• Autopilot

  Participated · Equity · Jun 2017

  Autopilot provides marketing automation software that sends targeted emails and texts to existing customers to increase engagement and revenue. The company positions its targeting technology as affordable for small and mid-sized businesses, according to CEO Mike Sharkey. Its product also facilitates webinars and events and the company is launching a feature called Insights for tracking marketing goals. Customers pay on a subscription basis; Autopilot counts Microsoft, Atlassian, Lyft and roughly 2,300 other customers. Financially, the company has raised a total of $32 million to date. The founders relocated to San Francisco, and CEO Mike Sharkey previously built a startup that was sold to HomeAway. Autopilot is a cloud-based multi-channel marketing automation platform that helps companies connect their marketing systems, automate touchpoints, and convert customers. The platform supports email, SMS and physical mail and includes built-in integrations with partners such as Salesforce, Segment, Slack, Twilio, Zapier and GoodData. Autopilot says it will use the new financing to bring personalized marketing to the masses and to transform every business with powerful customer journeys. The company also launched Flight School, a marketing education platform that offers pre-built customer-journey templates called Guides, best-practice content, and shareable HTML, video and e-book resources to lower the barrier to entry. Since launching four months prior, Autopilot has signed up over 3,000 companies; pricing on the self-service product starts at $4 per month for 500 contacts. The company has raised $20.5M in total venture funding to date. Autopilot (formerly Bislr) provides marketers a visual marketing automation platform that consolidates campaign tools—landing pages, blogs, email campaigns—and lead database management into a single service. The platform emphasizes ease of use to reduce complexity and broaden adoption compared with traditional marketing automation tools. It integrates with CRM systems such as Salesforce and Netsuite to connect campaign activity with sales workflows. The company plans to release an SDK later this year to give developers access to its lead intelligence and automation apps. Autopilot recently raised a $10 million Series B to fund growth and product development. The funding is intended primarily to accelerate customer acquisition and further product enhancements.

• GreenSync

  Led · Series B · Jan 2017

  GreenSync is an Australian energy technology company developing deX, an open‑access middleware platform to register and make distributed energy resources visible and usable by the grid. deX is technology‑agnostic and lets home and commercial assets — solar PV, batteries, smart air conditioners and hot water systems — bid into markets for services such as frequency management, wholesale energy and reducing network constraints. The platform aims to provide visibility and control of DER services to meet distribution network operational requirements, unlock consumer value and support the grid’s transition to predominantly renewable generation. deX has delivered its first production release and now has nearly 100 organisations and utility partners across 20 countries. It is being used in South Australia by Simply Energy and SAPN in a virtual power plant trial funded by ARENA. ARENA has committed $10 million in funding to GreenSync to accelerate deployment and scale deX for national rollout, with the company highlighting export opportunities for the technology. The platform rollout is expected to total $32 million; deX was initially created during an ARENA A‑Lab collaboration in 2016 and piloted with $450,000 of ARENA funding in the ACT and Victoria. GreenSync develops a proprietary software platform that uses smart control to optimize energy resource use across electricity grids, reducing the need for over-investment in infrastructure. Its platform is deployed by transmission and distribution companies, large industrial and commercial facilities, and residential and remote precincts. Led by founder and CEO Dr. Phil Blythe, the company focuses on energy-market optimization and grid orchestration. The Series B proceeds will be used to further develop its energy-tech product suite for the Australian market. GreenSync also plans to expand its technology offerings to new shores using the fresh capital.

• Fillr: Autofill as a Service

  Participated · Series A · Nov 2016

  Fillr builds cloud-based artificial intelligence and machine-learning powered autofill and data exchange technology for payments, checkouts and other online data transactions. The company is led by CEO Chris Koch and Chief Product Officer Chad Stephens. Fillr has partnered with more than 20 browsers, handset OEMs and mobile software providers, representing a collective reach of more than 150 million MAUs. More than two thirds of its transactions originate from North America and the United Kingdom. The company plans to use the new funding to expand its global presence in North American, European and Asian markets and to further advance its technology and AI. Fillr is based in Melbourne, Australia and San Francisco, California.

