The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Dec 2018

Zeguro builds a Cyber Safety Platform that combines SaaS cyber risk management with cyber insurance offerings for small and midsize enterprises. The platform is designed to continually monitor risks, train employees, and enable rapid recovery from cyber attacks while providing turnkey recommendations and preventative services. It also allows SMBs to purchase cyber insurance tailored to their risk profile, industry, and business size. Zeguro targets companies with revenues under $100 million, including law firms, retailers, and medical practices. The company cites strategic partnerships with HSB (Munich Re) and QBE as validation and channels for broader distribution. Management positions the product to automate cybersecurity processes and reduce overall cyber risk exposure for its target customers.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2018

8th Wall provides a one-stop XR software toolkit and Unity plug-in that lets developers add full-scale tracking, surface detection, lighting estimation and camera overlays to mobile apps and games. The company emphasizes accessibility by adding tracking support to phones that lack ARKit or ARCore capability and has rolled out tracking to all phones. Its roadmap includes backend tools for measuring persistence, cloud management and computer vision to better support developers. Founder Erik Murphy-Chutorian says the company aims to attract the developers building the first wave of mobile-native AR experiences. The team is nine full-time employees and plans to triple in size over the next 18 months. Financially, 8th Wall has raised $8 million in this Series A and about $10.4 million in total to date. 8th Wall, founded by ex‑Facebook and Google engineers, builds software to bring augmented reality to a broad range of smartphones. Its core product, XR, is a free Unity plug‑in that enables developers to build and experiment with AR apps across many devices. XR offers features such as light and surface estimation and calibrated scene display so digital objects can be placed more seamlessly and react to their environments. The company aims to make creating smartphone AR apps ten times faster and to support more than 90% of smartphones by leveraging native AR libraries when available or using a phone's IMU and camera on less capable devices. XR integrates with Apple’s ARKit and Google’s Tango while also providing 3DoF AR functionality on older iOS devices (past the iPhone 5C) and Android devices running KitKat and later. 8th Wall has raised $2.4 million from investors including Norwest, Betaworks, the VR Fund, SV Angel, Greylock and Third Kind.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2017

Radar Relay operates a wallet-to-wallet order-book trading platform that relays peer orders for Ethereum-based tokens and never holds assets in custody. Users connect their own wallets with no accounts, sign-ups, deposits, or withdrawal limits. Since launching in October 2017, the platform has attracted thousands of users from 150 countries, onboarded 170 tokens, and facilitated over $150 million in trading volume. The team has grown to almost 30 employees. Radar Relay says the new funding will support new product research, strategic hiring, and global expansion, and management highlights an upcoming product roadmap. The product emphasis is on mainstream adoption of token trading via a non-custodial, peer-to-peer exchange architecture. Radar Relay is a decentralized token exchange built atop the 0x protocol for ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum network. The platform is currently in beta and requires access via Brave or MetaMask. CEO Alan Curtis said the company has 15 employees and will use new funding to expand the team. The funds are earmarked for platform expansion, talent acquisition, and building an integrations team. 0xtracker shows recent daily trading volume of roughly $60,000–$70,000. Radar Relay expects to exit beta in the first quarter of 2018; the 0x protocol’s ICO raised $24 million earlier that year.

Participated · Series A · May 2017

Upload operates in virtual reality with three core domains: co-working, education and media, having shifted the UploadVR brand to its media arm earlier this year. The company opened a 20,000 square-foot office in Los Angeles and emphasizes education initiatives developed with Google, HTC and Udacity, while its San Francisco site houses more than 35 companies in co-working. Upload has 17 full-time employees and uses a large number of contractors to scale operations. Funds raised have been earmarked to expand Upload LA and to support the official launch of Upload EDU. The company also maintains its media arm and continues to develop its co-working and education offerings across its locations.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2016

Virgil Security provides a cryptographic software platform that enables developers to build end-to-end encryption, passwordless authentication, and cryptographic verification of data, devices, and identities without cryptographic training. The company offers tools and APIs for application developers to integrate cryptographic features into their products. Founded in May 2014 by Michael W. Wellman, Virgil is based in Manassas, Virginia and also has offices in Kiev, Ukraine. Earlier this year it signed a partnership with Twilio to enable developers to integrate its end-to-end encryption into Twilio’s messaging services. Virgil is a graduate of the MACH37 Cyber Accelerator’s Fall 2014 cohort. It closed a $4M Series A and intends to use the funds to accelerate market adoption, expand developer evangelism and sales teams, and extend its technology into additional vertical markets. Virgil Security is a cybersecurity startup based in Manassas, VA that provides cryptographic software libraries combined with a cloud-based public key management service for developers and end-users. Its technology is designed to enable enhanced privacy and security for desktop, mobile, and web applications, cloud services, and the Internet of Things. The company was co-founded by CEO Michael W. Wellman and CTO Dmitry Dain, alumni of the Fall 2014 cohort of the MACH37 Cyber Accelerator. Virgil closed $525k in seed funding. The company intends to use the funds to continue developing its core cybersecurity technology and to expand its go-to-market strategies and staff.