• Immersv

  Led · Series A · Aug 2017

  Immersv operates a mobile 360 VR ad network that currently focuses on pre-roll and interstitial video ads while exploring ways to embed immersive experiences into regular web pages. The company reports early campaign performance with click-through rates around 5% and view-throughs near 85% across its first several 360 campaigns. CEO Mihir Shah, who previously led Flyby Media (acquired by Apple), says Immersv plans to extend immersive advertising to VR, AR, and existing mobile platforms. The startup plans a mobile AR-optimized product coming in Q4 to take advantage of platforms like Apple’s ARKit. Immersv intends to use the new funding to expand into markets like Asia and to double its team from 15 to scale product offerings. The company positions immersive formats as an alternative to commoditized mobile video advertising.

• Avalanche Technology

  Participated · Equity · Feb 2016

  Avalanche Technology, based in Fremont, CA, develops Perpendicular STT‑MRAM technology and P‑SRAM™ memory devices. The company aims to replace Flash and SRAM for unified memory architectures in future SoC systems, targeting GPUs, MCUs, DSPs, ASSPs and ASICs. Its technology is designed to deliver high performance and low power at 55, 40 and 28 nm with scalability to 22 and 14 nm. Avalanche reports a proven STT‑MRAM portfolio at multiple geometry nodes and an intellectual property portfolio of over 280 patents and applications. The company plans to use the new funding to accelerate development of its P‑SRAM devices for the Internet of Things, aerospace and defense markets and to pursue higher densities of persistent DRAM required for next‑generation machine learning architectures. Avalanche Technology develops patent-backed discrete and embedded STT-MRAM memory products. The company offers discrete STT-MRAM for OEMs and embedded licenses for strategic customers and partners. Its STT-MRAM is being positioned as a replacement for DRAM and SRAM across enterprise storage, consumer wearables, IoT, computing/networking, automotive and other industries. Avalanche is led by founder and CEO Petro Estakhri and is based in Fremont, CA. The company intends to use the new financing to transition from R&D to commercialization and production in 2016. Avalanche Technology is a mid-stage developer of high-performance, scalable non-volatile magnetic memory products built on its proprietary Spin Programmable Memory (SPMEM) platform. The company says its platform is protected by a comprehensive patent portfolio and is designed for a wide variety of telecommunication, networking, storage, computing and handheld applications. Avalanche licenses its technology for those markets and is led by serial entrepreneurs and veterans from the semiconductor, memory and storage industries. Headquartered in Fremont, CA, the company is focused on advancing its SPMEM products toward commercial production. Recently announced financing is intended to support continued development efforts at this key stage. Avalanche Technology is developing Spin Programmable Memory (SPMEM), a non-volatile memory class that the company says enables lower write current, smaller cell size, and scalability beyond 10nm using proprietary spin current and voltage switching. The firm claims SPMEM provides non-volatility, low power dissipation, unlimited write endurance, high density, and high performance while requiring fewer manufacturing steps and integrating with standard CMOS processes. Avalanche is targeting high-volume embedded and stand-alone applications across telecommunications, computing, mobile, and networking, and cites a global total addressable market above $30 billion. The company says its technology could blur the gap between memory and storage and enable changes in system architectures and performance. Avalanche was founded in 2006 and is based in Fremont, California. Financially, the startup has completed three institutional funding rounds, most recently raising $11.5M, after a prior $7.5M round in February 2010.

• Watchwith

  Participated · Series B · Nov 2015

  Watchwith builds technology that analyzes video content to identify moments for interactive overlay ads that sit at the bottom of the screen rather than interrupt playback. Its product is positioned as an alternative mix to traditional pre-roll and mid-roll ads, aimed at TV networks and online publishers. The company says overlays can be more effective because ads run alongside content rather than separately. Early customers include Fox, NBCUniversal and Viacom, reflecting traction with major broadcasters. CEO Zane Vella frames the approach as appealing for smaller personal devices and large-screen viewing alike, and the company is open to partnering beyond TV networks with other online publishers. Watchwith recently added Brendan Moorcroft, former CEO of Cadreon, to its board and has raised a total of $13 million to date. Watchwith provides a sync-to-broadcast platform-as-a-service that enables broadcasters and TV networks to author, manage and syndicate time-based metadata and related content across screens. Its product suite includes Watchwith Showrunner for content authoring, an enterprise-grade API, business-rules-based syndication features and the Related Content Database. The platform powers social interactivity, one-click commerce, contextual advertising and related-content events on smartphones, tablets, connected TVs, game consoles, OTT set-top boxes and second-screen apps. Watchwith has enabled mobile, web and tablet applications for networks including Bravo, NBC and Syfy, and supports enhanced experiences for customers such as Fox Broadcasting and USA Network through partners like Shazam, Twitter, zeebox, ConnecTV, NextGuide and Viggle. The company completed a $5 million Series A led by Rogers Venture Partners with participation from ARRIS and Gracenote to further develop broadcaster and advertiser tools and expand its syndication reach. Watchwith is headquartered in San Francisco.

