• Penrose Studios

  Participated · Series A · Jul 2018

  Penrose Studios creates narrative-driven, highly polished animated VR films and shorts with an emphasis on creative vision. Its recent major project is Arden’s Wake, a half-hour animated VR feature that features voice acting from Alicia Vikander and debuted at Tribeca. The studio’s earlier releases, Allumette and The Rose and I, are offered as free downloads on major VR platforms. Penrose prioritizes reaching creative ambitions over fast, low-cost production and is led by CEO Eugene Chung, who previously worked on narrative storytelling at Oculus. Financially, the company has completed a $10M Series A following an earlier $8.5M seed round. Going forward, Penrose is focusing development on standalone VR headsets while also exploring phone-based AR on ARKit and ARCore. Penrose Studios produces cinematic virtual-reality films and experiences designed to evoke emotional storytelling in immersive worlds. The company creates VR films (its first, “The Rose And I,” is already available on Samsung Gear VR) and is preparing releases for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR. Penrose is developing in-VR creation tools and new interactive storytelling technologies to make its experiences more participatory. The studio plans to hire top storytellers and technical talent to build those tools and expand its content slate. Its creative team includes founder Eugene Chung, formerly of Pixar and the first head of Oculus Studios, along with staff from Oculus, Disney, Google, and DreamWorks. Penrose positions its work to appeal beyond gaming audiences, seeking the broad family-friendly reach of Pixar-style cinematic experiences.

• Parachute Home

  Participated · Series C · Jun 2018

  Parachute offers premium, responsibly manufactured bedding, bath, table linens and home decor using European-sourced materials. The company sells its textile assortment directly to consumers online and through a network of company-owned stores. Parachute was founded by Ariel Kaye in 2014 and is based in Venice, CA. At the time of the article it operated three stores in Venice Beach (CA), Portland (OR) and New York (NY). The company intends to use recent funding to accelerate retail expansion, drive product innovation and category expansion, and make strategic investments in marketing, technology and supply chain. Parachute Home sells high-quality bed linens direct-to-consumer via its website, sourcing production from an 80-year-old family-run textile factory in Italy. Founded in 2013 by Ariel Kaye, the company positions itself as a "luxury bedding basics" brand with sheet sets starting at $89. By cutting out middlemen and avoiding retail slotting and licensing fees, Parachute aims to offer lower prices than traditional brick-and-mortar luxury sets. The company leverages content marketing and a blog focused on sleep tips and related content as part of its growth strategy. Financially, Parachute reported approximately $1 million in website sales last year. Recently the company announced $3.8 million in new venture funding to support its direct-to-consumer expansion and operations.

