• Stakes

  Participated · Seed · May 2022

  Stakes is a NYC-based social wagering platform offering a web3 experience for sports fans. The product lets users wager for free in competitions among friends and influencers via a social feed and earn NFTs that serve as digital bragging rights recorded on the blockchain. Winners collect NFTs to memorialize winning calls; Stakes has minted over 8,000 “proof-of-flex” NFTs to more than 2,500 users. The company launched from IAC’s Newco incubator in January 2022 and is led by CEO and founder Kevin Wang. Stakes is currently in open beta on the Apple App Store. It raised $5.3M in seed funding and intends to use the proceeds to expand its team and grow its user base.

• The Dodo

  Participated · Seed · Jan 2014

  The Dodo publishes animal-focused news and viral-friendly, pro-animal-rights stories across a web-native site. It launched with under a dozen writers and has attracted contributors such as Arianna Huffington and Popular Science associate editor Dan Nosowitz. The site runs atop RebelMouse, a customizable CMS with deeper social integrations that The Dodo plans to use for features like calls to action. At launch the site had no advertisers. Founder Isabel Lerer is finishing Ph.D. studies in human-animal interactions and the project is presented as a family effort involving her father, Ken Lerer. Editorial leadership includes CEO Kerry Lauerman (former Salon.com editor-in-chief).

No current team members are available.