• Nooks

  Participated · Series A · Apr 2024

  Nooks is an AI platform designed to help sales teams generate pipeline more efficiently by automating time-consuming tasks for SDRs, AEs, sales enablement, and revenue operations. Its AI Dialing Assistant finds phone numbers, skips answering machines, leaves voicemails, does pre-call research, takes notes, and suggests who and when to call. The AI Coaching Assistant transcribes and scores calls, identifies areas for improvement, simulates prospect conversations for training, and offers a Virtual Salesfloor for remote and hybrid teams. The AI Prospecting Assistant researches target accounts, identifies buying signals, builds prospect lists, and drafts outreach emails. Nooks integrates with sales tools such as Outreach, Salesloft, Gong, HubSpot, and Salesforce, and with data providers like Apollo, ZoomInfo, Cognism, and LeadIQ. Customers using Nooks include Seismic, Fivetran, Amplitude, Modern Health, and Verkada; the company raised $43M in a Series B, bringing total funding to $70M. Nooks offers an AI-powered platform for sales teams that prospect over the phone, automating manual call tasks and surfacing strategic insights to boost productivity. Its core suite includes an AI Dialer that skips ringing and answering machines, logs calls, and takes notes; AI Research that personalizes scripts and identifies high-intent leads; Nooks Numbers for finding and correcting prospect phone data; Call Analytics for transcribing and analyzing calls; and a Virtual Salesfloor for live call coaching and collaboration. The company recently released an AI Training feature that lets reps practice selling to a realistic AI buyer persona. Nooks integrates with common sales tools including Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo, Gong, HubSpot and Salesforce, and targets B2B tech companies with an outbound calling motion. The company is led by CEO Dan Lee. Financially, Nooks raised a $22M Series A and has $27M in total funding. Nooks builds a virtual HQ that invites distributed teams into persistent, themed "spaces" (e.g., front desk, beach, design huddle) to encourage spontaneous collaboration. The product forgoes avatar-heavy metaverse design in favor of a simpler UX that uses a video API to display small video orbs and embeds tools like Google Docs, YouTube, Asana and GitHub. Feature highlights include customizable spaces, background music, a whisper feature for side conversations, virtual sales leaderboards and dedicated rooms such as bug‑bashing spaces. The founders say the goal is to reduce Zoom fatigue and create a persistent place for fluid, casual conversation rather than ephemeral meetings. Nooks launched in May 2020, operated in beta for a year, and now reports thousands of weekly active users with teams spending an average of six hours a day on the platform. The company has attracted millions in venture capital and is focused on adapting to hybrid work and combating proximity bias as it scales.

• Solutions by Text

  Participated · Equity · Nov 2021

  Solutions by Text (SBT) offers conversational messaging tools and an embedded payments product that enable consumers to pay bills and respond to loan offers via text. The company supports use cases from marketing to past-due collections and claims carrier‑approved templates and provisioned short codes to address compliance. SBT recently expanded into embedded payments with a Nuvei partnership and its “FinText” product allowing responses such as “Pay Now.” The business shifted from a consumption model toward subscription and expects pure SaaS to comprise about 90% of revenue by year-end. Operational metrics cited by management include growth from roughly 20 million messages per month to 150–200 million, and a 95% year‑over‑year messaging increase in 2023; revenue has risen “more than 3x” since the 2021 growth round. The company is EBITDA positive and management says it is working toward profitability this year; planned uses for new capital include product development, R&D, M&A, and expanding AI offerings. Solutions by Text provides a compliance-first text messaging platform tailored to consumer financial services institutions. Its platform enables controls and management over regulatory and carrier communication policies, including compliance with FDCPA Regulation F. More than 1,400 consumer finance organizations use the service and the company reaches millions of consumers. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Dallas, TX, SBT also maintains remote teams and offices around the U.S. and in Bangalore, India. The company historically bootstrapped growth under founders Danny and Mike Cantrell, who will remain in strategic customer-facing roles. With the newly appointed CEO David Baxter, SBT plans to use the $35M growth investment to accelerate adoption and extensibility of its compliant text-based solutions across the consumer finance lifecycle.

• Dash Solutions

  Participated · Equity · Nov 2021

  Prepaid Technologies is a Birmingham, Ala.-based provider of prepaid digital payment solutions and a payments program manager. Led by CEO Stephen Faust, the company offers payroll, expense, gift, reward, and incentive card products to employers, financial institutions, and government agencies. It works with about 1,700 customers—including Lowes, Taco Bell, Nissan and Sony—and roughly 450 active partners such as banks, payroll processors, payment providers, fintech platforms, enterprise technology companies, and merchant services providers. The company recently launched the MyDashCard app and dashPerks, a cardholder cashback rewards program. Prepaid Technologies raised $96m in growth funding and will use the proceeds to accelerate market expansion and advance its technology payments platform and prepaid solutions.

• ButterflyMX

  Participated · Equity · Sep 2020

  ButterflyMX provides a cloud-based property access and security platform serving multifamily, commercial, student housing, HOAs, and gated communities. Its software-enabled suite includes video intercoms, connected access control systems, security cameras, and front desk management. The platform enables customers to manage property access remotely and automate building operations while integrating with existing property systems. Led by CEO Aaron Rudenstine, the company positions itself to improve resident and tenant experiences while driving revenue and cost savings for property owners and managers. ButterflyMX received a growth equity investment from FTV Capital; the amount was not disclosed. The company plans to use the funds to expand into new markets, accelerate new product offerings, and consolidate its position in property access control and security solutions. ButterflyMX designs smart access control hardware and an accompanying OS for property managers and residents. Its product suite includes smart video intercoms, package rooms, keypads, elevator controls, key lockers and other access-control devices. Devices are managed through the ButterflyMX OS, an online platform where administrators adjust access permissions, view entry photos, and integrate with property management systems and security cameras. The system enables building owners, managers, residents, and visitors to open doors or gates from a smartphone. Aaron Rudenstine is the company’s CEO. The company plans to use the newly raised funds to expand operations and broaden its business reach. The articles report a $50M growth equity financing (Series D) closed in this round. ButterflyMX builds the smart intercom, a secure smartphone-based access platform that tethers cloud-based software to touchscreen hardware for building entry. Led by founder Cyrus Claffey, the company enables residents and tenants to open and manage doors from their smartphones. To date it is installed in more than 4,500 properties across the U.S. and internationally and has been adopted by major real-estate operators including Greystar, AvalonBay Communities, Bozzuto, CA Ventures, Lennar, Lincoln Property Company, and Equity Residential. The company plans to expand into new markets and introduce products that extend its smart intercom access experience from the front door to the rest of the building. ButterflyMX intends to use funding to support those product expansions and to hire about 80 new employees within the next 12 months. Including the latest round, ButterflyMX has raised more than $40M since 2017.

No current team members are available.