• SecureKey Technologies

  Led · Series C · Feb 2015

  SecureKey Technologies provides identity and authentication solutions that simplify consumer access to online services and applications. The company has deployed the SecureKey ConciergeTM federated authentication service and is building a privacy-enhancing digital identity network for commercial rollout. It raised growth capital to fund that commercial rollout and to accelerate development of a new service planned for 2017. That upcoming service is intended to help consumers manage their digital assets and take control of their digital identity in a privacy-enhanced, secure way. Leadership includes founder, chairman and returning CEO Greg Wolfond and Rizwan Khalfan, EVP and Chief Digital Officer. SecureKey has offices in Toronto as well as Boston and San Francisco. SecureKey operates the SecureKey Concierge Service, a federated identity and authentication network used by governments and commercial customers to enable secure, privacy-preserving access to online services. Its cloud-based infrastructure powers Canada’s government services and is the core infrastructure for Connect.Gov in the U.S.; SecureKey received a provisional Authorization to Operate (pATO) from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board in January 2015. The company says the total number of active users enrolled in its network has doubled over the past year and that millions now rely on its identity services. SecureKey’s offerings let consumers authenticate using a trusted credential of their choice while emphasizing privacy and security. The funding is intended to accelerate worldwide adoption and expand the company’s footprint with strategic partners. SecureKey is headquartered in Toronto with offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. The company is backed by a group of venture and corporate investors, including strategic investments from Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Rogers Venture Partners, and Intel Capital. Didier Serra was named Executive Vice President to lead consolidated sales and marketing to support global growth. SecureKey Technologies provides a platform-as-a-service for authentication, payment and identity, embedding a security client in laptops, tablets and mobile devices. Its technology enables partners — including financial institutions, healthcare providers, telecoms and government organizations — to deliver scalable solutions with chip-based identity and payment credentials. The company is working with Intel to deploy its solutions in Intel® Identity Protection Technology on Ultrabook devices later in 2012. Led by CEO Greg Wolfond, SecureKey intends to use the new capital for the commercial rollout of its solutions. The company reported a $30M growth capital raise to support expansion and commercialization. SecureKey is based in Toronto, Canada. SecureKey Technologies is a Toronto, Canada-based designer of hardware and software that enables cryptographic capabilities of debit, credit and identity smartcards. Its solutions extend to Near Field Communication (NFC)-based phones to enable online authentication and online purchases. The company provides technology to allow smartcards and NFC-enabled devices to be used for online authentication and transactions. SecureKey said it received an equity investment from Intel Capital and will use the proceeds to continue to expand. CEO Greg Wolfond commented the company is "thrilled with our association with Intel," noting Intel's leadership in chips and technologies that power everyday computing devices.

• Trapit

  Led · Series B · Dec 2014

  Addvocate-Trapit combines Trapit’s AI-driven content discovery technology, originally spun out of SRI International, with Addvocate’s employee advocacy and social promotion tools to form a single content-marketing platform. The combined product is intended to find highly relevant, topic-based content across the web and enable companies to promote that content through coordinated employee sharing. Leadership is led by Trapit co-founder and CEO Gary Griffiths, with Trapit co-founder Hank Nothhaft remaining as chief product officer; Addvocate co-founder Marcus Nelson left earlier in the year. The companies merged after an introduction from investor Rogers Venture Partners, which also led the announced funding. The combined company announced a $10 million Series B and retained a team of about 40 people while it integrates products. The firm has postponed choosing a more streamlined name until product integration is complete. Trapit provides a personalized content discovery application for brands, publishers and individuals to discover, engage, share and publish their stories. Its recommendation engine uses AI technology developed for DARPA to deliver relevant recommendations based on contextual analysis and user preferences. The company was founded in January 2010 by Gary Griffiths (CEO) and Hank Nothhaft (Chief Product Officer). Trapit is based in Palo Alto, California, and also has offices in Portland. According to the article it has a total of 24 employees. The company has previously raised financing, including a $6.2M Series A in 2012, and most recently raised additional funding via an SEC filing. Trapit uses the same artificial-intelligence technology as Apple’s Siri to recommend content aggregated from roughly 120,000 sources via its web and iPad apps. The company positions itself as a platform to power a broad range of content-recommendation applications beyond news, including publisher distribution and enterprise content monitoring. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Hank Nothhaft says Trapit will work initially with a limited group of partners to refine integrations and documentation. Trapit has extended its technology into video and plans to incorporate video recommendations into its own apps and partner products. The company expects to eventually offer an open SDK so third-party developers can build on its platform. Nothhaft says the Astro partnership puts Trapit “on the path to profitability,” and the startup is considering options that could let it avoid running advertising in its apps. Trapit, built from the same DARPA/SRI AI project that produced Siri, provides personalized web search and discovery using a crawler that indexes hundreds of thousands of sites and an engine that finds content matching users' "traps." The service lets users subscribe to topics rather than site feeds and improves recommendations through user feedback; traps are unique to each user. Trapit delivers over 4 million articles per day and has seen more than 2.5 million users since launch. With the new funding the company plans to grow its development team, continue app development and core R&D, and expand to mobile and tablet platforms. The company’s leadership includes co-founder and CEO Gary Griffiths and co-founder and chief product officer Henry Nothhaft Jr.; its board also includes SRI’s Steve Ciesinski and Frank Meehan of Horizons Ventures. Rob Majteles will join as an outside, non-investing director.

No current team members are available.