disclosed in the article, but the funding signals investor confidence in its growth trajectory.