• Yummly

  Participated · Series B · Sep 2015

  Yummly aggregates user-submitted recipes and suggests other foods and recipes that users might like. The company has integrated with Instacart so users can place orders to have ingredients for their recipes delivered on demand. Yummly is based in Redwood City, Calif. It raised $15 million in a new funding round led by Bauer Venture Partners that values the company at $100 million. Additional investors include Physic Ventures, Unilever Ventures, First Round Capital, Harrison Metal Capital, and Intel Capital. Yummly plans to use the capital to expand its product line and enter into new partnerships. Yummly aggregates hundreds of thousands of recipes from across the web and lets users filter results by type of food, course, ingredient, and by diet, allergy, nutrition, price, cuisine, time, taste, and source. Users can edit and save recipes with ingredient substitutions and adjustments; Yummly recalculates ingredient amounts for changed serving sizes. The service also calculates nutritional values for each recipe, showing calories, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Users can import and add favorite recipes from other sites and save them in a personal recipe box. Yummly has built social traction with around 1.4 million Facebook subscribers, a Facebook app, and sees roughly 4 million unique visitors a month, with a 75% uptick in Facebook referral traffic since launching its Timeline app. The company plans to use new funding for hiring and product development. Yummly is a semantic recipe search engine that aggregates over 500,000 recipes from around the web. The product lets users filter results by food type, course, ingredient and break down recipes by diet, allergy, nutrition, price, cuisine, time, taste and source. Users can edit and save recipes, make ingredient substitutions and portion adjustments, and Yummly recalculates ingredient amounts and nutritional breakdowns (calories, fats, proteins, carbohydrates). The site also allows users to import and add their favorite recipes from other websites and save them in a personal recipe box. As reported, Yummly's Facebook page had 600,000 likes and Compete recorded 49,000 unique visitors in October. The company faces the challenge of driving traffic in a competitive market that includes sites like Epicurious and All Recipes.

• WaterSmart Software

  Participated · Series B · Apr 2015

  WaterSmart Software is a San Francisco-based customer engagement platform for water utilities led by CEO Robin Gilthorpe. The cloud-based platform uses analytics and behavioral science techniques to increase customer engagement and drive household actions that save water, energy and money. Its tools allow utility managers to segment customer water consumption data, generate targeted communications, and identify operational efficiencies. The company plans to use the new capital to scale the business by expanding sales and investing in additional platform capabilities. WaterSmart recently closed a $7M Series B to support these efforts. The company's board includes Steve Westly, Will Rosenzweig, Steve Bennet, Robin Gilthorpe and Peter Yolles; Hal Harvey of Energy Innovation will join the board in conjunction with the funding. WaterSmart offers a turn-key, cloud-based platform that integrates utility metering and billing data and uses analytics and behavioral science to drive conservation. Its software personalizes recommendations for residential customers and reportedly increases customer engagement threefold while reducing residential water demand by up to 5% in six months. The company has deployed contracts with utilities across California, Colorado, and Texas, including East Bay MUD, Irvine Ranch Water District, and the cities of Sacramento, Davis, and Newport Beach. WaterSmart’s enterprise product includes analytics that allow utility managers to view usage, track program performance, and identify efficiencies. The company was incubated by Menlo Incubator and has won industry recognition including Imagine H2O’s water efficiency prize and an Artemis Top 50 Water Company listing. WaterSmart plans to use the Series A proceeds to expand sales and marketing and to bring its customer engagement platform to water utilities throughout North America. WaterSmart Software offers a turnkey, cloud-based platform for water utilities to educate residential customers about their water use and deliver personalized conservation recommendations. The company combines analytics and behavioral science techniques to increase customer engagement, elevate consumer interest in saving water and money, and boost participation in utility-sponsored efficiency programs. Its enterprise product includes an analytics platform that allows utility managers to view how customers use water and where efficiencies can be generated. WaterSmart's service has been deployed by five California utilities and has demonstrated significant water savings, giving utilities avoided-cost and capital-expenditure benefits. The company says the additional funding will accelerate deployment of its solution to additional utility customers. WaterSmart closed a $1 million second round of financing led by Physic Ventures, with participation from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Menlo Incubator and Sand Hill Angels. WaterSmart offers white-labeled analytics and an online/print portal that lets utilities present personalized water-use information to homeowners, including neighborhood comparisons and tailored conservation recommendations. The platform analyzes hundreds of parameters—water consumption and billing, census and demographic data, real estate details, climate and weather—and even estimates ancillary gas and electricity savings from reduced hot-water use. Executives say the service helps homeowners understand bills, claim incentives and take the two or three most effective actions to save water. The company estimates it can help utilities and consumers reduce water consumption by about 2% this year. WaterSmart has pilots under way with major California water utilities and aims to move beyond proof of concept. The startup currently has six full-time employees and plans to hire ten more this year; it won the inaugural ImagineH2O competition in May 2010 and is often compared to energy-management players like OPower.

