Participated · Seed · Jun 2022

Breshna.io offers a no-code, zero-cost platform for creating games quickly—positioned by the founder as a "Canva for purposeful games" that emphasizes speed and accessibility. The product targets educators and creators (e.g., a teacher building a run-and-catch math game) and highlights user growth and traction over the past two years. Founders Mariam Nusrat and her co-founder brother Rizwan Nusrat lead the company and point to a strong fundraising track record. The company reports approximately 27 months of runway and says it is not currently pressed for funding. Near-term product plans include launching an AI-powered text-to-game engine called BreshnaBlitz and a carnival-themed metaverse, Breshnaverse, while blitzscaling user growth. Breshna.io also plans to expand community participation via equity crowdfunding to let users become participants and investors. GRID builds Breshna.io, a no-code web3 game-maker platform that enables users to create, share and monetize hyper-casual, purposeful video games without coding. The team is building a web3 layer to enable ownership and monetization, allowing users to input NFTs and display digital assets in the Breshnaverse. The company plans to use the funds toward Breshna’s public launch in Q3 2022. To date the platform reports 16k+ users from 84+ countries and 6k+ created and played games. GRID is US-based in Virginia and is led by founder and CEO Mariam Nusrat, who has prior experience in edtech and purposeful games and has been recognized on the Forbes Next 1000 List. The company raised $2.3m in Seed funding to support growth and the product launch. GRID (Gaming Revolution for International Development) is building Breshna, a no-code platform that enables anyone to create educational, marketing, training and social video games without coding. The product sits at the intersection of no-code content creation, serious games and NFTs/web3, promising ownership and monetization of user-created games. Breshna has recorded 1,100 registered users and more than 3,000 games created on the platform; its alpha ranked #2 Product of the Day and #5 Product of the Week on Product Hunt. GRID is woman-led, headed by founder and CEO Mariam Nusrat, and supported by a team of 18 developers and designers. The company plans to use new capital to enhance product experience, grow the team, and accelerate Breshna's adoption among target users. GRID frames Breshna as a "Canva for video games," targeting educators, businesses and creators seeking low-cost, rapid game creation.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2021

Heart to Heart is an audio-first dating app that uses voice snippets to create more intimate, intentional connections compared with swiping and text-based messaging. The product emphasizes voice, storytelling and confirmed photos as mechanics to slow users down and encourage more thoughtful interaction. The founding team includes CEO Joshua Ogundu alongside engineer Arihant Jain and designer Komal Shrivastava. The company raised $750,000 in a pre-seed round to fund development. Proceeds will be used to build an iOS app and to make Los Angeles the startup's first launch market. The team hopes to get the product to market by the end of the year.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2019

Career Karma operates a marketplace and navigation tool that helps aspiring students and working professionals find and enroll in job-training programs and bootcamps rather than building its own curriculum. Founded in 2018 by Ruben Harris, Artur Meyster and Timur Meyster, the company has built a large community of career-transitioners and a curated marketplace of training options. In recent months it has seeded partnerships with employers and is shifting toward offering its services as an employee benefit, matching employees and contractors to training programs in its marketplace. The company historically charged bootcamps a placement fee—typically about 10% of a placed student’s tuition, which can range from $10,000 to $50,000—but is rethinking pricing as it moves into enterprise. Career Karma says this enterprise channel will enable employer-paid tuition and serve as a zero-cost acquisition channel to scale placements and upskilling. The startup has said its longer-term vision is to evolve into a large staffing-like business and is hiring to build pricing and product for that phase. Career Karma runs a student-to-bootcamp matching marketplace and community, helping learners find and enroll in coding bootcamps rather than building its own curriculum. The company charges bootcamps a placement fee—typically about 10% of a placed student’s tuition, which the article says can range from $10,000 to $50,000. It has expanded beyond simple matching into wraparound services, including small peer mentorship groups called Squads to support students during programs and job searches. Leadership says the startup is shifting toward becoming a daily-use career platform and plans to broaden its remit to trade schools, colleges and universities to build a larger community. Career Karma reports it has placed more than 3,000 people into job-training programs and has been profitable for the past five months while growing revenue roughly 20% month over month. The article notes an estimated top-line revenue range for the year (between $3M and $15M) based on placements, attributed to the reporter’s math in the story. Career Karma operates a free app that matches users to coding bootcamps and peer groups via a quiz, pairing beginners with more experienced peers for mentoring and study support. The company monetizes by taking a portion of bootcamp tuition when users accept an offer; bootcamps typically charge between $10,000 and $40,000, with median figures cited in a study. Career Karma says it has about 18,000 users and more than 100 downloads per day. The service emphasizes peer groups to improve retention and outcomes for career switchers, particularly those entering tech from nontechnical backgrounds. The startup traces its roots to a 2016 podcast called 'Breaking into Startups,' formed as a company in 2018, and graduated from Y Combinator earlier this year. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company focuses on scaling access to bootcamp options and community-driven support.