Participated · Equity · Jan 2015

Thinkful is a New York, NY-based edtech startup that offers mentor-led online learning focused on technical skills. It provides 1-on-1 mentorship from industry experts to help students switch careers or advance in their current professions. Mentors meet face-to-face, answer questions, and tailor curriculum to students' schedules and specific job goals. Courses listed include Engineering Immersion, Full Stack Flex, Data Science, and Front End Development. Employers can use the platform to find diverse talent. The company raised funding to expand operations and grow its offering and business reach. Thinkful operates an online education service that connects students with a network of professional programmers and developers who mentor students through short courses. Courses typically run two to three months and cost roughly $300–$500 per month (about $1,000–$2,000 per program), positioning the company as a lower-cost alternative to multi‑month, $15,000 bootcamps. Thinkful reports roughly 3,000 students, a mentor network of about 250 professional engineers, and a 70% course completion rate. The company says many of its programmers (and alumni) have gone on to roles at companies like Google, PayPal, and Instacart. With its new financing, Thinkful plans to expand its curriculum offerings and launch a more selective program designed to better monitor and measure student outcomes. Founders Darrell Silver and Dan Friedman started the company in October 2012. Thinkful provides personalized, mentor-led online career training that pairs students with expert mentors, places them in peer cohorts, and customizes curricula after a skills assessment. The platform emphasizes one-on-one weekly mentor sessions and a curriculum tailored to students' goals. It launched last year and began with web development courses while receiving applications from professionals in marketing, sales and finance. The team has spent months developing its curricula, which remain under construction, and has trained its first 25 students. More than 70 tech companies have expressed interest in hiring Thinkful graduates. The company also ran targeted outreach following Citigroup layoffs and received numerous applications from former Citi employees.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2014

Paintzen is an NYC-based on-demand home and office painting service that manages the entire painting job process online. The company handles paint, supplies, insurance, tax and tip, and requires partner painting companies to be background checked and insured. Paintzen provides online paint selection, quotes, booking and payment and employs project managers to guarantee job completion and satisfaction. Services are currently available in the NY Metro area and San Francisco, CA. The company closed a $7.2M Series A funding round to accelerate national growth. Investors include Bullpen Capital, Data Point Capital, Angelpad, NextView Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and additional partners; Data Point Capital’s Scott Savitz will join the board. PaintZen is an online service that provides instant interior painting quotes and matches customers with a "guru" who advises on colors and wall specifics. The platform can mail up to five free color swatches and offers a $250 sampling day where a painter applies samples on-site. On the scheduled date a full team arrives with all supplies and paint, completes the job, and cleans up. The company launched today in San Francisco and New York and serves clients ranging from homeowners to large-scale corporate offices. In beta, PaintZen has painted over 4,000 rooms. The company announced a fresh $1.8M seed round alongside its launch.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2014

Admittedly provides a platform for students, parents, and college counselors to collaborate on college planning, tracking academic performance and extracurriculars to improve admission odds. The product offers distinct account types for students, parents, and counselors and uses OKCupid-like quizzes to match students with colleges. The company aims to get students thinking about college as early as freshman year and addresses a counselor shortage the founder cites (476 students per counselor). Admittedly is currently a free service but plans to introduce a paid tier with extra features. In the longer term the team hopes to integrate with educational institutions to become a full-fledged college applications platform. The company was launched out of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in 2013 by founder Jess Brondo.

Participated · Series A · May 2014

Adcade developed Adscript, a programming language and ad-building platform designed to deliver ads across desktops, smartphones, tablets, digital TV and other connected devices. Its Canvas-based framework reproduces Flash animations while adapting to device-specific functions, combining elements of Flash and HTML5. Ads created with Adscript can adjust across screens, browsers, placements and sizes using a single ad tag. The company currently runs an advertising studio to demonstrate cross-platform campaigns and plans to transition to an ad server that automatically delivers ads using its language. Adcade spun out of an initial idea to replace CAPTCHAs with interactive ads; the three co-founders include CEO Rob Cromer, CTO Buzz Wiggins, and Rob Prentice. The team is New York–based and used the product-development path to refocus on digital advertising. Adcade develops mobile advertising solutions focused on creating more interactive experiences on smartphones and tablets. The company is testing its first product, a new mobile/tablet premium rich media ad unit. It plans to launch a self-service platform later this year. Adcade intends to use the funding to accelerate business and the development of additional mobile ad products. The company was co-founded in 2012 by CEO Rob Cromer, CTO Buzz Wiggins and COO Rob Prentice and is headquartered in New York City. The article does not disclose operating metrics such as revenue or users.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2014

Moveline lets customers take a single inventory of their belongings via a video or FaceTime call and then receives quotes from multiple moving and storage companies based on the amount of stuff. The product replaces repeated inventory calls and reduces disputes when movers arrive and reassess volume. Moveline serves long-distance moves (>100 miles) and supports local moves in most major U.S. cities as well as parts of Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The company moved from New York to Las Vegas to help scale operations and has grown its team from roughly 15 to nearly 60. Since relocating it reports about 20% average month-over-month growth. Moveline has raised $5.9 million in total since its 2011 founding and recently closed a $3 million Series A. Moveline operates a marketplace designed to redesign and simplify the customer moving experience and bring transparency to the industry. Its core product uses video or FaceTime on an iPhone/iPad to let users film their home; Moveline staff create a detailed inventory, estimate needed boxes, and return a packing/move list. Users can then select which items to move and mark items as sold or donated. The company raised $1.5M in seed funding to hire new team members, enhance its web and mobile platforms, and expand operations to new cities. Prior to this round, Moveline raised $400k from Modea Ventures and Lawrence Transportation Systems in December 2011 and completed the TechStars NYC program in June 2012. The company was founded by Frederick Cook and Kelly Eidson and is based in New York City.