• Casper

  Participated · Series B · Jun 2015

  Casper is an e-commerce company that designs and sells sleep products including mattresses, pillows, bedding and furniture developed in-house by an R&D team in San Francisco. The company operates Casper Labs, a platform using real-time user feedback, testing, and research to iterate on products, and employs more than 50 researchers, scientists and engineers. Casper has 5,000 square feet of workrooms with prototyping machines, testing equipment and an experimental bedroom. It maintains showrooms in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Casper plans to use the new funds to accelerate international expansion and increase its physical retail presence. At the time of the article the company had raised $340M to date and was valued at $1.1B following the latest round. Casper is a NYC-based sleep company that sells a flagship mattress and a range of sleep products including pillows, sheets, foundations, bed frames, duvets and a dog mattress. The company designs its entire product range through an in-house R&D team in San Francisco. Led by CEO and co‑founder Philip Krim, Casper launched in April 2014. The business has shown rapid revenue growth, earning $1M in its first 28 days, $100M in 2015, and more than $200M in annual revenue in 2016. Casper said it will use its new funding to drive product innovation and multi-channel expansion. The company’s product breadth and R&D focus position it to expand distribution and offerings across additional channels. Casper is a 14-month-old startup operating in the mattress business. The company sells mattresses and has begun adding services such as a same-day delivery feature launched in San Francisco. Casper plans to use new capital to expand its research and development staff, grow headcount beyond its current 75 employees, and begin laying groundwork for international expansion. Management reports strong sales traction, citing a $1 million first month and an estimated $100 million run-rate. The company has previously raised a $13.1 million Series A and in total has raised $69.95 million to date. CEO Phillip Krim described the round as another step toward building something big for the company. Casper builds mattresses by layering latex foam on top of memory foam to combine the advantages of both materials. Its design allows mattresses to be compressed and shipped in a small box with free shipping. Casper offers a 100-day free trial, manufactures its products in the United States, and emphasizes transparent pricing and simplified SKUs. The company reported $1 million in revenue in the first 28 days and says revenue has grown month-over-month since April. Casper plans to expand into other sleep-related products such as pillow tops, pillows, and alarm clocks. Current investor Ben Lerer was appointed to the board of directors. Casper is developing a vertically integrated approach to the mattress industry, using unique engineering processes to produce a single “super premium” mattress offered in different sizes. The company is finalizing its design after extensive testing and A/B experiments, and early versions have been sent to beta testers, including investor Ben Lerer. Casper plans to sell directly to consumers through its website and to simplify choice by offering one mattress model across sizes. Delivery is intended to be “radically different,” though the team has not disclosed details. Casper offers a lengthy 40-day return policy and is targeting a younger customer base that cares more about sleep quality. The team consists of five co-founders with relevant backgrounds, including CEO Philip Krim (who previously sold 40,000 beds through an e-commerce company) and product lead Jeff Chapin (formerly at IDEO).

• Local ID

  Participated · Seed · Jun 2015

  Local ID builds a platform to help large businesses manage marketing across many individual locations by surfacing local data and opportunities for regional marketing managers. Its features include a profile of every store and its activity, profiles of every employee involved in marketing, a list of relevant local marketing opportunities, and a task management system. The product preserves regional managers' knowledge and practices so replacements don't have to start at square one. CEO Alex Nocifera, who previously founded Circle Street and Ripple Networks (both acquired), started the company last year. As Local ID adds more features, the stated goal is to offer "all the local context that these large brands need." The company announced a $1.9 million seed round, which was first disclosed in a regulatory filing.

• Parachute Home

  Participated · Equity · Jun 2015

  Parachute offers premium, responsibly manufactured bedding, bath, table linens and home decor using European-sourced materials. The company sells its textile assortment directly to consumers online and through a network of company-owned stores. Parachute was founded by Ariel Kaye in 2014 and is based in Venice, CA. At the time of the article it operated three stores in Venice Beach (CA), Portland (OR) and New York (NY). The company intends to use recent funding to accelerate retail expansion, drive product innovation and category expansion, and make strategic investments in marketing, technology and supply chain. Parachute Home sells high-quality bed linens direct-to-consumer via its website, sourcing production from an 80-year-old family-run textile factory in Italy. Founded in 2013 by Ariel Kaye, the company positions itself as a "luxury bedding basics" brand with sheet sets starting at $89. By cutting out middlemen and avoiding retail slotting and licensing fees, Parachute aims to offer lower prices than traditional brick-and-mortar luxury sets. The company leverages content marketing and a blog focused on sleep tips and related content as part of its growth strategy. Financially, Parachute reported approximately $1 million in website sales last year. Recently the company announced $3.8 million in new venture funding to support its direct-to-consumer expansion and operations.

• Shift Messenger

  Participated · Seed · May 2015

  Shift Messenger provides a communication and scheduling tool built specifically for shift workers and their managers, allowing users to post, trade, and be notified about shifts. The product includes mobile apps and a recently launched website version that lets non-smartphone users post shifts and receive SMS notifications. Features include photo sharing, an admin mode for managing users across multiple locations, and planned additions such as individual channels, manager schedule creation/distribution, and broadcast tools for company leaders. The company is a Y Combinator alum and says “thousands of people are using the app across hundreds of workplaces,” with user numbers up fivefold since earlier coverage; customers include branches of Starbucks, Niketown, the Apple Store, and a few police stations. Founder Austin Vedder says part of the seed funding will be used to hire more design and engineering staff and to build user-requested features. The product roadmap emphasizes improving team-level communication and tools for managers to distribute schedules digitally.

• CoinTent

  Participated · Equity · Apr 2015

  CoinTent offers micropayments and paywall solutions that let publishers sell single articles directly from their sites. The service launched out of beta with integrations live on over 25 sites across multiple verticals. It is available through an API or a WordPress plugin and can run alongside existing paywall systems or as a standalone option. The platform charges a payment processing fee based on the size of each transaction. CoinTent was founded in 2013 by Bradley Ross, who serves as CEO. The company recently completed a funding round to support its newly launched product.

No current team members are available.