Led · Seed · Jan 2024

Artisse builds a mobile app that generates hyper‑realistic user photos by training a proprietary AI model on users' uploaded selfies and prompts. The company combines its own model with elements from open‑source tools and was trained on public‑domain photography; training each user takes about 30–40 minutes while image generation takes minutes. Its app has been downloaded over 200,000 times, users have created over 5 million photos, and its images reached an estimated 43 million people across social media. Originally bootstrapped and founded by William Wu (formerly at McKinsey & Co. and Oaktree Capital), Artisse has a 22‑person team and positions its output to potentially replace professional photography for social and commercial uses. Monetization moved from a pay‑per‑photo model (~$0.20/photo after 25 free images) to subscription tiers ($7, $15, $40/month), converting roughly 4,000 of 200k downloads to subscribers and tripling revenue to $1M ARR in December 2023, with the company on track to $2.5M ARR as of this month. The startup is exploring extensions including virtual fitting rooms for e‑commerce, group‑photo features, shopping from AI photos, and turning AI images into physical prints.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2018

EdCast is an AI-powered Knowledge Cloud that provides unified discovery, personalized learning, and knowledge management for enterprise customers. Its offerings include a Learning Experience Platform (LXP), a Content Marketplace, and MyGuide in-app guides, intelligence and automation for business software. The platform integrates with Google Search, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Slack, ServiceNow, VMware and others to deliver learning in the flow of work. EdCast’s award-winning platform is used by Global 2000 companies and large government organizations, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell EMC, ANZ Bank, Schneider Electric, Jefferson Health, Mars Inc., NASSCOM, and the World Economic Forum. It serves two million paid users and aims to expand its Knowledge Cloud, Content Marketplace, and MyGuide products. The company also plans to continue hiring across sales, marketing, and product engineering to support its customer growth. EdCast’s core product is the Knowledge Cloud platform, which provides AI-powered contextual content and personalized learning in the flow of work across business applications such as Microsoft Office365, ServiceNow, Salesforce and Slack. The company offers a Learning Experience Platform (LXP) and MyGuide in-app guides, intelligence and automation for business software. EdCast operates a ContentExchange marketplace that includes partners like edX.org, Regis Group, Harvard ManageMentor, Mandel Communications and Intuition. The company announced an integration with Box and said it will announce additional integrations in Q1 2019. EdCast reported it has surpassed two million paid users across hundreds of enterprise and public-sector customers, including HPE, Dell EMC, Schneider Electric, ANZ Bank, Jefferson Health and others. The announcement framed the product as supporting a broader enterprise shift to cloud and AI-powered upskilling solutions amid rising corporate demand for training. EdCast builds the EdCast Knowledge Media & Intelligence Network, delivering curated, contextual bite-size insights (SmartBites) and live access to influencers and subject-matter experts. Its platform powers social, mobile and cloud-based informal learning for enterprises, institutions, governments and nonprofits. The company positions itself to enable lifelong learning for individuals, teams and organizations and is targeting workplace millennials while expanding into telecom, banking, media and retail. EdCast counts large enterprise customers and partnerships, including HP (powering HP LIFE), GE, Salesforce and EMC; HP LIFE reaches a knowledge community of over 500,000 users worldwide. The company is a Stanford StartX company advised by visionaries such as Mitch Kapor and Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Financially, EdCast has completed a $16 million Series B following a prior $6 million Series A in late 2014. EdCast builds a Knowledge Cloud and personal learning network that powers online learning portals built on OpenEdX for institutions, enterprises, governments and non-profits. The platform is designed to enable collaboration among educators, students and employers and to scale to millions of learners. The company is pursuing a "multiversity" vision to interconnect hundreds of campuses through public and private hosted clouds to deliver the best curriculum globally. EdCast has announced partnerships including a project with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network linking over 200 institutions and engagement with the Open Education Consortium's 300+ member institutions. Financially, EdCast has just completed a $6 million Series A financing led by SoftBank Capital. The team is led by founder and CEO Karl Mehta, formerly founder & CEO of PlaySpan (acquired by Visa), and the company is based in Mountain View, California.

Participated · Seed · Nov 2013

Good.co is a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a workplace psychometrics test and a professional social graph. Its core product is a personality-profile test that identifies users' professional archetypes and assesses fit with managers, teams, companies and jobs. The platform also provides a professional social graph and delivers insights to management, HR and recruiters for hiring, team development and improving employee retention. Led by CEO and co-founder Samar Birwadker, the company plans to expand features for employees, job-seekers, HR and recruiting. Good.co intends to use newly raised seed capital to build out its team and accelerate product development. Financially, the company raised $1.3M in seed funding in the round reported.