• SideChef

  Participated · Series B · Mar 2023

  SideChef offers a cooking, shopping and meal-planning app with more than 20,000 “smart recipes” and over 12,000 shoppable recipes that can be added to a cart for delivery or in-store pickup. The app is free to download and offers a $4.99 monthly premium tier with recipes from SideChef culinary experts; users can also upload and share their own recipes. SideChef has partnered with retailers and delivery services (Walmart, Instacart) and appliance makers including Sharp, GE and LG to embed step-by-step cooking and smart-kitchen features. The company says it doubled its revenue growth three years in a row, growth that was boosted by increased home cooking during the pandemic. New funding is intended to expand an end-to-end cooking platform and smart-kitchen technologies, including image-recognition devices for automated cooking and additional monetization via online grocery purchasing, contextual marketing and data insights. SideChef is a mobile cooking app that displays detailed photography and written instructions to guide users through recipes. The app offers more than 1,000 recipes sourced from over 100 food bloggers worldwide. Its recipe library covers diverse cuisines and accommodates special diets including gluten-free, vegan and low-fat options. Launched in March 2014 by CEO Kevin Yu, SideChef focuses on expanding its content and user reach. The company plans to use newly raised funds to create partnerships with various U.S. companies and to grow its network and content offerings, including cooking techniques.

• Tout

  Participated · Series C · Oct 2016

  Tout is a next-generation streaming video network delivering hundreds of channels of news, sports and entertainment video from major media brands across thousands of publisher sites. Led by founder and CEO Michael Downing, the company is a technology spin-out of SRI International and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Tout powers video programming across more than 2,800 websites that collectively receive over one billion visits monthly. Its network reaches more than 57 million unique video viewers who consume over 350 million videos per month. Tout aggregates content from partners including Fox Sports, WSJ, CNN, CBS, Scripps, Conde Nast and Bloomberg. The company plans to use new funding to expand business-development and sales operations, grow its U.S. publisher base, launch audience-targeting capabilities for media partners, and expand into international markets. Tout is a video-messaging service that lets users post 15-second video messages and allows followers to reply with their own 15-second videos. The company has gained traction with high-profile users and media partners, including Shaquille O'Neal, Jeff Probst, Ryan Seacrest, Erin Andrews, Dr. Oz, CBS, National Geographic Channel, CNBC's Fast Money, C-SPAN, ESPN and Mitt Romney. Tout reports more than 23 million total visitors to its web and mobile applications since launch (a cumulative figure). CEO Michael Downing has said the company does not aim to be a destination social network but to enable video messaging broadly. Tout has been testing an API and teasing "major partners" in the works, indicating a focus on integrations and distribution. The company previously raised a $2 million Series A in December 2010 and has now closed a $13.4 million Series B.

No current team members are available.