Participated · Series F · May 2021

CircleCI is a continuous-delivery pioneer providing automation for building, testing and deploying software. Founded in 2011, the company runs a CI/CD platform and is expanding its roadmap through acquisitions such as Vamp. CircleCI announced a $100M Series F at a $1.7B valuation and has raised more than $315M to date, including a $100M Series E a little over a year earlier. The company said the pandemic accelerated customer demand for automation as teams moved to remote work. The 15-member Vamp team will join CircleCI and its release-orchestration functionality will be folded into the broader platform. CircleCI now has over 550 employees, a headcount that doubled since last year, and CEO Jim Rose said the company is focused on investing in product and customer needs rather than immediate IPO timing. CircleCI is a continuous-delivery pioneer that provides a platform to automate DevOps pipelines for software teams. The company launched in 2011. CEO Jim Rose says usage has surged recently as forced remote work increased demand for automation in DevOps. CircleCI plans to invest the new capital in platform stability and supporting customers through the transition to remote work. Management said it may consider acquisitions if the right opportunities arise. The company is focused on investing in the platform and customers and is not discussing an IPO at this time. CircleCI, founded in 2011, builds a CI/CD platform that automates the steps between developers making code changes and delivering applications to customers. The company benefits from tailwinds including agile practices, containerization and the rise of DevOps, which have helped CI/CD mainstream among developers. CEO Jim Rose says the firm plans to use the new capital as runway to capture growth as traditional industries lean into software. Target customers now include fintechs, insurance companies and retailers that are adopting software-first practices. CircleCI has not committed to an IPO timetable and remains focused on building the business and serving customers. Financially, the company has raised a total of $115.5 million to date, including the latest round. CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps developers automate building, testing, and deploying code. The company offers both a hosted service and an on-premise solution for enterprises that want to run the service behind their firewalls. According to the company, it has 25,000 customers and 300,000 developers using the platform, a 100 percent year-over-year increase. The platform processes over 7 million builds per month and counts customers such as GoPro, Spotify, Blue Apron, Lyft, Facebook, Coinbase, Docker, Heroku and Change.org. CircleCI competes with tools like Travis CI, Jenkins and Codeship in the CI/CD space. With the new financing, its total funding rises to $56.5 million. Investors say the company is well positioned to help teams deliver products amid the rise of microservices and agile development as it enters its next stage of growth. CircleCI provides developers at technology-driven companies including Facebook, Sony, Kickstarter, and Spotify with a software delivery platform to automate build, test, and deploy processes. Its offerings include CircleCI Enterprise for on-prem deployment and CircleCI for OS X to test and deploy iOS apps. The on-prem deployment enables customers to maintain control over access to source code, test databases, and other resources. Founded in 2011 and led by CEO Jim Rose, the company is based in San Francisco, CA. CircleCI raised $18M in Series B funding and has raised $28M in total funding. The company plans to use the funds for product development, expansion of operations, and to scale sales and infrastructure.

