Participated · Seed · Mar 2022

Pareto provides human-in-the-loop virtual analysts that collect and analyze data to generate actionable insights for sales, marketing and recruiting pipelines. The company began as a bootcamp to train women as virtual assistants and pivoted in 2020 to automate data collection and build technology around virtual analysis while retaining its operations teams. Hundreds of businesses, including Modern Fertility, Wander, Launch House and Pave, use Pareto’s service. The operations team is women-led, was 40 members last year and has since doubled, and monthly recurring revenue rose from $10,000 to $50,000. Pareto plans to scale by shifting from operationally intensive virtual assistant work toward a more technical virtual analysis product and to build out engineering and marketing teams. The company plans to use new capital to refine product-market fit, determine pricing and long-term value, and convert one-time customers into long-term customers as it prepares for a Series A.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2020

Athlane is a platform that connects esports streamers with brands to facilitate sponsorships and endorsements through data and streamlined communications. It offers products for brands (Athlane Terminal and Insights Hub) to manage sponsorships and analyze audience fit, and products for streamers (Athlane Pro and the Content Hub) to manage deals, negotiate terms, and analyze viewership. The company uses proprietary data partnerships, including with Twitter, and machine learning to surface audience overlap and performance insights. Athlane also provides a no-code Shop tool that lets streamers build storefronts aggregating endorsed products. The startup charges brands on a tiered SaaS model; streamers get a first sponsorship free and are charged $10–$20 per subsequent deal, and agencies pay discovery fees. Athlane is launching with $3.3M in new capital and says COVID-19-driven viewership growth has increased brand interest.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2018

Bounce operates a mobile app that lets travelers find and access local businesses to store and move luggage and related items, with partners that receive a revenue share for servicing app users. The company has grown revenue 20x since its $12M Series A in Spring 2022 and says APAC revenue is expanding up to 4x year-over-year. Bounce reports more than one million people land on its website or app each month, has 13,000+ partners, and its network touches roughly 4,000 cities in 100 countries. Since launching its app in 2019, the service has been used to store about 6 million bags. Near-term plans funded by the new capital include market expansion (notably Asia-Pacific), adding more service verticals such as Bounce for Hotels, and increasing high-quality locations near transport hubs. The company projects it can reach around 30,000 locations by the end of 2026 while prioritizing location relevance over pure quantity. Bounce operates a distributed retail network that provides luggage storage and package-acceptance services through more than 7,000 partner locations in 40 countries. Its core product is a marketplace that aggregates SMB supply (hotels, post offices, shops, etc.) and shares revenue with partners—typically a 50/50 split—while covering fees like payment processing and marketing. The company served “tens of thousands” of customers per month and says it grew revenue 38x in 2021 to reach “millions,” with about 45% of revenue coming from outside the U.S. Roughly 2,000 locations currently offer package acceptance; London and Paris are among its largest city markets. Bounce plans to expand its service offerings (including more subscription options) and to fast-scale in Europe, targeting Italy, France and the UK, supported by a European HQ in Lisbon. It also runs partner programs (BounceBack and BouncePlus) that provide guaranteed payouts, marketing support and other incentives to SMB partners. Bounce operates a luggage-storage platform that lets travelers book short-term bag and luggage storage through local partner businesses via its website and mobile app. Bookings include BounceShield protection covering up to $10,000 and free cancellation before a booking begins. The company has expanded into all 50 U.S. states and into 20 additional countries, with more than 200 storage points in New York City, over 200 in Los Angeles, 100 in Chicago, and thousands of locations across other major tourist cities including London, Paris, Singapore, and Sydney. Bounce says it has grown more than 30x in the year and is beginning to move into additional verticals such as a recently launched Package Acceptance offering. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco, the company aims to make travel simpler by partnering with local businesses to offer convenient short-term storage. The recent funding will support further geographic expansion and product growth. Bounce is a San Francisco, CA–based mobile platform for booking daily storage. Led by CEO Cody Candee, the company enables on-demand storage bookings across New York, San Francisco, Washington DC and Chicago via partnerships with local retailers such as hotels and dry cleaners. It operates more than 100 storage locations and, after one year with its web-based product, has stored tens of thousands of bags. Customers include business travelers, urban commuters and parents. The company raised $1.2M and intends to use the funds to roll out to dozens of new cities throughout 2019.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2018

Naked Labs ships a mirror-based 3D body scanner that builds a model of users and highlights where fitness progress is occurring. The company began taking pre-orders last year for the $1,395 Naked 3D Fitness Tracker and has started shipping those orders, with hopes to have the device generally available next quarter. The device consists of two parts: a scale that houses sensors and a computer, and a weight scale that spins the user so the stationary mirror can capture a body scan in about 15 seconds. The system reports body fat percent, lean mass and fat mass, circumferences, side-by-side comparisons with earlier scans, and historical graphs. Hardware includes an Intel x86 processor, 4GB DDR4 RAM and a 64GB SSD so depth data can be stitched on-device and beamed to the phone rather than uploaded to the cloud. Naked Labs uses Intel RealSense depth sensors (no RGB cameras) to produce a depth-based avatar and states that it will use the funding to scale manufacturing, hire staff, and develop new products. Naked Labs makes the Naked 3D Fitness Tracker, an internet-connected full-length mirror and a wirelessly rechargeable, rotating scale that together produce grayscale 3D body scans and metrics via a mobile app. The system uses Intel RealSense 3D depth sensors and Intel quad-core processors to derive accurate scans in about 20 seconds and can store data for up to six users. The mobile app displays realistic 3D illustrations and tracks detailed metrics over time, including symmetry and circumference of biceps, calves, thighs, hips and waist, body-fat percentage, hip-to-waist ratio, and weight, and helps users set goals with expert-referenced ranges. Naked began taking preorders at a $499 price point via naked.fit, with shipping slated for March 2017. The company was co-founded in 2015 by CEO Farhad Farahbakhshian and COO Ed Sclater and is based in San Francisco. Naked has raised seed funding from New Enterprise Associates, Three Leaf Ventures, and Monstro Ventures, though the company has not disclosed the amount.

Participated · Series A · May 2018

Axiom Exergy develops Refrigeration Battery® technology that enables commercial and industrial refrigeration systems to operate intelligently via cloud-connected power management. The company offers Storage-as-a-Service to supermarkets and commercial buildings to access high refrigeration-based energy loads. Led by CEO and co-founder Amrit Robbins, Axiom targets grocery stores and cold storage facilities with its thermal energy storage solutions. The firm intends to scale these solutions in large, multi-site rollouts and begin rolling out additional Refrigeration Battery features such as grid services. Axiom recently raised $7.6M in a Series A, bringing total funding to date to $12.5M. Previous investors include Tesla CTO JB Straubel, Larry Mohr, Seabed VC and the Stanford-StartX Fund. Axiom Exergy develops the Refrigeration Battery, a modular, retrofit thermal energy storage system that freezes a tank of salt water at night to ‘store cooling’ and supply refrigeration services during peak hours. The system operates in parallel with existing refrigeration equipment, enabling more than six hours of load shifting without physical or programming changes to existing systems. Axiom says the Refrigeration Battery can reduce peak energy demand by up to 40 percent and provides backup cooling to protect perishable inventory during outages. The company targets supermarkets, food distribution centers, cold storage facilities and utilities seeking behind-the-meter, long-duration storage for congestion management. Axiom reports a growing pipeline with over $5 million in orders and offers no-money-down financing so hosts can save from day one. The company plans to use recent funding to scale deployments, expand the project development team, advance product development and testing, and run early pilots with major grocery chains in California.