• Ortto

  Participated · Equity · Jul 2015

  Autopilot offers a multi-channel marketing automation platform positioned between basic email tools and complex enterprise systems, aiming to democratize personalized marketing. The company launched Flight School, an education platform with guides, templates and training to increase marketer adoption. Autopilot reports over 3,000 company signups and integrates with partners including GoodData, Salesforce, Segment, Slack, Twilio and Zapier. Clients named in the article include Cambium Networks, Dolby, Freshdesk, Narrative and PandaDoc. Pricing is advertised starting at $20 per month for 1,000 contacts. The company said it will use new financing to expand access to personalized customer journeys and lower barriers to entry for SMBs and larger companies alike. Bislr, founded in 2011 by Michael and Peter Sharkey, has developed an OS for marketing automation, content management and real-time analytics. The platform enables marketers to create and optimize lead-nurturing campaigns, landing pages and campaign/microsites for social and mobile without IT support. Bislr launched the latest version of its intelligent marketing OS in February 2013. Customers include Cambium Networks, DocuSign and SOL Republic. The company said it will use new funding to expand sales and marketing efforts and further develop the product. The company is based in San Francisco, CA. Bislr provides a drag-and-drop website builder that integrates with existing marketing automation (MA) and customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Its sites include "social apps" to embed social content, are automatically optimized for mobile, and collect detailed visitor profiles and activity. Bislr pulls social data when possible to surface real-time tweets and Facebook updates from visitors and exposes analytics and A/B testing that can automatically select better variations. The company was founded by CEO Michael Sharkey with his two brothers and had been testing the system with a few small businesses. It is officially launching and is opening up to serve larger customers. Financially, Bislr announced a $3.5 million Series A funding round led by Southern Cross Venture Partners with participation from Tim Draper and Terry and Katrina Garnett.

• Sunverge Energy

  Led · Series B · Jun 2014

  Sunverge offers a grid-aware Distributed Energy Resource (DER) control and aggregation platform, including its Sunverge Infinity edge controller and a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) orchestration layer. The platform delivers real-time grid-edge visibility and dynamic co-optimization of services on both sides of the meter for solar, energy storage, EVs/chargers and other smart devices. Sunverge targets utilities, aiming to help them operationalize and integrate DERs into core utility planning and operations. The company plans to expand and evolve its platform and deepen partnerships with utilities to support grid modernization and decarbonization goals. Financially, Sunverge announced an $11 million capital raise to fund ongoing innovation and platform expansion. The company is based in San Francisco. Sunverge Energy, founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, designs and manufactures cloud-based intelligent energy storage systems and a distributed energy resource management platform. Its systems enable utilities to execute demand-response programs at the individual-customer level or aggregate assets into “Virtual Power Plants” to meet peak demand across communities or service areas. The company is advancing the Sunverge Solar Integration System (SIS), a distributed energy storage and management appliance composed of storage batteries, power electronics, and cloud-based system-management software, which will be available this summer. Sunverge raised $36.5M in a Series C financing and will use the funds to expand into new geographies. Investors in the round include AGL Energy, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), SBCVC, Siemens Venture Capital and Total Energy Ventures International. Ken Munson is the company's founder and CEO. Sunverge Energy develops the Sunverge Solar Integration System (SIS), a distributed energy storage solution that integrates batteries, power electronics and multiple energy inputs with software running locally and in the cloud. The company was founded in 2009 and is led by President and CEO Kenneth Munson from Stockton, CA. Sunverge has deployed nearly 300 SIS units at customer sites across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and South Korea. The company closed a $15M Series B and intends to use the proceeds to exploit growth opportunities in key markets worldwide. Its product combines hardware and software to manage distributed energy resources for customers and utilities. The business appears focused on scaling deployments internationally using the new capital.

No current team members are available.