• Lyndra Therapeutics

  Participated · Series A · Apr 2017

  Lyndra Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing long-acting oral therapies using its LYNX drug delivery platform. The LYNX platform creates weekly oral medicines enabled by over 50 patented innovations and is licensed exclusively from the Bob Langer and Gio Traverso laboratories at MIT. Lyndra’s lead product candidate is oral weekly risperidone (LYN-005), which is near completion of a pivotal Phase 3 study, and the company is also advancing weekly formulations of dapagliflozin (LYN-045) and aripiprazole (LYN-006). Proceeds from recent financings are intended to support completion of the risperidone Phase 3 trials and continued development of the pipeline of oral weekly therapies. Since its founding, Lyndra has received product funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the NIH, AbbVie, and Gilead Sciences. The company is headquartered in Watertown, MA and operates a GMP manufacturing facility in Lexington, MA. Lyndra Therapeutics develops long-acting oral therapies using its proprietary LYNX drug delivery platform. Its lead candidate, LYN-005 (oral weekly risperidone), has dosed the first participant in a pivotal trial for schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. The LYNX platform is designed to deliver a week’s worth of medication in a single oral capsule. The company recently raised capital as part of a larger offering and previously completed a $60.5 million Series C in 2021. Financial updates include a $20.3 million placement from investors as part of the current offering. Lyndra Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering an oral ultra-long-acting, extended-release capsule designed to reside in the stomach and provide linear drug release for a week or longer. Its lead candidate, LYN-005, is a once-weekly oral risperidone formulation that showed encouraging Phase 2 proof-of-concept data indicating a more consistent pharmacokinetic profile and reduced dosing frequency. The company plans to advance LYN-005 into pivotal trials and prepare for U.S. commercialization, with an expected pivotal start later this year and a launch a few years thereafter. Lyndra is expanding its CNS pipeline assets and actively evaluating high-value partnerships across a broad range of disease states. The platform targets areas where non-adherence is a major driver of outcomes, including schizophrenia, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and opioid use disorder. Lyndra has collaborations and funding engagements including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the NIH, and has raised almost $250 million in total financing inclusive of the most recent round. Lyndra Therapeutics is developing once-monthly oral dosage forms, including a combination contraceptive designed to deliver continuous estrogen and progestin. Its core technology is a star-shaped formulation contained inside a capsule that opens in the stomach, releases active pharmaceutical ingredients consistently for up to a week or longer, and then exits via the gastrointestinal tract. The current program is focused on demonstrating once-monthly gastric residence and building a once-monthly oral combination therapy. Preclinical evaluation will be conducted in collaboration with Routes2Results through additional funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation awarded Lyndra a $13M grant for the contraceptive program and also awarded a separate grant for a long-acting malaria drug. The foundation invested in Lyndra’s recent Series B; those Series B proceeds will be used for Phase II clinical trials, expansion of the Phase I pipeline, and manufacturing scale-up. Lyndra is led by CEO and co-founder Amy Schulman and is based in Watertown, MA. Lyndra Therapeutics develops orally administered ultra-long-acting, sustained-release therapies designed to deliver steady-state release of one or more drugs for up to a week or longer while temporarily residing in the stomach. Its platform uses a star-shaped formulation inside a capsule that opens in the stomach, releases active pharmaceutical ingredients consistently over time, and then exits the gastrointestinal tract safely. The company aims to replace daily dosing with weekly or monthly pills to improve medication adherence, reduce side effects, and lower healthcare costs. To date the dosage form has been safely administered in 50 subjects during Phase I clinical trials in Australia, and Lyndra received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for related intellectual property. Lyndra is moving toward submitting an IND for a long-acting schizophrenia pill in 2019 and anticipates starting a Phase II clinical trial in 2020 while advancing other candidates through Phase I–III. The company recently raised new financing to support clinical development and manufacturing scale-up.

• Drizly

  Participated · Series A · May 2015

  Drizly Group operates an online marketplace for beer, wine and spirits that provides a transparent shopping experience where consumers can compare stores on price, delivery time and overall rating. The company is led by CEO Cory Rellas and is based in Boston, MA. It operates in 235 markets across North America through a network of 3,300 independent and chain retail partners. Drizly also houses Lantern, an independently operated online cannabis commerce company launched in March. Lantern is currently operating in Massachusetts and Michigan. Drizly intends to use new funds to further accelerate product and customer growth. Drizly operates an on-demand delivery app that displays local store prices and delivery or pick-up options for beer, wine and spirits. The company partners with approximately 1,000 brick-and-mortar liquor stores across the U.S. and Canada and says deliveries arrive in less than an hour. Drizly recently completed a $34.5 million financing, roughly doubling its prior $33 million in total funding. Over the past year it has added a CMO, CFO and head of HR and in late summer shifted co-founder Nick Rellas into an advisory role while Cory Rellas became CEO. The company made its first acquisition in July, absorbing Buttery and integrating that startup’s backend technology and employees. Drizly says Cory’s operational experience and time at Bain Capital position him to lead the company through its next stage of growth. Drizly operates a marketplace and commerce platform that lets local liquor stores list beer, wine and spirits, showing shoppers local prices and delivery or pickup options via web and mobile. The company has shifted from an on-demand delivery model toward a metasearch‑style marketplace for alcohol e-commerce. Stores pay a monthly licensing fee to use Drizly’s software and sell through its platform; Drizly sets prices per market based on local spend and delivery costs. The company is using recent capital to build new features and services, expand into more US regional, suburban and rural markets, and roll out in-store pickup nationwide. Drizly also plans to develop personalized recommendations to engage different customer segments, such as corporate bulk buyers and wine enthusiasts. The business faces competition from general food e-commerce players and other alcohol-focused apps but cites legal and infrastructure advantages from four years of work. Drizly provides technology infrastructure and an e-commerce platform that enables liquor retailers to offer on-demand delivery and manage orders. Users can browse a wide variety of beer, wine and spirits and see delivery windows and prices from retail partners. Retail partners receive orders through Drizly and fulfill deliveries with their own staff, paying Drizly a slice of each transaction. Drizly Connect, launched earlier this summer, offers longer delivery windows up to 48 hours and positions the company as an Amazon Prime–like option for alcohol. According to CEO Nick Rellas, around 40% of orders on the platform are placed at least 36 hours in advance. The company currently serves 23 markets and is on pace to be in 30 markets, including some in Canada, by the end of the year. With this round, Drizly’s total funding stands at $32.8 million. Drizly operates a mobile app that lets users order spirits, beer and wine from local liquor stores and have them delivered. The system integrates with liquor stores' POS so orders flow directly to vendors for fulfillment, avoiding the need to build Drizly-owned delivery infrastructure. Drizly intentionally partners with stores that already offer delivery and charges vendors a monthly licensing fee that varies by location and transaction volume. The service is handling orders in the low tens of thousands each month and is reporting roughly 25% month-over-month growth across major markets. Drizly is currently live in multiple U.S. cities and aims to expand to about 30 markets by year-end. A partnership with the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America gives Drizly access to a network of wholesalers to help onboard more vendors.

