Participated · Seed · Mar 2023

Entrée prepares restaurant-quality meals at scale using a Michelin-trained culinary team led by Alex Carnovale and packages items in recyclable, plastic-neutral packaging so food arrives hot and not soggy. The company offers a rotating menu of 30–50 items per month across breakfast, meals for two, desserts and a beverage program (including craft cocktails), with most items ready to eat in minutes. Prices run roughly 30%–50% below restaurant equivalents and the product includes ambiance touches such as curated playlists, a virtual maître d’ and coloring sheets for kids. Entrée launched in Chicago last July and operates with a 14-person team; its app is available on the App Store. Operating metrics reported to TechCrunch include over 1,000 users, “tens of thousands” in monthly revenue, average order volume north of $60, and a reorder rate above 40% within 30 days. The company plans to expand outside Chicago beginning in 2024 and is investing in technology (Android app, “coming soon” and referral features), faster menu development, additional culinarians, and experiments with new finishing and distribution approaches.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2023

TBD Health is a hybrid sexual healthcare platform focused on sex-positive, supportive sexual healthcare. The company’s platform offers at-home and in-clinic screenings, emergency contraception, education and counseling. Services are available via telehealth or in-person at its Las Vegas Care hub; previously it provided at-home testing in Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Massachusetts, Florida and Connecticut. Co-founded by Stephanie Estey and Daphne Chen, TBD Health has plans to expand its offerings. The company raised $4.4M in Seed funding to support national expansion. It aims to expand to all 50 states after navigating the clinical and regulatory hurdles that accompany operating in new states.

Led · Debt Financing · Sep 2022

Insightec develops and commercializes the Exablate Prime focused-ultrasound platform to provide incisionless, immediate tremor treatment for patients with medication-refractory essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. The Exablate Prime platform is FDA approved for those indications. The company reports over 160 systems installed worldwide and its technology has been used in nearly 20,000 commercial applications. Led by CEO Maurice R Ferré, Insightec is based in Haifa, Israel and Miami, FL, and also has offices in Dallas, Shanghai, and Tokyo. The company raised $150M in equity financing and intends to use the funds to expand operations and advance its development efforts. Insightec develops and commercializes the Exablate Neuro platform, which uses MRI‑guided acoustic energy to deliver incisionless neurosurgery for medication‑refractory Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s Disease. The company is led by CEO Maurice R. Ferré and is conducting research and clinical trials to expand applications into neuro‑oncology and other neurological conditions in partnership with academic and medical institutions. Insightec intends to drive broader adoption of its incisionless treatments while continuing to advance innovation and clinical research. Financially, the company signed a credit facility for up to $200 million with affiliates of existing shareholders Perceptive Advisors and Community Fund, receiving $100 million at closing. The facility is interest‑only for five years and matures on August 31, 2027, with an additional $100 million potentially available in tranches through 2024. The company operates from Haifa, Israel and Miami, Florida, and has additional offices in Dallas, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Insightec makes a magnetic resonance–guided focused ultrasound device that ablates the thalamus using high‑intensity sound waves to reduce hand tremors without an incision. The device is approved by the FDA to treat essential tremor in patients unresponsive to medication and has expanded approval for tremor‑dominant Parkinson’s disease. The procedure is unilateral and currently can be performed on only one side of the brain, typically addressing the dominant hand. The company has redirected focus toward neurology after earlier work on other indications, such as uterine fibroids, saw limited hospital traction. Insightec has sold its technology to more than 65 health systems worldwide, and a study of 76 essential tremor patients funded in part by the company reported 58% of patients had at least a 50% improvement in hand tremor and function at three years. Its global headquarters is in Israel and its U.S. headquarters is in Miami. Insightec is a commercial-stage medical device company that develops MRI-guided focused ultrasound platforms for non-invasive surgical therapies. Its therapy platforms, Exablate and Exablate Neuro, are proven technologies with clinical evidence for treating essential tremor, painful bone metastases and uterine fibroids. Led by Maurice R. Ferré, MD, CEO and Chairman of the Board, the company brings solutions to patients by collaborating with physicians, medical institutions, academic researchers and regulatory bodies worldwide. Insightec is based in Haifa, Israel, and Miami, Florida, and also maintains offices in Dallas, Tokyo and Shanghai. The company intends to use new funds to further commercialize its approved indications and to continue research into Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and brain tumors. It recently raised $150M in a Series E pre-IPO financing. Insightec develops a non-invasive therapy platform based on Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound (MRgFUS). Founded in 1999 and based in Dallas, Texas and Haifa, Israel, the company’s technology is already used by physicians in more than 120 medical facilities worldwide. Its indications are expanding across neurosurgery, oncology and gynecology. The company is privately held by GE Healthcare, Elbit Imaging, York Capital Management, GEOC Hengtong Investment Limited Partnership and MediTech Advisors. Insightec recently secured $22M in a Series D financing. Leadership will transition to newly appointed CEO Dr. Maurice R. Ferré, while founder and former CEO Dr. Kobi Vortman will move to the board and continue to drive strategy and the product roadmap.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2022

Zette is a San Francisco AI startup developing a "Spotify for news" product and a core AI system to recommend, summarize, interact with, and contextualize news content. The company emphasizes fair compensation for newsrooms alongside easier access to paywalled journalism. It was founded by Harvard graduate and former Twitter product manager Yehong Zhu and includes team members from Harvard, MIT, and the Quebec AI Institute. Zette reports traction with 50,000 readers onboard and partnerships with 110 publishers, including Forbes and New Scientist. Financially, Zette has surpassed $750,000 in equity crowdfunding on Wefunder, exceeding its initial target. The company says the funds will support scaling its product and advancing its mission to revolutionize news consumption while ensuring a sustainable future for quality journalism. Zette, founded by former Forbes reporter Yehong Zhu in July 2020, provides pay-per-article access to paywalled online publications through a monthly subscription. The product charges $9.99 per month for subscribers to access up to thirty articles, and Zette negotiates custom revenue-share agreements with publishers, aiming to return roughly 50% of Zette revenue to partners. The company has landed major licensing deals with top-tier publications including Forbes and plans to expand publisher partnerships and licensing deals. Zette intends to roll out a three-tiered, usage-based pricing structure, explore one-off article credits, and consider charging more credits for in-depth content. The startup has seven team members and operates with footprints in Los Angeles and New York City. The $1.7M pre-seed raise closed in March 2021 and will fund growth marketing, publisher partnerships and licensing deals, operational and software development expenses, and headcount. Competitors cited include Apple News+, Blendle and Nicklpass.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2021

Sugar offers a two-part product: a mobile app for residents and a web-based dashboard for building owners and managers that enables community engagement, keyless entry, rent payment and maintenance requests. The platform integrates with existing hardware and software stacks and can plug into keyless-entry hardware to enable digital keys, which the company cites as a primary adoption driver. Sugar sells the consumer app directly to building owners and managers and provides management dashboards to monitor engagement metrics and online ratings. The startup has clients across residential communities, real estate investment groups, Airbnb rentals, hotels and other residential properties, and has rollouts within portfolios that together manage over 655 properties and 150,000 active doors in 22 states. Prior to the seed close the company reported consistent month-over-month growth and achieved six-figure ARR four months after launch. Sugar has grown its team from two employees last year to nine full-time employees and plans key hires in engineering and sales with the new capital.