Participated · Series B · Dec 2021

Stocktwits is the original social platform for individual investors and traders, organizing conversations around cashtags and covering stocks, crypto, and other emerging investments. The company provides a community-driven hub that serves both novice and experienced investors and aims to reimagine financial media, tools, and services for the next generation. Stocktwits has more than 6M registered users and reaches over 5M users monthly; platform users grew 50% in 2021. Product expansion is a priority: the Portfolio Integration offering is coming out of beta and has already connected more than $1B in assets. With the new funding, Stocktwits plans to further develop the platform and expand its product offerings while pursuing global expansion, including localization and growth in India. The company is headquartered in New York and emphasizes bringing greater access and context to retail investors. StockTwits is a social media platform that provides real-time sentiment and conversation about stocks, known for inventing the “cash tag.” The platform integrates with trading services such as Robinhood and sells data access via an API that hedge funds and investment firms pay to leverage. It has about 1.5 million monthly active users, with 60% under age 44, and the company plans to expand audience reach, add premium features, and build out content like video to increase engagement. Leadership is shifting to Ian Rosen as CEO with founder Howard Lindzon moving to executive chairman, aligned with efforts to accelerate growth and monetize the platform. The company says its data business is doubling this year and it aims to widen the top of the brand funnel with new initiatives. StockTwits was founded in 2008 and is based in San Diego. StockTwits began as a service that filtered public-company, stock-related tweets for traders and has since expanded beyond that original scope. In 2009 the company broke off from Twitter and launched its own messaging platform. Earlier this year it acquired a financial news hub and also launched a private company product. The company is led by cofounder and CEO Howard Lindzon. It recently raised $4 million in a venture inside round from existing investors, bringing total capital raised to $8.6 million. The new funds will be used to hire more engineers and speed product development, and the company says more updates are coming soon. StockTwits launched about a year ago as a way for Twitter users to organize, share and discover thoughts on public company stocks. The service structures financial data by stock, user and reputation and preserves a familiar 140-character message format. In September the team moved off Twitter to build its own platform and an Air desktop application while retaining easy cross-posting to and from Twitter. StockTwits is also integrated into an official NASDAQ iPhone application and has introduced new products such as StockTwit TV. CEO Howard Lindzon said the service will expand greatly next year. Financially, the company recently closed a $3 million Series B round led by Foundry Group, with participation from True Ventures. StockTwits pulls tweets that use a “$” symbol into a dedicated stream to surface stock-related commentary on Twitter. The service aims to create a focused community within the broader Twitter conversation to help users monitor market sentiment and potentially make money. It has extended beyond its own site with a Firefox browser plugin and integration for WordPress blogs. Co-founder Howard Lindzon said the current version will remain free and that a premium offering is planned soon. Financially, the company has just completed a first round of venture funding of $800,000 from True Ventures, the same size as its earlier angel funding. The article describes the round as relatively small but respectable for the service’s scope.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2020

Headspace provides evidence-based mindfulness and mental health tools through its flagship direct-to-consumer app and combines that experience with enterprise offerings that include coaching, therapy, psychiatry and EAP services. The company serves over 4,000 employers across 200 countries and works with an ecosystem of health plans and partners, including large plans like Cigna and organizations such as Accolade, Virgin Pulse and Sequoia. Proceeds from the financing are intended to support expansion of Headspace's mental health platform and to allow the company to be opportunistic in investing where it sees market need. Management stated the financing positions Headspace to expand its enterprise EAP offering and accelerate bringing services to more health plans and directly to consumers in the coming year. The business emphasizes scaling mental health support using technology and has decades of expertise and a global user base. Armentum Partners served as financial advisor to Headspace on the transaction. Headspace operates a consumer mindfulness and meditation app and sells on-the-job mental wellness tools for employers and healthcare practitioners. The company is pursuing clinical validation for mindfulness with a pipeline of about 70 clinical studies in partnership with academic institutions including Carnegie Mellon, UCSF and Stanford. Headspace says its app has been downloaded more than 62 million times across 190 countries, has over 2 million paid subscribers, and is used by more than 600 businesses. The new financing will be directed toward clinical research, expanding business and healthcare sales, and international growth — the company already offers German and French versions of the app. Headspace has appointed former Apple executive Renate Nyborg to lead its European expansion as it competes with rivals like Calm. CEO and co-founder Richard Pierson highlighted the company’s focus on applying mindfulness to broader areas of members’ lives and on delivering better access through employers and healthcare providers. Headspace offers a subscription meditation app and related mindfulness content. The company is cash-flow positive and reports many users pay a $96 annual subscription; its app has been downloaded more than 16 million times and revenue is stated as above $10 million and possibly above $50 million. Management recently installed co-founder Rob Pierson as CEO, who made staff reductions and hired a chief business officer. Headspace plans to use new capital to expand internationally and translate its app into more languages. The company also intends to broaden its content into nutrition, exercise, science and kids programming and to pursue larger corporate partnerships to grow enterprise sales. Headspace is a guided meditation and mindfulness startup offering guided meditation sessions via app and web. Its core product includes a free 'Take 10' ten-minute program and paid subscription plans that provide access to hundreds of hours of content on topics such as stress, creativity, relationships and happiness. Subscription pricing noted in the article includes monthly ($12.95), yearly ($7.99/month), two-year ($6.24/month) and a lifetime option ($419.95). Headspace reports about 3 million users in over 150 countries but does not disclose detailed engagement metrics. Co-founder Andy Puddicombe, a former monk who leads the guided meditations, is cited as contributing to the service’s authenticity. The app is available on iOS, Android and the web, and the company plans to expand content and hire more engineers and content marketers; Headspace is based in London and Venice, California.