• T2 Biosystems

  Participated · Series E · Mar 2013

  T2 Biosystems develops rapid sepsis-detection diagnostics based on its proprietary T2MR technology. The company markets a product lineup and says it has a promising pipeline aimed at improving patient care and reducing healthcare costs. T2 Biosystems was founded in 2006 and is located in Lexington, Massachusetts, with 51–200 employees. Financially, the company has raised $133M to date. Recently it agreed to convert $15M of debt into equity with CRG to bolster its financial standing, a move pending shareholder approval. Management framed the transaction as part of ongoing strategic amendments to the CRG term loan and expressed gratitude for CRG's continued support. T2 Biosystems builds and commercializes the T2MR® magnetic biosensor platform and its flagship T2Candida molecular diagnostic panel to detect species-specific Candida directly from whole blood. The T2MR technology uses miniaturized magnetic resonance to detect molecular, immunoassay, or hemostasis targets from complex clinical samples including blood, sputum and urine. T2Candida delivers results in approximately three hours, with sensitivity reported as low as 1 CFU/mL and diagnostic speed up to 25 times faster than current blood-culture methods. The company intends to use proceeds from its latest financing to support clinical programs and commercialization of T2Candida, complete development of additional sepsis diagnostic panels, and advance R&D of other molecular, immunodiagnostic and hemostasis assays. The platform targets faster identification of candidemia and sepsis, conditions the article notes are major causes of hospital-acquired infection and mortality where earlier detection can substantially reduce deaths. T2 Biosystems completed a $40 million financing to fund these clinical and commercialization efforts. T2 Biosystems develops and commercializes a magnetic resonance (T2MR) diagnostic platform and the T2Dx benchtop instrument that directly analyzes unprocessed clinical samples. Its lead product is the T2Candida assay, a rapid multiplexed test for five Candida species intended to detect bloodstream infections and sepsis in under two hours. The company says T2MR eliminates the need for sample purification and blood culture growth, providing sensitive and rapid results in less than two hours. T2 Biosystems planned a beta launch of the T2Dx instrument in the fall and expected an FDA submission for the T2Candida panel in the second half of 2012. The firm aims to expand its pipeline into additional diagnostic tests focused on sepsis, infectious disease, therapeutic drug monitoring and coagulation. The newly announced financing will support ongoing development and clinical trials, regulatory approval and commercialization efforts, and expansion of the company’s partnering program. T2 Biosystems is a Cambridge, MA–based biotechnology company focused on a diagnostic platform that combines nanotechnology with the miniaturization of magnetic resonance to perform molecular and immunoassay diagnostics on a small bench-top instrument. The company aims to eliminate extensive sample preparation and enable rapid testing in decentralized settings such as hospitals, diagnostic laboratories and medical offices. T2 intends to build a pipeline of products around this proprietary technology to improve disease diagnosis and treatment. The new funding is earmarked to accelerate development and commercialization of an initial menu of diagnostic tests for those decentralized settings. Leadership emphasizes a mission to revolutionize diagnostic testing, improve patient care, and reduce healthcare costs by enabling immediate, accurate testing in nearly any setting. The company previously raised $10.8M in a Series B in 2008. T2 Biosystems is a Cambridge, Mass.-based company developing diagnostic devices that combine MRI properties and nanotechnology. The company plans to use the new funding to develop a beta version of that device. It intends to run the beta through a series of tests over the next 18 months. T2 currently has 20 employees. Financially, it recently received $10.8M in a second-round financing and previously raised $5.5M in a first round in 2006. The new capital is targeted at product development and testing.

