• Refine

  Participated · Seed · May 2024

  Refine provides open-source solutions that accelerate the build of internal tools, admin panels and B2B web applications by eliminating repetitive CRUD tasks using a React-based stack. The company was founded in 2022 by Civan Özseyhan, Ömer Aplak and Eren Erkalkan and is part of Y Combinator. Refine reports monthly usage by some 15,000 developers and says it supports more than 5,000 companies and over 10,000 projects. It recently launched an Enterprise Edition targeted at corporate customers needing comprehensive security, support and official integrations with enterprise identity providers and relational databases. The startup says the new funding will be used to develop new products and contribute to innovation and transformation in the software space. Product focus remains on enabling teams to build better web applications with fewer resources and in less time.

• Autio

  Participated · Seed · Mar 2023

  Autio offers a location-based audio storytelling app that uses a user’s GPS location to deliver narrated stories about nearby landmarks, cities, and towns. The company was founded by Woody Sears, Bill Werlin, and Kevin Costner and is based in Santa Barbara. It originally launched in August 2020 under the name HearHere. On March 29, 2023, Autio announced it had raised $5.9 million in a funding round. The round was led by iHeartMedia. The article does not disclose additional operating metrics, valuation, or other participating investors. HearHere is a GPS-powered audio entertainment app that delivers immersive, location-based storytelling to road-trip travelers. Launched in August 2020 and based in Santa Barbara, the app pushes three- to five-minute stories to users as they drive, surfacing history, natural landscape, sports, music and local insights. HearHere currently has more than 100,000 registered users and offers over 8,880 stories across the continental United States; free accounts include five stories while paid subscriptions cost $36 per year for unlimited access. The company maintains a 26-person content team of researchers, writers, editors and narrators (primarily contractors), and actor Kevin Costner joined in 2020 as a co-founder, narrator and investor. HearHere plans to expand its content library, add offline listening, launch an Android app, and extend availability to Alaska and Hawaii later this year. The new funding will also be used to grow the team and expand functionality. HearHere produces short (three- to five-minute) narrated audio stories that trigger with users’ permission while they drive, surfacing local history, sports, music and lesser-known points of interest. The company has banked 5,500 stories across 22 states and plans to be nationwide by summer. It operates a content team of 22 researchers, writers, editors and narrators and currently has a five-person core team. HearHere offers five free stories per month and unlimited streaming for $35.99 per year. The roadmap includes opening to third-party contributors and incorporating AI and machine learning for language support and better personalization. HearHere has formed distribution and promotion partnerships with AAA, Camping World, Outdoorsy, RVshare and Cruise America.

• Metriport

  Participated · Seed · Dec 2022

  Metriport builds open-source APIs to give digital health companies access to consumer and medical health data. It has launched its first product, the Health Device API, which aggregates consumer data from wearables, RPM devices, and mHealth apps. The company plans to launch a Medical API to allow companies to access patients' medical records and interface with EHRs, targeting a 2023 release. Both products are open source and positioned as a Plaid-like layer for medtech focused on developer friendliness, transparency, and accessibility. Metriport raised a $2.4 million seed round at a $20 million valuation, all on post-money SAFEs, which the company says is being used to grow the team, accelerate engineering, and cover compliance and legal fees. The founders, who went through Y Combinator, describe the company as mission-driven and aim to democratize access to healthcare data to improve patient outcomes.

• Nada

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2022

  Nada is a financial technology company focused on giving homeowners flexible, non-debt access to their home equity. Its flagship product, the Home Equity Agreement (HEA), allows owners to convert a portion of their equity into cash in exchange for a share of the home’s future appreciation, eliminating the need for monthly payments or interest. The company currently operates in 14 states and plans to expand into additional markets nationwide. Nada supplements the HEA with an integrated homeowner finance platform designed to support equity management across every stage of homeownership. With U.S. households holding more than $35 trillion in tappable equity, the firm positions itself as a scalable alternative to traditional home-equity loans and cash-out refinancing. Nada is backed by investors including LiveOak Ventures, Interlock Partners, and Nomura Strategic Ventures, providing additional strategic support for its growth. The recent institutional partnership with Medalist Partners further bolsters its capital base, enabling accelerated origination of HEAs.

• Jar

  Participated · Series A · Feb 2022

  Jar operates a mobile savings app that lets users save small amounts and invest primarily in digital gold. The app offers features like roundups, recurring savings and one-time executions to make saving easy and habitual. Since launching a year ago Jar has amassed over 9 million registered users, clocks over 220,000 transactions daily, and is growing about 20% month over month while spending less than $1.5 to acquire each user. The startup employs about 90 people and is hiring roughly 50 more as it prepares to expand its product suite. Jar plans to roll out insurance, mutual funds, secured and unsecured lending, fixed deposits, peer-to-peer loans and other offerings in the coming quarters. Financially the company recently closed a $22.6 million Series B, is valued at over $300 million and says the new funding extends its runway by three years; it has raised more than $58 million to date. Jar is a seven-month-old Bengaluru-based fintech startup that operates an app which rounds up users' daily spend and invests the spare change into digital gold backed by equivalent physical gold. Users can withdraw the equivalent physical gold or liquidate their investments at any time. The app has amassed over 4 million users, 99% of whom are investing for the first time. Jar raised $4.5 million in seed funding last year and has now completed a $32 million Series A. The new funding values the company at over $200 million, according to sources. The founders say they are expanding beyond digital gold to offer more financial instruments, and plan to introduce lending and insurance to users in the coming months. Jar is an Indian mobile app that helps users begin a savings and investing habit with amounts as small as 1 Indian rupee. The three-month-old Android app enables recurring micro-investments via Paytm using UPI 2.0 and is working on PhonePe support. Jar rounds up users' transactions by gleaning text messages to save spare change, offers manual top-ups, and currently routes saved money into digital gold. The founders chose gold because of the broad trust the asset class enjoys across India, and they plan to offer additional investment instruments over time. The app has amassed about half a million downloads and reports transactions and assets under management growing roughly 350% month-over-month. Jar was founded earlier this year by Nishchay AG and Misbah Ashraf and plans to broaden its product offerings in the near term.

No current team members are available.