• Salted

  Participated · Series B · Oct 2023

  Salted creates and operates multiple quick-serve restaurant brands and retains ownership of the brands' intellectual property. The company builds and scales concepts that are cap-ex light and designed for delivery and takeout, supported by proprietary restaurant operations software (including image-capture training and ingredient tagging) to ensure consistency. Salted has created six brands since its 2014 founding and currently operates 25 locations across nine states. Management says locations are profitable and are averaging over $1 million in orders per year; overall revenue is described as "growing steadily." The company is expanding both organically and via acquisitions and is close to completing its first acquisition of a Mediterranean-inspired brand, tested at six locations. Leadership plans to hire more staff, invest further in technology, and scale toward "thousands of locations," initially focusing on the U.S. with some international real estate scouting underway. Salted creates digitally native quick-service restaurant brands and has built six brands so far, including moonbowls, Califlower Pizza and lulubowls. It operates locations that each run four to six brands and serves food ranging from Chinese takeout to pizza and salads. The company is operating in seven states with 19 locations today and expects to exceed 50 locations by next year. Salted employs over 200 people and says its locations are collectively profitable, generating between $1 million and $2.5 million in annual sales per location. The company uses proprietary technology and a Salted Analytics product to scale brands while maintaining customer experience and positions itself as a builder of long-lived brands rather than a ghost kitchen. CEO Jeff Appelbaum, who founded the company seven years ago, aims to be “the Yum! Brands for the digital age” and to build the next Chipotle. Salted operates a digital-first, full-stack technology and operations platform designed to scale off-premise QSR brands. Its platform integrates operations, a national supply chain, quality control, and marketing systems tailored for delivery and takeout. The company also built proprietary ‘Intelligent Kitchens’ software that uses data entry and camera technology to monitor order accuracy, production levels, presentation standards, and preparation times. Salted prioritizes data analysis and continuous iteration, analyzing thousands of data points daily and providing real-time feedback to kitchen teams. The platform supports multiple consumer brands — including moonbowls, Califlower Pizza, and lulubowls — all gluten-free with plant-based options, and is live in 17 U.S. locations. Salted plans to use new financing to continue expanding its business reach.

• Teampay

  Participated · Series B · Nov 2022

  Teampay provides a purchasing platform that issues virtual and physical cards, handles invoices and reimbursements, and automates workflows to keep employees in policy while reconciling transactions into customers' accounting systems. The company emphasizes employee-friendly purchasing combined with finance controls to eliminate unauthorized and out-of-policy spending and increase visibility for finance teams. Teampay offers a digital corporate card (Catalyst by Teampay) powered by the Mastercard network and integrates payment methods with built-in controls. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in New York City, Teampay has focused on serving high-growth companies and has tripled headcount in the last 12 months. The company plans to deepen its accounts payable solution, expand cross-border payments and international payment capabilities, and accelerate its enterprise offering. Teampay will also invest in go-to-market activities, sales and marketing, and continued hiring to support larger account needs. Teampay builds spend-management software aimed at midmarket companies to help them control bank accounts and manage outflows across formats (ACH, virtual cards, etc.). The company emphasizes software fees as its primary revenue source rather than interchange, with the ability to derive more spend-based revenue over time. Teampay has seen strong usage and monetization growth: annual recurring revenue (ARR) is up 320% since its Series A and total spend managed is up 800%. The pandemic has shortened its sales cycle roughly in half and attracted larger customers. It competes with offerings such as Brex, Ramp, Divvy, Airbase and legacy products like Concur and Expensify. Management has used opportunistic extension capital to accelerate growth ahead of a larger, traditional Series B. Teampay provides a platform that gives employees a streamlined interface to buy goods, tools, and services while keeping purchases within defined company policy. It acts as a collaboration software layer on top of a company’s existing card infrastructure so customers don’t have to switch card programs. The company targets larger enterprises with complex spend controls and counts customers including Wistia, Chime, Mixpanel, and RiskIQ. Since launching the platform Teampay has been hiring in sales and engineering and added senior executives including a VP of Finance, VP of Marketing, and head of sales. The company reported double-digit month-over-month growth in 2018 and recently raised a $12 million Series A to support expansion. Planned uses for the capital include expanding partnerships and integrations (for example with IT ticketing systems) and increasing sales and marketing. Teampay issues virtual credit cards to every employee and pairs those cards with approval workflows, procurement policy enforcement, and vendor analytics. The platform integrates with Slack and Google Apps and will add a Microsoft integration shortly. Its analytics surface top spending vendors and recurring subscriptions so procurement can negotiate rates and eliminate wasted expenses. Teampay targets mid-market companies of roughly 200–1,000 employees that are too small for a full purchasing department but too large to rely on the CEO’s card. Founder and CEO Andrew Hoag built the product from procurement problems he encountered at prior startups, and the company reports several paying customers on the platform. Early customer data shows roughly half of employee transactions are recurring, which the company flags to reduce waste.

No current team members are available.