Participated · Seed · Aug 2014

Laurel & Wolf operates a web-based marketplace that matches customers with professional designers who deliver digital style boards and shopping lists. Customers pay a flat fee of $299; the company keeps 20% of that fee and also earns affiliate revenue from online sales. Laurel & Wolf has served thousands of customers and works with a network of roughly 650 designers across the U.S. and Canada; the team is about 20 people in L.A. Average single-room budgets on the platform are around $5,500, and projects range from Airbnb units to large homes and startup offices. Planned product and service developments include upgrades to the online design tool, a native mobile app, a program to source product discounts and share sales with designers, and integrated financing via a third‑party credit provider. The company has raised $5.5 million in total funding, including a recent $4.4M Series A. Laurel & Wolf is an online interior design marketplace based in Los Angeles, CA. It provides online interior design services for residential and commercial spaces across the US. Users create a room profile on the platform, pay a one-time flat fee and receive designs from multiple professional interior designers. The company is led by Leura Spielman and Brandon Kleinman. Laurel & Wolf received $1.1M in seed funding. The round was led by Tim Draper with participation from Upside Partnership, Siemer Ventures, Paige Craig, Structure Capital and Jeff Lo.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2014

Dealflicks operates a mobile app that surfaces discounted movie tickets and concession offers by partnering with independent theaters and chains. The app is live in more than 400 theater locations and works with nine of the top 50 U.S. theater chains. Theaters set discounts by showtime, day of week, or expected attendance, with discounts up to 60% and typical ticket discounts around 30% (ticket+popcorn deals ~35–40% off). Dealflicks says roughly 88% of movie seats go unsold and up to 95% beyond opening weekend, driving demand for its service. The company plans to move toward purely dynamic pricing using its data to predict attendance and target discounts by factors like user ratings, opening-weekend performance, and weather. Dealflicks raised seed funding to expand its partnerships and advance its pricing capabilities.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2014

Ayannah operates Sendah, a B2C remittance and mobile-commerce site for overseas Filipino workers, and Sendah Direct, a B2B SaaS platform enabling merchants and businesses to offer digital payments to unbanked customers. The company targets remittances from roughly 10 million overseas Filipino migrants (about 8 million of whom are unbanked) and aims to capture domestic remittance flows as well. Ayannah reports over three years of revenue growth and has raised capital to expand its product and distribution footprint. Its consumer product lets migrants send airtime, insurance, gift certificates and other services to beneficiaries in the Philippines; the B2B product enables retailers and businesses to provide digital commerce to unbanked users. Future plans in the article include adding more money-transfer operators and banks as collecting agents and expanding into remittance markets in Latin America, South Asia, and Africa. Founder and CEO Mikko Perez has stated a long-term ambition to broaden financial services to the Philippines' roughly 70 million unbanked/underbanked population. Ayannah operates Sendah, a gift-remittance platform that lets Filipinos working overseas pay for products and services for family members in the Philippines. The company also runs Sendah Direct, which supplies prepaid credits, bill payments and money-transfer processing to reach the unbanked, and Sendah Connect, a mobile app offering free SIP calls and video content with a prepaid wallet. Launched in 2010, Ayannah reports about 50,000 Sendah users, roughly 1 million repeat customers, 7,000 retail partners, and a staff of 45. Enterprise customers include Smart Communications, and the company has negotiated vendor discounts so some online purchases can be cheaper than off-the-shelf. Ayannah plans expansion into South Asia and Latin America and intends to license its platform to partners across EMEA before year-end, with advanced talks in Central America, Southeastern Europe and Central Asia. The Sendah Connect app is available on Android and Ayannah plans to market it to the US, Japan and Singapore. Financially, the company has raised $2.5 million to date, including a $1 million angel round.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2014

Pie offers cross-platform team chat applications on iOS, Android, Mac, and the web, integrating with Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and other cloud tools. Designed to be less intimidating than traditional enterprise chat products, it deliberately omits developer-centric features, positioning itself for small and midsize businesses and other non-tech verticals such as flower shops, manufacturing plants, universities, and churches. With no paid promotion, the service is already used by more than 2,000 companies, and over 30 % of registered users are active each month. The company plans to introduce a paid tier at $3.14159 per user per month that will add admin controls and rely on a reseller model for distribution. Initial monetization efforts will focus on Japan, leveraging investor relationships for market entry while continuing organic growth in the U.S. Pie’s 10-person team will expand to support product development and go-to-market activities. The founders, Pieter Walraven and Thijs Jacobs, believe Pie can capture an underserved segment that lies between consumer messaging apps and heavier enterprise collaboration suites.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2014

Breaker develops complete entertainment strategies that use video and social media to connect individual creators, artists, brands and media companies. Founded in 2013 by CEO Alan Swarts and Chairman John Possman, the company builds a technology platform to support and amplify original creators and content. Breaker intends to use new funding to accelerate development and implementation of its technology platform and to open a production studio in Tokyo. It also plans to expand the number of original creators it works with and supports. Financially, the company has now raised over 600m yen (approximately USD $5m) to date. Breaker operates a network for the production and delivery of entertainment, music, and fashion video optimized for mobile devices. The company was conceived by digital media venture studio Designed for Revolution Ltd. (DFR Asia), which will play an ongoing management role. Breaker is led by Cofounder & Chief Innovator Ken Sekine and CEO Alan Swarts. Its core product is a mobile-focused video platform and content distribution network serving entertainment and fashion verticals. The company recently completed a $2M seed funding round, providing early-stage capital to support its operations and growth. Breaker is based in Tokyo, Japan.