Led · Equity · Oct 2018

Smule is an app maker turned music social network. The company is pushing to expand its footprint in India, which the article identifies as its second-largest international market. Management says engaging India requires building a platform for a massive, multi-lingual market. Financially, Smule raised a $20M strategic investment from Times Bridge, following a $54M raise in May of the prior year led by Tencent. Times Bridge is the VC wing of The Times Group and its investment is the firm's first full social media partnership. Times Bridge will leverage connections with local artists and provide targeted marketing to advance Smule's growth across the Indian subcontinent. Smule builds social music apps, including Sing! Karaoke, that let users share musical performances with others. The company reports 52 million monthly active users. CEO Jeff Smith has said his vision is to "build a social network around music" and to help promote music. Smule raised capital to fuel international growth, with a stated focus on expanding in Asia. Reuters reported the recent financing valued the company at $604 million, and the company may pursue a public offering in the future. Smule operates a social network for musical performance powered by a family of mobile apps including Ocarina, Magic Piano, Sing! Karaoke, Guitar! and AutoRap. The company says over 300 million people across seven continents have used its products and its community performs about 12 million songs per day, uploading roughly 1 to 1.5 terabytes of content daily and totaling about 4 billion songs a year from roughly 25 million users. Smule reported revenue doubled year‑over‑year in 2014 to $40 million, with about 350,000 subscribers representing 85% of sales. The company plans to use the newly raised funds to invest in marketing, product development and international expansion. Smule emphasizes iterative R&D and aims to transform music from a passive to an engaging, participatory experience. Founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco, Smule positions itself as a market leader redefining musical performance for consumers. Smule builds popular social music applications that let users create, share, and perform music together, including Sing! Karaoke and Magic Piano. The company launched Smule Nation to enable cross-app performance sharing and has seen website traffic triple to about 1.5 million monthly unique visitors. Smule reported strong growth in 2014: sales doubled in Q1 2014 versus Q1 2013, monthly unique users doubled from 9 million to 18 million, and it is at a $30 million run rate for the year. Revenue is primarily subscription-driven (about 80%), with the remaining 20% from advertising, and the company says it is break-even on monthly cash flow. Smule plans continued product development, international expansion beginning with Asia, and intends to launch new products while basing projections on growth of existing offerings. CEO Jeff Smith has stated an ultimate goal to take the company public, though there are no definite plans. Smule develops mobile social music applications and is known for titles including I Am T-Pain, Ocarina, Leaf Trombone, Glee Karaoke, MadPad, and Magic Fiddle. Its products are connected via the company’s Sonic Network, a social fabric that the article says includes over 200 million songs created by users. The company raised $12 million in a new funding round, and previously had raised $13.5 million. Leadership says evidence validating the business model and market opportunity prompted more aggressive steps to dominate the mobile social music market. Earlier in the year Smule said it would double its staff in 2011, indicating planned growth. Smule was founded in 2008 by Jeffrey C. Smith, Dr. Ge Wang, and a group of Stanford and Princeton music PhDs and developers.