Participated · Seed · May 2023

Groopit provides an enterprise SaaS platform that makes it easy to crowdsource insights from frontline employees and use that data to solve complex problems. Front-line employees share real-time data through a single workflow, enabling faster decision-making across teams. The platform integrates with existing enterprise systems, including Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Salesforce, to surface real-time insights for leaders. Customers named in the article include The Home Depot, Guidant Financial, and Stuckey’s, which use Groopit to accelerate revenue growth and improve customer experiences. The company plans to use the new funding to expand operations and broaden its business reach. Groopit was co-founded in 2018 by Tammy Savage and John Vert and is based in Seattle, WA. Groopit provides a crowdsourced field-data platform that combines data collection and real-time sharing into a lightweight workflow for frontline employees and managers. The product is customizable for individual businesses, works across mobile and web, and can surface data into other tools like CRMs and collaboration platforms. Example use cases include retail teams taking photos, noting in-store locations, rating merchandising, and capturing competitor SKUs to give executives timely operational insight. The company launched in 2018 and released its first product at the end of 2020. Groopit has 18 employees and currently does not plan to hire additional people. Financially, the startup has raised $3.1 million since inception, including the newly announced $2 million pre-seed round.

Participated · Equity · Oct 2022

Vega Cloud offers a SaaS multi-cloud management and optimization solution that uses data context and automation to help businesses make decisions and accelerate time to value. The platform provides unified visibility across major cloud providers, simplifies core optimization routines, and concentrates on lowering the cost of cloud consumption. Kris Bliesner serves as Chief Executive Officer. The company intends to use the new funding to scale product development and meet growing demand in the FinOps category. The raise strengthens its position in cloud cost optimization and supports broader commercial growth efforts. Vega Cloud builds a cloud management platform to help businesses manage public cloud infrastructure. The company is developing the Vega Cloud Management Platform and plans to expand sales and marketing using the new funding. Vega Cloud positions itself against complex, highly technical cloud infrastructure, addressing a market the company describes as a $50 billion annual marketplace. The company is led by CEO and co-founder Kris Bliesner, who co-founded Vega Cloud in April and previously co-founded 2nd Watch. Financially, Vega Cloud raised a $2.3 million seed round and also secured $250,000 in debt financing. The equity and debt will be used to grow go-to-market efforts and continue product development.

Participated · Equity · Sep 2022

Vega Cloud is a Software-as-a-Service platform focused on enterprise cloud optimization, offering a unified view across major providers and simplification of core optimization routines. The company uses a proprietary unit economics and outcomes-oriented approach, combined with data context and automation, to help businesses make trade-offs between cost, quality, and speed. Vega provides near real-time data to influence spending decisions and accelerate time to value, with clients reportedly realizing compounding savings within months. Demand for Vega's multi-cloud management and optimization solution climbed sharply this year, accelerated by the global pandemic, and the company has experienced word-of-mouth growth. Vega plans to scale product development and advance cloud optimization technology and interoperability to help clients maximize their public cloud investments. The platform emphasizes putting fully optimized infrastructure into the hands of business teams, not just architects or DevOps engineers.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2021

TRM Labs develops blockchain analytics and artificial-intelligence software that enables law-enforcement agencies, national-security organizations, financial institutions, and cryptocurrency businesses to trace funds, identify illicit activity, and build investigative cases. Its platforms link on-chain and off-chain data to construct comprehensive threat pictures and streamline financial-crime risk management tasks such as alert disposition and exposure assessment. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company also operates hubs in Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., London, and Singapore. With the newly raised capital, TRM plans to deepen its AI capabilities for spotting and disrupting criminal networks, strengthen connections between crypto activity and real-world adversaries, and grow its roster of AI researchers, data scientists, engineers, and domain experts. The roadmap emphasizes accelerating product development that lets institutions manage financial-crime risk more efficiently. No revenue or user figures were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2020

Give InKind operates a platform that makes it easier for family and friends to coordinate meals and other necessities for people in need. The company has established partnerships with hospitals and is being offered to patients through multiple touchpoints, beginning with Multicare across nine hospitals and 250 clinics. It has expanded nationwide with agreements in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Missouri. Over the past year Give InKind says it tripled its user base and increased revenue tenfold, and it currently has 10 employees. The new funding will support the launch of paid consumer and enterprise features, and the company has joined the Blackbaud Social Good Startup program and graduated the Female Founders Alliance Ready Set Raise program. Give InKind operates a social giving platform that streamlines donations of meals and other aid between friends, family members and recipients going through difficult life situations. Demand surged during the pandemic, with the company reporting 40% week-over-week growth earlier this year and revenue doubling since January. More than 200 hospitals and healthcare facilities began using the platform to coordinate meal donations. The company generates revenue from affiliate fees and is exploring B2B offerings. Proceeds from the recent raise will fund integrated meal delivery ordering and a new way to send digital gift cards, and will support team and marketing growth. Give InKind employs 20 people and graduated from the Female Founders Alliance Ready Set Raise accelerator. Give InKind provides a central profile for people in hardship to receive coordinated help beyond cash—wishlists, merchant links (Instacart, Uber), recurring gifts, deliveries, and an in-app calendar for scheduling in-person support. The site is primarily affiliate-driven today: helpers are routed to merchant sites to complete transactions, though the company is experimenting with some on-site purchases. Product usage is heavily skewed toward coordination—about 90% of pages are set up by someone other than the beneficiary, and roughly 70% of actions are calendar signups or people committing to do tasks; the calendar is the most used feature. The company bootstrapped for three years, found product–market fit, and reports ~20% month-over-month growth. Roadmap items include adding locally run service providers (which requires more manual work) and doubling down on organic growth plus marketing to scale. Founder Laura Malcolm built the product from personal experience, positioning Give InKind as a complementary alternative to pure cash platforms like GoFundMe.