The Venture Codex

Led · Series A · Feb 2023

Kanarys, led by CEO Mandy Price and based in Dallas, Texas, offers a DEIB technology platform that provides framework, benchmarking, and data for companies to incorporate DEI into every area of the organization. Its Equity Innovation Solution delivers a data-driven approach to pinpoint DEI blindspots across talent acquisition, retention, performance reviews, and pay practices, enabling targeted, immediate action and measurement of impact on business outcomes. The company serves major customers including Yum! Brands, Silicon Labs, the Chuck E. Cheese Corporation, 7-Eleven, and other Fortune 500 companies, and has strategic partnerships with Prospanica, the National Society of Black Engineers, and INROADS. Kanarys has grown over five years to a category industry leader in DEIB. Following the Series A, the company plans to recruit six executive hires focused on DEIB, engineering, finance, operations, product marketing, and sales, and to further expand the Kanarys DEIB technology platform. The company has raised a total of $10.5 million to date. Kanarys provides a data-driven service that assesses companies' diversity and inclusion efforts by analyzing Equal Employment Opportunity reports, reviewing policies on promotion, recruitment and benefits, and conducting quarterly employee surveys. It integrates with customers' HR systems to track pay equity and promotions. The company also operates a job-seeker database of roughly 1,000 companies that functions like Glassdoor with a focus on D&I perspectives. Launched in late 2019 by Mandy Price, Bennie King and Star Carter, Kanarys counts about a dozen clients including Yum Brands, the Dallas Mavericks and Neiman Marcus. The startup raised $3 million in seed funding to help expand its product and customer base. Kanarys positions its offering as a way to surface structural and systemic inequities and enable companies to make informed, intersectional decisions around diversity and inclusion. Kanarys is a Dallas, TX–based technology platform that helps companies and employees collaborate on workplace diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Led by CEO Mandy Price and COO Star Carter, the platform lets employees anonymously provide feedback by rating their company on five key metrics and answering DEI-focused questions that incorporate AI and machine learning. Kanarys aggregates and anonymizes that feedback to produce analytics and DEI metrics that clients can use to benchmark internally over time and against industry competitors. Using those in-depth analytics, the company assists clients with implementing solutions to create more inclusive employee environments. The company has secured strategic partners including the University of Texas at Austin, National Urban League and Spectrum Knowledge. The $1.5M raised in its first funding round will be used to grow the business-development and sales teams and expand its technical and analytics staff.

Participated · Seed · May 2022

Sustain.Life provides a SaaS platform that makes carbon accounting and environmental-impact management accessible and affordable for SMEs. The product replaces spreadsheets and black‑box estimates with auditable, verifiable data so teams without deep expertise can measure operations and scale across supply chains. It offers tools to manage emissions across areas like energy, water, and waste and to report progress in line with evolving reporting frameworks such as the SEC climate disclosure rule. Since launching in November 2021, the company has attracted brand customers across CPG, EV, and fintech industries and formed partnerships with Interactive Brokers, Avetta, and the Sustainable Cannabis Coalition. Sustain.Life announced a $16M seed raise and plans to use the funds to build out platform offerings and scale its user base. The founding team includes former Walmart and Jet.com executives Mike Hanrahan, Annalee Bloomfield, and Patrick Campagnano, with Alyssa Rade serving as Chief Sustainability Officer. Sustain.Life is a SaaS platform offering carbon accounting and sustainability program tools for businesses. The product provides a free entry-level tier with scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions calculators and a full platform priced at $250/month. Features include emissions calculators, program management tools, standards-alignment tools, employee benefit offerings, and a sustainability policies builder. The company launched out of beta with pre-baked customers including Dame, You.com, and the Sustainable Cannabis Coalition. Sustain.Life is the first company from 4Sided Venture Studio and was co-founded by Annalee Bloomfield, Mike Hanrahan, and Patrick Campagnano, three former Walmart executives. It has raised $7 million in pre-seed funding to date, though the company declined to disclose the investors.

