Participated · Seed · Jul 2026

Manzana Verde operates a delivery service that provides balanced, nutritious meals customized to customers' health objectives and meal plans. The company began in Piura and now operates in Peru (Piura and Lima) and in Mexico, including Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. It reports rapid, exponential growth, a team of over 60 people, and recurrent revenue-generating partnerships with allied restaurants and couriers. Manzana Verde has received incubation and acceleration support, including a $50,000 UTEC Ventures award and winning Seedstars Peru in 2019. With the recent $1.5M Seed raise, the company plans to triple order volume, accelerate growth in Mexico and enter additional cities over the next 12 months.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2025

Holly is an AI-powered platform that modernizes government hiring by transforming outdated systems to accelerate recruitment and embed equity. The product uses artificial intelligence and intergovernmental data collaboration to modernize job classifications, streamline agency workflows, and reduce time-to-hire across roughly 24 million public sector roles. The company highlights that government hiring currently takes 135 days on average and costs taxpayers $86 billion annually in overtime—problems Holly aims to address. Holly is already piloting its platform with the City of Long Beach. The startup was founded in 2023 while its founders pursued joint degrees at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School, and it plans to expand nationally and is actively recruiting. The recent financing will support continued product development and scaling of the platform.

Participated · Series A · Dec 2024

Teachy offers an AI-powered workspace designed to help teachers find and create curriculum-aligned, AI-customizable materials, claiming up to 80% time savings on tasks like lesson planning and grading. The platform is built for schools in Latin America and Asia and addresses challenges such as local curriculum alignment and digital connectivity. Since founding in 2022, Teachy has grown to support 1 million teachers primarily in LATAM and Asia and impacts over 10 million students across more than 170 countries. Teachy plans to use new funding to enhance the product, drive growth, and support regional expansion. The company is hiring engineers and designers to scale its platform and accelerate international growth. Its stated mission is to enable teachers in developing countries to deliver education comparable to top schools in wealthier regions.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2024

Rising Team provides a team performance platform that equips managers to run connecting, interactive team-building sessions remotely or in person without needing an outside facilitator. The software covers leadership topics that drive high-performing teams and offers tools to develop managers, increase employee engagement, and improve retention. Customers named in the article include Bank of Hawaii, Yahoo!, DXC, and Achieve. Led by CEO and founder Jennifer Dulski and based in Menlo Park, the company is introducing aRTi, a conversational AI leadership coach, this summer; aRTi combines research-based leadership best practices with insights from Rising Team sessions to offer personalized recommendations and scripts. Rising Team recently closed an $8M Series A and plans to use the funds to enhance its platform with AI, hire new team members, and expand market presence. The platform is positioned to deepen manager coaching and scale talent development across distributed teams. Rising Team offers a platform that combines management tools and training to help managers motivate, organize and lead their teams. Its tools suite includes proprietary assessments and 1:1 templates designed to surface who team members are, how they want to be appreciated, and what motivates them. Alongside assessments, Rising Team provides training via videos, articles, and audio resources and is building a community for managers to communicate with one another. The company plans to add AI-based custom training tips powered by assessment data in the future. Rising Team is pursuing a bottom-up revenue approach that allows individual managers to purchase the product while also enabling organizations to license it for full employee bases. It is currently in free beta and has a team of eight people, with 60% female and 50% BIPOC representation.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2023

Kinjo is an app that connects to Roblox’s catalog and rates games on a one-to-five flame scale to indicate educational value, letting kids earn points redeemable for Robux. The flame ratings were developed by a team of education and gaming experts who evaluate in‑game rewards and assign scores that translate into Kinjo points. Launched in 2021 and based in Austin, the company was founded by Charles Thornburgh with Laura Malcolm as cofounder and head of product. Kinjo reports around 20,000 players and says users are three times more likely to spend time on productive games; it offers a parental subscription at $12.50 per month that provides insights on playtime and cognitive skills. The team plans to expand its rating system to mini games in Fortnite and Minecraft and to rate YouTube videos and creators, while further refining parental insights to evaluate specific skills taught by popular mini games. Kinjo recently closed a $6.5 million seed round to support growth.