The Venture Codex

Participated · Series A · Apr 2024

Founded in 2020, Backflip offers an all-in-one platform that combines deal-analysis software, market data and purpose-built financing products for residential real-estate investors. The company originates and services residential transition loans through its subsidiary Double Backflip, LLC, and recently formed Backflip Asset Management, LLC to manage loan assets in-house. By controlling origination, servicing and asset management, Backflip claims superior data integrity and a differentiated borrower experience. Its vertically integrated model has enabled the firm to tap institutional capital markets, most recently through an inaugural securitization, to lower its cost of funds and expand lending capacity. The platform supports entrepreneurs investing in single-family homes, thereby aiming to refresh housing supply in local communities. The new securitization structure provides up to $300 million of revolving lending capacity, positioning Backflip to scale nationwide. Backflip’s mobile app is available on iOS and Android, further extending its reach to individual investors.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2023

Trellis Research, Inc., based in Los Angeles, provides an AI-powered legal intelligence platform that gives litigators access to state trial court data. Its platform lets users search millions of court dockets and documents to uncover parties’ litigation history and opposing counsel’s past strategy. The product analyzes millions of state trial court cases to surface powerful analysis for users’ matters. Trellis also enables litigators to track legal issues as they are being decided in real time. The company currently serves some of the largest law firms and legal departments. Trellis was founded by Nicole Clark and Alon Shwartz. Trellis Research is a Los Angeles-based startup developing decision-making tools for litigators. The company maintains a database of California court records. According to the startup, it has created a legal intelligence decision engine. On March 27, 2019, Trellis raised $2M in a seed funding round. The source of the funding was not disclosed. The article containing further details was available only to paid members of socalTECH.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2023

Trellis provides litigators with an AI-powered legal intelligence platform that gives professionals access to state trial court data. Users can search through millions of court dockets and documents to uncover intelligence about parties’ litigation history and opposing counsel’s past strategy. The platform analyzes millions of state trial court cases to surface the most powerful analysis for a given case. Litigators can also track legal issues as they are being decided in real time. Trellis currently serves some of the largest law firms and legal departments. The company is co‑founded by CEO Nicole Clark and CPO Alon Shwartz. Trellis Research is a searchable database of state trial court data that offers an AI-driven analytics platform for legal practitioners. Its two main products, Smart Search and Judge Analytics, let users find past rulings, search opposing counsel dockets, review influential court documents such as motions, and analyze judges' ruling tendencies and biographical information. The company aggregates data from 362 trial courts across twelve states, with additional county-level coverage in New Jersey, Ohio, and Connecticut planned by year-end. Co-founded by Nicole Clark and Alon Shwartz and based in Los Angeles, Trellis intends to accelerate product expansion and hiring and to broaden its use cases beyond the legal vertical. Management plans to introduce the platform into adjacent industries that need access to its data, including real estate and property management, financial services, and insurance. Financially, Trellis completed a $14.1M Series A that brought its total fundraising to $20M. Trellis Research builds a search and analytics tool for state court data and judicial analytics. The company operates the largest database of California Superior Court records and offers a freemium service where trial decisions and filings are accessible via organic search, while power users pay for full access, downloads, printing, and analysis. Individual subscriptions cost $100 and enterprise contracts are negotiable. Founder Nicole Clark began collecting the underlying data in 2016 and founded Trellis in 2018 after using the product as a litigator. Trellis graduated from Techstars and claims attorneys can double their win rate using its software. The company plans to expand into New York, Texas, Florida, and Delaware over the next year. Trellis Research offers a decision engine and smart search built on the largest database of California state trial court records, with more than 5.1 million records. The platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to produce judge biographies, decision history analysis, strategy reports, and predictions of settlement ranges and class member payouts. Trellis is already in use at several AM100 firms in California and positions itself as a must-have research tool for litigators. The company publicly launched its decision engine and plans to expand to New York in late 2019. Trellis was founded and is led by CEO and co-founder Nicole Clark and is a graduate of Techstars LA 2018. The product targets a large legal services market and aims to fill a gap left by incumbent research providers that focus on appellate rather than state trial court data.

Participated · Series A · Dec 2022

Buckzy Payments operates a proprietary real-time cross-border payment settlement network and embedded finance platform that offers multi-currency bank accounts, local settlement accounts, and real-time FX quoting and booking. The platform targets financial institutions, neobanks and fintechs and emphasizes no hidden fees or unnecessary overhead costs. Led by founder and CEO Abdul Naushad and based in Toronto, the company has been live since 2020 and has added over 140 customers. Buckzy's payment network currently disburses funds to over 80 countries, including the UK, India, the EU, the Philippines and the UAE, and it recently expanded its network in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Uruguay). The company raised USD$14.5M in a Series A and intends to use the funds to enter new geographies and expand its product offerings. Buckzy Payments is a Toronto-based fintech that operates a real-time global payments network for international B2B, B2C and P2P transfers. Led by CEO and founder Abdul Naushad, the platform moves funds between banks and third-party wallets. Funds reach recipients in under five minutes and the service is available 24×7, 365 days a year. The network charges zero transaction fees. The company intends to use the seed proceeds to scale its real-time global payments network and expand its cross-border remittance, bill-pay and B2B commerce capabilities.

Participated · Series A · May 2022

Bliq provides a single interface that corrals multiple ride-hailing and delivery apps so drivers can offer their time to several platforms simultaneously. The product offers side-by-side job comparisons, surge maps driven by real-time driver activity, and driver-to-driver chat functionality. Bliq says its service helps drivers be in the right place at the right time and claims drivers earn about 30% more each month through the app. The company reports roughly 13,000 registered drivers across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Portugal, and Romania. Management plans to use the new funding to expand the product to more drivers across the EMEA region and further develop the multi-app orchestration features. CEO and co-founder Julian Glaab frames the product as the first work tool designed to support how on-demand drivers actually work. Bliq offers the Bliq Ride app to help self-employed ridesharing and delivery drivers organise rides and view multiple providers in a single interface. The app displays high-demand passenger regions, flags areas with driver oversupply, and helps drivers strategically position themselves to increase earnings. Bliq processes real-time traffic and user data from its driver community using edge computing and artificial intelligence to deliver driver insights. Key features include payment verification that messages providers and helps recoup disputed earnings, and an in-app chat for sharing road information and obstacles. Bliq has been active in the German market since 2018 and currently offers its service in Cologne, Berlin and Munich. The company plans to use the new funding to expand across Europe and further develop Bliq Ride’s functional scope.