Led · Series A · Apr 2021

PursueCare offers virtual evidence-based addiction treatment for opioids, alcohol and other substance use disorders through a mobile app. The company provides a transitional digital addiction treatment program for patients who face significant barriers to in-person care and partners with health systems, community health partners, employers and health plans; patients can also seek treatment without a referral. PursueCare is available in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and all of New England and has national expansion plans. Founded in 2019 and based in Middletown, CT, the company implements integrated programs with hospitals, community health centers, employers and universities. PursueCare intends to use new funding to continue implementing these integrated programs and to enhance the patient virtual care experience. The company’s latest financing increased its Series A to north of $11M. PursueCare provides a tele-MAT platform delivered via an app and services that connect patients with medical providers who can prescribe medications such as Suboxone, addiction counselors, behavioral therapists, and at-home toxicology screening. Its PursueCare Connect portal enables rapid collaboration with on-site providers at community health centers, hospitals, primary care, and residential programs to assess and transition patients into virtual care at home. Care coordinators help patients start treatment plans and provide ongoing support throughout care. The company also operates a Joint Commission–accredited pharmacy, CompreCare Rx, which can ship medications directly to patients in 25 states. The app is designed for use on smartphones and tablets and to work for users with limited data plans or poor cellular service. PursueCare raised a Series A of undisclosed amount and intends to use the funds to expand its virtual medication-assisted treatment programs in response to COVID-19. PursueCare operates a telehealth opioid addiction treatment network available via iOS/Android mobile app, tablet, or computer. The platform connects patients to addiction treatment physicians, counselors, and outpatient programs and provides referral coordination, marketing, scheduling, billing and population health data to partner providers. Users can input insurance information or choose payment options, select providers, and request on-demand sessions with certified addiction counselors through secure video conferencing. PursueCare also operates a Joint Commission and safe pharmacy-accredited mail-order pharmacy that can fill and mail medications such as suboxone and naloxone. The company intends to use proceeds from the growth funding round to expand its technology services offering and its provider network of addiction treatment professionals and outpatient programs. PursueCare is led by CEO and co-founder Nick Mercadante and is based in Middletown, Conn.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2019

DataCubes offers the d3 Underwriting™ software platform, which applies machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze semi-structured insurance submissions and over four billion objects in its data lake. The platform is designed to optimize underwriting workflow processes for SMB and middle-market risks across standard commercial and specialty lines. The company said it will use new funding for research and development and to expand its team, targeting the addition of 50 employees in 2020. Customers named in the article include The Hanover, Selective Insurance, RLI, Columbia Insurance Group, Penn National Insurance, Tangram, WCF Insurance and Synergy Coverage Solutions. DataCubes was founded in 2016 and is based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It closed a $15.2M Series B to support those growth initiatives. DataCubes offers the D3 data science platform that leverages machine learning and AI to analyze sources such as unstructured text and images to generate underwriting insights. The platform enables carriers to accurately quote commercial insurance policies by asking customers a few questions and by scoring external data to prioritize applications. D3 eliminates paperwork and automates underwriting while providing a holistic view of risk through analysis of internal and external data. The company is led by Kuldeep Malik (CEO and co-founder) and Harish Neelamana (Chief Product Officer). DataCubes completed a $2.5M Series A financing to support its growth. It intends to use the funds to extend platform capabilities to additional lines of business and to scale sales and marketing efforts.

Participated · Series A · May 2019

Reconstruct is a Menlo Park–based SaaS company that offers a Visual Command Center (VCC) to create and manage visual reality digital twins across the lifecycle of capital assets. The VCC is used for construction, renovation, as-builts and asset management, employing image recognition and photogrammetry point clouds. The company reports thousands of projects used every day across six continents and highlights industrial and infrastructure customer ROI from its measurability, mapping and monitoring capabilities. Customers cite rapid reality-mapped deliverables (for example, a 600,000 sq ft federal project rendered in two days versus months by traditional laser scanning) and sub-inch measurement accuracy. Reconstruct plans to use proceeds from its recent strategic up round to accelerate deployment of AI and machine-learning capabilities and support global expansion. The company emphasizes AI-driven insights and analytics to identify issues earlier and improve capital-asset management. Reconstruct offers an AI- and computer-vision-driven SaaS platform (Visual Command Center™) that combines reality capture, design, and schedule to enable remote quality control and progress tracking. Its multi-patented automated detection and field-mapping capabilities deliver sub-inch measurable visibility for projects of varying scale. The platform is used by customers ranging from 7-Eleven and McDonald’s to billion-dollar industrial operations in renewable energy and pharmaceuticals, and Pfizer uses it across global production facilities. Reconstruct has grown roughly 300% over the past two years. The company plans integrations with industry software such as Bluebeam and connections to Nemetschek brands to accelerate global expansion and customer acquisition. Founded in 2016, Reconstruct maintains offices in Silicon Valley and the Midwest with team members around the world. Reconstruct is a Menlo Park, California and Champaign, Illinois–based provider of a SaaS platform for construction and real estate. The company offers an AI and digital-twin software platform with indoor and outdoor views that let project stakeholders track and resolve issues in a virtual environment before they impact cost and schedule. Its “visual command center” enables project executives to proactively and precisely manage construction progress, including detecting current, past, and future performance issues. The platform’s 3D timelines enable real-time coordination among general contractors, subcontractors, owners, and lenders. Customers include Walbridge, Clayco, Taisei, and Kajima. Reconstruct raised $7.7M in a Series A and intends to use the funds to expand operations and open offices in Texas, Chicago, New York City, and Tokyo. The company was founded by Dr. Mani Golparvar and Dr. Derek Hoiem and is led by CEO Zak MacRunnels.