Led · Equity · Jul 2024

Zoë Foundry is a vertically focused venture studio building a portfolio of startups in the employee benefits ecosystem aimed at the next wave of insurtech growth. The studio plans to launch three employee benefits startups annually, concentrating on SaaS, B2B, and AI solutions. It has launched two companies so far: SlainTech, a platform for automating small group health portfolios, and Bentection, an executive benefits sales enablement platform. Both ventures have been validated by the market, are actively serving customers, generating revenue, and gaining traction. Zoë Foundry was founded by CEO Garrett Viggers and COO/CIO Jason T. Andrew, and is joined by CTO and co‑founder Jonathan Mulieri; the leadership team brings roughly 20 years of employee benefits and technology experience apiece. The founders' background includes Limelight Health, which raised $44 million and was acquired by FINEOS for $75 million in 2020; Limelight had been backed by insurers including Aflac, Principal, MassMutual, Transamerica and AXA. Principal and RGA have provided early capital support, investing a combined $5 million as lead investors.

Led · Equity · Jan 2024

DigitalOwl provides a platform that automatically analyzes medical documents using artificial intelligence and natural language processing to generate case summaries, documents, and medical events. In 2023 the company introduced a Generative AI model specifically designed for insurance-based medical case analysis, developed and trained over the prior two years. The solution produces unrestricted-language summaries that capture nuances necessary for underwriting decision-making and is intended to improve the speed and efficiency of medical document analysis and case summarization. In 2024 DigitalOwl plans to launch an insurance policy underwriting engine based on its self-developed Generative AI engine. The company employs 70 people across Israel and the United States, and the recent capital raise brought its total funding to over $38M. Its technology is being integrated into RGA’s internal underwriting operations as part of a global partnership. DigitalOwl provides a proprietary NLP platform that reads, summarizes, and analyzes scanned medical records, producing chronologically organized, searchable datasets with clickable source links. Its technology extracts over 17,000 medical data points across conditions and procedures, claims greater than 95% accuracy, and is capable of extracting twice as many meaningful medical data points as human-enabled solutions. Customers include insurance companies, reinsurers, TPAs and legal firms, which use the product for fraud detection, underwriting, claims execution and building legal cases. The company operates in the US, Canada and Israel and notes the average medical record contains more than 44,000 words and roughly 2,900 medical extractions. DigitalOwl says its platform presents filtered, focused datasets that surface the most relevant data in a fraction of the time and cost of manual review. The business recently completed a $20M Series A and plans to use proceeds for technology development, hiring across R&D, sales, marketing and client service, and to pursue solutions for other industries. DigitalOwl, founded in 2017 and formerly known as Legal Automation, has developed an AI system that automatically reads and analyzes medical documents to extract the medical information needed for assessing risk and managing claims. The product is focused on health-related insurance products, including life, disability, workers’ compensation and income protection. The system is used by underwriters and claim analysts to streamline document review and information extraction. The company has grown its team from about five people last year to roughly 35 today. Financially, DigitalOwl closed a $6.5 million seed financing round. The round was led by a mix of venture and strategic investors based in Israel and the U.S.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2023

Bundle x Joy offers premium superfood nutrition and curated product bundles of supplements and treats for dogs, selected via a proprietary "Pup Quiz" that draws from about 15 products and assigns playful pet personalities (e.g., "Golden," "Vibrant," "Brave"). Its core product is a subscription bundle sold at roughly $2 per day and includes a 3% give-back to fund women in entrepreneurship and local communities. The company sells direct-to-consumer via its website and Amazon and is in more than 450 retail locations including Sprouts and Whole Foods, with plans to double that footprint this summer and enter another major national retailer. Founder and CEO Jessica Berger started the business in 2022 after 15 years in the pet industry, including roles at PetSmart and Nestlé. The company says it has no debt and has been using retail as a primary discovery channel while keeping DTC a smaller portion of the business. Proceeds from the recent raise will be used to expand the team (it has hired a full-time marketing director), increase inventory and accelerate product development.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2023

Oya Femtech Apparel produces athletic performance wear engineered to support feminine health, including physician‑tested, athlete‑approved, patent‑pending leggings. Its products use antimicrobial fabrics that are BPA-, PFA- and PFOA-free. Product development was supported by over 60 medical professionals and 200 product testers. The line is designed and primarily manufactured in Los Angeles, CA. Led by CEO Mitchella Gilbert, the company sells performance wear with a focus on clinical validation and athlete feedback. Oya raised funding to accelerate growth and expand operations.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2022

qiibee is a blockchain-based B2B rewards marketplace headquartered in Zug, Switzerland. Founded by brothers Gabriele and Gianluca Giancola, the platform offers instant access to brands, thousands of rewards, crypto, NFTs and millions of new members. Loyalty programs that connect with qiibee benefit from partner integration, no reconciliation costs, increased security and improved customer engagement and new member acquisition. In 2021 the company launched its first connection between different loyalty programs with Swiss watchmaker Louis Erard, enabling members to exchange Louis Erard Points to Etihad Guest miles and nine cryptocurrencies. The company raised $4.8M in a seed funding round and intends to use the proceeds to grow its global team and expand into priority markets such as North America. qiibee built a decentralized loyalty platform and developer interface on Ethereum that lets brands tokenize loyalty applications and issue transferable QBX tokens. The platform aims to improve data security, lower management costs, and remove central data authorities and liabilities associated with traditional loyalty models. qiibee removes the need for brands to develop smart contracts or perform blockchain integrations by providing the infrastructure for tokenized loyalty. The solution has been deployed with its first client, Lattesso, to reward customers across seven countries and allow exchange of loyalty tokens for other brand tokens, crypto, or domestic currencies. A strategic partnership with MindNow is intended to bring more retail, financial, tourism and lifestyle brands onto the platform. Financially, qiibee has completed a seed financing and recently raised additional capital through a token sale.