• CarePort Health

  Participated · Seed · Mar 2013

  Careport Health offers a platform for hospitals to help patients understand and select post-acute care options. The platform collects and analyzes data from post-acute care organizations to identify providers that match a patient’s clinical needs and preferences. It surfaces facilities that meet criteria such as low readmission rates and presents the most relevant options rather than a simple printout. Careport also tracks patients’ recovery and transmits relevant information to the patient’s care team. The company raised $2 million to accelerate growth of the business, which the article describes as a two-year-old business. CEO Lissy Hu founded the company in 2013 while she was a Harvard Medical School student. Careport Health’s core product lets a nurse enter a patient’s insurance information, search facility listings that meet criteria, and make an immediate bed reservation. The company launched its first pilot at Massachusetts General Hospital in January with 2,000 beds in the reservation system and has since grown that inventory to 4,000 beds. Today it is focused on post-acute care and expects hospitals to pay to use the service. Patients and caregivers can also search provider listings by services or neighborhood. Longer-term plans include becoming a one-stop shop for patient transitions, including reserving durable medical equipment. Careport’s team includes CEO and co-founder Lissy Hu and co-founder Gretchen Fuller, and the company has participated in TechStars and Mass Challenge; it closed a $900,000 seed round.

• On-Q-ity

  Participated · Equity · Feb 2012

  On-Q-ity is a Waltham, MA-based life sciences company focused on novel circulating tumor cell (CTC) capture and characterization for clinical researchers and physicians. The company is developing products and services intended to enhance decision-making across multiple cancer types. On-Q-ity secured $5M in financing. Backers named in the financing include Mohr Davidow Ventures, Atlas Ventures and Physic Ventures. Michael T. Stocum, MS, was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer and will lead research and development, clinical collaborations and business opportunities. Walt P. Carney, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, will become Scientific Advisor. On-Q-ity is an oncology diagnostics company based in Waltham, MA, developing products to improve cancer therapy effectiveness. Its core products are diagnostics intended to enhance the effectiveness of cancer treatments. The company closed an additional $5m financing as part of its Series A. That additional investment brought the company’s total Series A funding to $26m. Investors in the round include MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures (lead), Atlas Venture, Bessemer Venture Partners, Physic Ventures and Northgate Capital. Atlas Venture partner Bruce Booth will join the company’s board, which also includes representatives from MDV, Bessemer and Physic Ventures. On-Q-ity is an oncology diagnostics company focused on improving cancer therapy effectiveness. It is developing diagnostics to determine optimal treatment choice for cancer patients at each stage of the treatment cycle — from the first therapy choice to monitoring for recurrence. The company's platform couples novel circulating tumor cell technology with a predictive biomarker platform that can analyze tumor tissue and capture rare tumor cells circulating in a patient's blood. Those captured cells are monitored for molecular changes that are characteristic of therapy response. This combination enables minimally invasive, real-time data on a patient's status, allowing treatment adjustments before changes are visible with other technologies. The company has closed a $21M Series A financing led by MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Physic Ventures and Northgate Capital; as part of the financing, representatives from Bessemer and Physic Ventures joined the board.

No current team members are available.