Participated · Series A · Mar 2016

Visionary VR develops a commercial software suite to simplify creation of immersive VR stories, enabling creators to build and experience narratives without removing their headsets. The company says its product has evolved since early demos into a "completely new storytelling process." Visionary VR aims to lower the skill barrier so non-expert creators can produce VR content; today the team says only expert-level developers can create VR stories. Leadership includes co-founder Jonnie Ross and CEO Gil Baron, who has framed the company’s mission as changing that paradigm. The company plans to accelerate development of its commercial software suite using new funding and to take advantage of increased interest from developers ahead of imminent consumer VR headset releases. Financially, Visionary VR recently completed a $6 million Series A to support those efforts.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2016

Lola provides a monthly, fully-customizable tampon subscription that differentiates itself by manufacturing tampons made entirely of 100% cotton rather than the rayon-polyester blends common in most brands. Each shipment contains an 18-count box priced at roughly $10, with a $1 discount per box when customers order two boxes at a time. The founders emphasize ingredient transparency, pointing out that tampon makers are not required by the FDA to disclose all materials, and position their product as a healthier alternative. While the current product uses plastic applicators, the team is developing a cardboard applicator option to broaden its appeal to environmentally minded customers. The company’s marketing strategy centers on fostering small-group conversations about menstrual health, mirroring trends in clean-label food marketing. Lola recently raised $1.2 million in seed capital, its first outside funding. Investors in the round include BoxGroup, VaynerRSE, 14W, Andy Dunn, and Thrive Capital partners Josh Kushner and Will Gaybrick. Proceeds will be applied to continued product development, regulatory compliance, and subscriber growth.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2016

Vive offers on-demand blowouts for a flat package rate at partner salons, with bookings available on short notice or far in advance. The service has booked more than 34,000 appointments since launch and works with over 230 salons across two cities, New York and Chicago. Vive initially charged $99/month for unlimited blowouts but has shifted to tiered pricing: one blowout for $35, three for $99, and five for $149. The founder, Alanna Gregory, says the vast majority of revenue comes from the unlimited tier, which remains the most popular option. The company recently launched a native app (previously a mobile web app) that enables bookings and Apple Pay tipping for stylists. These operational metrics and product changes accompanied the recent seed financing. Vive provides an app-based subscription that lets members pay $99/month for unlimited wash-and-dry blowouts via partner salons. Users can book appointments from 30 minutes to three days ahead, with availability advertised between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., seven days a week. The company partners with 66 salons in neighborhoods such as Murray Hill, Midtown East, Flatiron, Upper West Side, Noho, Gramercy, Soho, and Tribeca and pays salons a fee for every blowout performed. Vive onboards and vets salons individually to ensure quality and to attach users to the Vive brand rather than individual salons. The service limits members to one blowout per day and has observed increased visit frequency among users. Vive reports it is profitable at its current $99 price point and is launching out of beta at Disrupt NY while seeking further growth.

Participated · Series C · Jan 2016

Grovo produces 60- to 90-second micro-learning videos and accompanying technology/services to help companies train employees on tools and workplace skills. The company started with lessons on online tools like Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Evernote and Dropbox and has expanded into management and workplace communication topics. Grovo charges a subscription fee and said its annualized recurring revenue increased 400 percent as its team doubled from about 100 to 200 people in 2015. New customers include WeWork, the Wyndham Hotel Group and the National Basketball Association. The product has been used in 190 countries, though an estimated 70–80% of users remain in the United States. Planned product additions include GIFs, quizzes and short (60–90 second) podcasts, and the company intends to publish managerial training content it has developed for internal use. International versions are a stated priority for 2017 and 2018. Grovo offers a video-based microlearning platform with a library of roughly 5,000 videos covering about 150 professional skills that customers can supplement with their own material. The company focuses on short, 60–90 second clips to improve completion and quiz engagement, positioning microlearning as an approach for continuous workforce training. Grovo has shifted from a consumer focus to selling training solutions to organizations, citing customers such as Arizona State University, Chevron and several ad agencies including DDB Worldwide, MediaMath and Saatchi & Saatchi LA. CEO Jeff Fernandez (with co-founders Surag Mungekar and Nick Narodny) leads the company as it scales; Grovo quadrupled headcount from 25 to more than 100 in the past year. The team frames its offering as adjacent to the rise of online courses and aimed at addressing gaps in digital skills across the workforce. Financial details in the article note recent fundraising activity (a new Series B and a prior Series A) but do not report revenue or user metrics. Grovo offers a library of over 3,500 bite-sized, in-house video lessons (90 seconds or less) covering social media, cloud tools, and other online services. The content is professionally produced and updated daily to reflect the latest changes to the Internet. The company targets K12 and higher-education institutions as well as employers, and recently added a privacy component to its curriculum for classroom use. Grovo says it has customers in 150 countries, including 100 of the Fortune 500. The company was launched in 2010 and is based in New York. It faces competition from other online education platforms such as Coursera and free content sources like YouTube. Grovo operates an online education and video-training platform that publishes professional how-to tutorials for web services and business tools. Since launch it has produced over 600 video tutorials and hired an in-house writing, video production, and voice talent team; each lesson includes pre-written notes, quiz questions, and glossary terms. In March Grovo introduced premium content at $19/month or $190/year and reported triple-digit traffic growth since then, delivering 2,000–3,000 lessons a day. The company built an embeddable widget to let partners host Grovo lessons on their sites and is already working with inDinero, Retargeter, Aviary, and Hy.ly. Grovo closed its first seed funding round to accelerate product development and expand its offerings. Longer-term plans include positioning the product as an enterprise education platform that companies can use to assign courses, track progress, and manage employee development.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2016

Greatist is a digital publisher offering health and wellness advice targeted at millennial readers, delivered with a distinctive editorial voice and grounded in reporting and research. The site has grown to 10 million unique monthly visitors, with about 50% of traffic from organic search and under 25% from social networks. Revenue grew last year from "just about zero" to profitability, and the team says it has purposefully stayed capital-efficient and bootstrappy. The company raised $4.5M in a Series A led by Floodgate, with participation from Strauss Zelnick, Andy Russell, John Gardner and David Pecker; several past investors also joined the round. Greatist has now raised a total of $8M. Management says the new capital will be used to grow audience and revenue more deliberately, to experiment with new initiatives, and to better serve users and brand partners.