Participated · Series E · Feb 2021

DroneDeploy provides an enterprise-grade platform that captures aerial and ground-level visual data to produce maps, 3D models, and analytics for industries including construction, energy, agriculture, property, logistics, and insurance. The company has expanded beyond aerial capture to include imagery from ground-based cameras and recently updated features such as 360 Walkthrough and Vertical Flight. DroneDeploy reported 259% annual growth in enterprise use in 2020 and strong adoption among Fortune 500 customers, and it cites thousands of European users. It has achieved enterprise security certifications including ISO-27001 and SOC 2 Type 1 attestation. The company plans to use new funding to expand products beyond drones, accelerate its expansion into Europe (including launching an EMEA office), and explore strategic acquisition opportunities. DroneDeploy provides an enterprise-grade drone software solution used by more than 5,000 customers across oil & gas, construction, mining, solar, agriculture, insurance, wind, and search & rescue. Led by co-founder and CEO Mike Winn, the San Francisco-based platform has been used to map more than 100 million acres. The company offers a suite of tools for enterprise drone operations and has announced partnerships with Airbus and Skydio. DroneDeploy plans to use its recent funding to expand internationally, move into new industries, and further build out its offerings for customers. The round brought the company’s total funding to $90m, reflecting its growth and scale in enterprise drone workflows. DroneDeploy is the largest cloud-based drone data platform with a community of 30,000 users that has mapped 30 million acres in 180 countries across 400,000 job sites. The platform delivers professional-grade imagery and analysis, 3D modeling, and a real-time mapping product (Live Map) that stitches RGB and thermal imagery on the edge using iOS devices. Its App Market hosts more than 80 software integrations and the company offers enterprise cloud capabilities for scaling and securing drone operations. DroneDeploy has growing adoption in Energy, Construction, and Agriculture and has developed strategic partnerships with SoftBank, Accenture, and The Climate Corporation. The company raised $25M in a Series C and reports total equity investment raised of over $56M. It plans to use the funds to expand its ecosystem, accelerate industry-focused solutions, and invest heavily in artificial intelligence to build new workflows. DroneDeploy offers a SaaS platform that lets users plan flights, pilot drones singly or in fleets, and gather and analyze imagery to produce detailed maps and 3-D models. The technology is used across industries—most commonly in agriculture, construction, and roof inspections—and has been deployed in 130 countries. Its platform has been used to map more than 5 million acres internationally and has been applied to specialized use cases such as crash-site imaging, landfill volume measurement, and locating shallow graves. The company was founded in 2013 via AngelPad by Mike Winn, Jono Millin, and Nicholas Pilkington; Mike Winn is CEO. DroneDeploy plans to use new funding for hiring, product development, and sales and marketing, and to add more access and controls for large teams. The firm envisions making UAVs and the data they gather useful for any business and potentially integrating with autonomous ground robots. DroneDeploy provides a cloud-based SaaS platform and mobile apps that autonomously pilots drones, captures aerial imagery, and processes that data into maps and 3D models for customers in farming, construction, and mining. The platform simplifies flight planning and automates photogrammetry so users can launch flights from a mobile device and receive processed maps in minutes. Core features today focus on large-area mapping, volumetric estimates, and delivering shareable, actionable imagery; the product starts at $99 per month and is just exiting beta with an initial U.S. focus. The company plans to add deeper data processing and automated change-detection features — for example, notifying rail companies of obstructions or reporting daily changes on construction sites. DroneDeploy announced a partnership with drone maker DJI to broaden hardware compatibility and market reach. The startup is using new funding to scale operations and build the additional platform features it describes.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2017

ColorChip develops Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) platform and Top-Of-Rack interconnect optical transceivers used for high-definition video and data transmission across telecommunications, networking, cloud and storage markets. The company operates a production facility in Thailand and maintains offices in San Jose, California. Founded in 2001 by CEO Yigal Ezra, ColorChip focuses on supplying hyper-scale optical transceivers for datacenters and HPCs. It will use newly raised funds to accelerate go-to-market efforts, expand research and development initiatives, and grow manufacturing capabilities. The article reports an additional $17M was secured as part of the recent financing round, bringing the round total to $37M. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article. ColorChip develops dense, hyper-scale transceivers and advanced optical splitters designed to accelerate delivery of streaming HD video, virtual reality, cloud computing, and IoT traffic from data centers. Its product, called SystemOnGlass, is produced and manufactured in-house; the company is noted as the only Israeli chip maker to both produce and manufacture its own product. The components are aimed at reducing latency and improving image delivery for high-bandwidth services. ColorChip was founded in 2001 by Dr. Shimon Eckhouse and Prof. Shlomo Rushin and is based in Yokneam near Haifa. Financially, the company has raised $25 million in the latest financing and $60 million in total to date. An investor-side board appointment from the latest round signals active investor involvement going forward.

Led · Series B · Jul 2016

Zeek is a Tel Aviv-based web and mobile marketplace that lets consumers buy discounted gift vouchers for over 350 UK brands and sell unwanted vouchers for cash. The platform is available via web and app. Led by co-founder and CEO Daniel Zelkind, the company focuses on secondary-market voucher liquidity and consumer savings. The business raised $9.5m in the reported funding round. Zeek intends to use the new capital to build the team, grow its UK presence and expand overseas. No operating metrics beyond the number of partner brands were disclosed in the article. Zeek is a mobile marketplace that lets consumers sell and buy gift certificates, cards and e-vouchers via a smartphone app. Sellers scan vouchers, set asking prices and list them on the marketplace; buyers search by brand and purchase at discounted rates. The app includes an eWallet feature that helps buyers and sellers track their vouchers. Zeek is led by Daniel Zelkind (CEO), Itay Erel (CMO) and Ziv Isaiah (CTO). It is available in Israel and the UK and was planning rollouts in Portugal and Poland. The company raised $3M in venture capital from Blumberg Capital, Qualcomm Venture and Uri Levin to support expansion in Europe in 2015.