Led · Seed · Mar 2022

HelloSky (formerly Skyminyr) offers a next-generation, AI- and data-science-driven talent intelligence platform engineered specifically for high-stakes executive search. The product consolidates human capital, company, talent, and investor data into a single platform and uses proprietary talent graphs, advanced executive competency smart tags, relationship intelligence, and connection pathing to surface exact-fit candidates. HelloSky also provides dynamic market mapping, real-time tracking, and its SmartRank™ technology to help recruiters identify and evaluate leadership talent without multiple disparate subscriptions. Several fast-growing executive search firms and enterprise deployments — including Bespoke Partners, Caldwell Partners, Eastward Partners, NU Advisory Partners, and On Partners — have adopted the platform. The company has expanded its management team with Hugh Burnham as EVP, Sales and Marketing and Mike Kelch as VP of Sales to accelerate go-to-market. HelloSky has surpassed $1 million in ARR and expects to reach profitability by Q4 2025. Skyminyr offers an AI-powered platform that delivers human capital intelligence by combining behavioral analytics, sector mapping and relationship intelligence. The company spent three years in development mode with a team of data scientists applying AI-driven predictive algorithms to large human-capital datasets correlated to organizational success. Its platform benchmarks a company against peers, serves as an early warning system for looming talent issues, and provides talent-flow insights to predict movements, monitor retention risk and increase employee engagement. Skyminyr is led by CEO Alex Bates and the founding team includes John Mutch and Rupert Minnett. The company has formed an advisory board that includes Brendan Castle, Steve Cox, Matthew Guss, Betsy Wouldenberg and Jim Bethmann. Skyminyr is based in San Diego and recently raised $2.5M in Seed funding to accelerate development and rollout of its platform.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2021

AboveBoard operates a two-sided marketplace where employers post executive job listings to access a diverse pool of candidates. The platform focuses on placing historically overlooked individuals into senior roles rather than broad top-of-funnel recruiting, aiming to play at the end of the hiring funnel. True incubated AboveBoard and helped kickstart the marketplace by posting client searches and sharing partnerships. AboveBoard launched in October 2020 and by July 2021 had over 6,000 executives and 400 companies; by May 2022 it reported over 30,000 approved members and 1,300 companies. Members are on the platform free of charge. Financially, AboveBoard has raised a $6M seed via a SAFE and has $9M in total financings, with the first tranche closed in July 2021. The company is focused on convincing top-tier employers to adopt a platform model for executive sourcing and broadening the roles where diverse hires serve beyond D&I functions. AboveBoard operates a talent marketplace that matches senior executives with board, C-suite and VP roles. Led by founder and CEO Lucinda Duncalfe, the platform emphasizes inclusion and increasing representation of Black, LatinX and female professionals in senior positions. The company launched in October 2020 and is based in NYC. More than 6,000 executives and 400 companies are already using the platform. AboveBoard says it will use new funding to continue expanding operations and broaden its business reach.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2020

Octane AI provides ecommerce marketers with tools to collect zero-party data and power personalized customer journeys across owned and paid marketing channels. Led by CEO and Co‑Founder Matt Schlicht and President and Co‑Founder Ben Parr, the company targets small and medium-sized Shopify stores around the globe to boost website conversion rates and generate revenue. It recently launched a Conversational Pop-up product and a Shop Quiz designed to provide a consultative experience that helps merchants find the right point-of-sale hardware for their business quickly. The company operates as an all-remote organization and employs team members in over 14 countries. Octane AI is based in San Francisco, California. Octane AI provides a buyer-profile, Messenger, and SMS marketing platform tightly integrated with Shopify to help merchants personalize customer journeys and drive conversions. The company launched a Shoppable Quiz private beta, a drag-and-drop quiz builder that integrates with Shopify, Klaviyo, ReCharge and other ecommerce tools to recommend products and allow customers to add items to cart from quiz results. The Shoppable Quiz uses advanced quiz logic and ties into Octane AI’s Messenger and SMS tools to deliver personalized follow-ups and build buyer profiles. Octane AI positions the product as a way to bring consultative retail experiences online and to enable deeper personalization previously available only to much larger companies. The company has partnerships with a range of ecommerce agencies and platforms and is offering demos of the Shoppable Quiz to merchants. Octane AI is all-remote, employs team members in 10+ countries, and was founded in 2016. Octane AI builds a Wix- or Weebly-like platform that enables businesses to create chatbots for Facebook without developer resources. The company was launched by Ben Parr, Matt Schlicht and Leif K-Brooks and has grown a following via a popular Facebook group and a digital magazine. Its product is described as a paint-by-numbers bot creation tool that is easy to use and intended to save time and make money for businesses. Octane AI already counts clients including 50 Cent and Aerosmith. With $1.5 million in funding led by General Catalyst, the team plans to double down on its Facebook business and expand to SMS, iMessage, Slack and websites.