• Catalant

  Participated · Series B · Feb 2015

  Catalant Technologies operates an Expert Marketplace and a SaaS product that connect companies with freelance professionals as an alternative to traditional consulting firms. The company says it works with 35 percent of Fortune 1000 companies, including Pfizer and DuPont. Catalant positions freelancers as cost-effective, more agile options for strategic work in areas such as supply chain, data analytics, and project management. The company called 2020 a “watershed year” with record demand on its platform and said the pandemic accelerated an existing shift toward independent work. Catalant plans to use the new funding to scale its business and team to meet rising demand. The eight-year-old, Boston-based company has raised more than $100 million to date. Catalant Technologies offers a software and services platform for managing strategy execution, work planning, resource management, and insights and reporting. Its Resources module provides access to more than 65,000 independent experts and 1,000 consulting firms in 127 countries, supporting enterprise portfolio management and transformation workstreams. Customers include Anheuser‑Busch InBev, MassMutual, Highmark Health and Pfizer. Founded in 2013 as an online marketplace to match companies with consultants, Catalant has expanded into software for centers of excellence, organizational redesigns, post‑merger integrations, and agile transformations. The company recently raised a $35M Series E and expanded its debt facility to scale its product offering and enter new global markets, bringing total equity and debt funding to more than $100M. The financing and debt expansion are intended to scale the product and accelerate global expansion. Catalant provides a suite of software products that combine clients’ internal talent with a global network of more than 40,000 independent consultants and boutique firms to form dynamic talent pools. The platform matches companies to experts for work across research, strategy, marketing, finance, sales, operations and product initiatives. Led by co-CEOs and co-founders Rob Biederman and Patrick Petitti, Catalant serves thousands of global clients, including nearly one quarter of the Fortune 100. The company plans to use newly raised funds to further develop its software products and matching capabilities and to educate corporate decision makers on incorporating dynamic talent into strategic plans. Financially, Catalant has raised more than $73M in total financing to date and maintains a debt facility for ongoing financing needs. HourlyNerd is a Boston-based on-demand staffing platform that provides programming and other skilled staff for short-term projects without companies having to recruit or hire. The company is shifting toward enterprise customers and is updating its platform to include analytics and services to help customers manage time, work product and staffing requirements over time. At its core it matches skilled workers to project needs and is building tools to measure performance and incentivize on-demand talent. HourlyNerd currently has 65 employees and claims around 10 percent of the Fortune 500 as customers, including Pfizer and GE. The firm sees a future of more project-based skilled work and is positioning its platform as a full-service solution for large companies. Financially, it has raised a $22 million Series C and had previously raised around $12 million in total. HourlyNerd is a Boston, MA-based online talent marketplace that links elite independent freelancers and top MBA students who have worked at leading consulting firms and investment banks with businesses. Led by co-CEOs and co-founders Rob Biederman and Pat Petitti, the platform attracted over 4,500 companies using more than 10,000 consultants from around the country and the world within a few months via referrals, social network mentions and word of mouth. The company raised $7.8M in a Series B round led by Highland Capital Partners, with participation from GE Ventures, Greylock Partners, Intuit founder Scott Cook, the Kraft Group, angel investor Semil Shah, former Etsy CEO Maria Thomas, Rent the Runway Founder/CEO Jennifer Hyman and Suffolk Equity Partners. HourlyNerd said it will use the funds to continue to expand its technology platform. The Series B follows a Series A financing 11 months earlier led by Highland Capital Partners and Greylock Partners and an earlier seed round led by angel investor Mark Cuban.

No current team members are available.