Participated · Equity · Aug 2023

MasterExchange operates a marketplace that enables consumers to invest fiat in future streaming royalties for individual songs and receive quarterly royalty payments. The platform also allows users to trade their ownership shares in those royalties. Its first song offering was "Sofia" by Alvaro, reported at 313,227,072 Spotify streams and over 1 billion streams across all outlets; based on Spotify averages that title may have generated roughly $1.5 million in revenue. MasterExchange positions the product as a way for creators to sell part of future revenues to fund artistic creation and for fans to become "super-fans." Co-founders include Alexander Fred-Ojala, Johan Edfeldt, and producer Jakke Erixson; Fred-Ojala is associated with UC Berkeley’s Launch2Learn AI & Blockchain. Financially, the company has raised $2.7 million in a funding round reported in the article.

Participated · Seed · Apr 2023

Eli builds a palm-sized at-home testing system that measures minuscule amounts of hormones in saliva to provide daily hormonal data. The product targets unmet needs across menopause, fertility, contraception, and endocrine conditions by enabling continuous, timely hormone monitoring. Eli’s scientific and engineering breakthroughs stem from years of R&D to make continuous saliva monitoring accurate and affordable for long-term home use. The company says users collect a tiny saliva sample, insert it into the reader, and receive results in minutes via an app. The new funding will let Eli finalize product development and advance through clinical validation and regulatory approvals toward commercial launch. Since launching in 2019, Eli has raised a total of CAD $9 million, including a CAD $1.9 million pre-seed in 2020. Eli develops a saliva-based at-home device and companion app that capture hormone fluctuations and provide daily, personalized information based on each user’s evolving hormonal profile. The company positions its product to help women own their fertility and broader health decisions. Led by CEO and co-founder Marina Pavlovic Rivas, Eli combines hardware and software with clinical and academic partnerships. The company plans to use new capital for product development, clinical validations with independent medical centers, and initial strategic sales. Eli will continue collaborating with academic institutions to advance women’s health research. Financially, the company raised a seed round that increases its total funding since creation in mid-2019.

Participated · Seed · Nov 2022

Tellus operates a mobile-first savings product that pays retail customers 3.85%–4.5% APY by deploying deposits into U.S. single-family-home loans (primarily super jumbo loans). It targets existing homeowners seeking larger homes who struggle to get traditional financing and funds loans through partnerships with mortgage brokers. Tellus currently only lends in California due to its lending license and partnerships, while allowing anyone in the U.S. to use its savings software. The company says it has lent more than $80 million with an average loan size of $2 million, and reported revenue growth of 55% in Q3 versus Q2 2022. Tellus emphasizes strict underwriting and says it has not yet seen defaults because many borrowers refinance into better terms; retail customers earn interest daily and can withdraw at any time. The remote-first, Cupertino-based startup has about 50 employees and plans to build out engineering, marketing and product teams and expand a recently launched SMB offering.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2022

Great Bay Bio develops an end-to-end AI-enabled bioprocessing platform to satisfy R&D and commercial demands of global customers. Led by Chairman and Co-founder Kingsley Leung, the company has commercialized two proprietary AI+CMC platforms, AlfaCell® and AlfaMedX®, which have been used by multiple biopharma companies. AlfaCell® reduces uncertainties in productivity and stability in cell line development, improving efficiency in upstream bioprocess development, while AlfaMedX® maintains a culture medium library of more than one thousand formulas and enables rapid customized medium development services. GBB's AI solutions have been applied to CMC processes for fusion proteins, monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, and have supported R&D in synthetic biology, industrial enzyme preparations, cultured meat, and other biomanufacturing fields. The company raised USD15M in a Pre-Series B round and intends to use the funds to accelerate development of AI-empowered bioprocessing platforms, construct production facilities, and establish a global commercial development team. Great Bay Bio is a Hong Kong-based high-tech enterprise applying artificial intelligence and related technologies to CMC bioprocessing. The company offers three AI-driven platforms: Klone4.0™, an AI-enabled cell line selection platform; AlfaStaX®, an AI-enabled cell line stability prediction platform; and AlfaMedX®, an AI-enabled cell culture media development platform. Klone4.0 can pinpoint and select high-yield monoclones within four hours, while AlfaStaX predicts 90-day cell line stability using two weeks of real-time cell images. AlfaMedX uses big data mining, deep learning, and transfer learning to build media formulation models that replace traditional DOE and metabolic analysis, reducing development time and cost. Each platform has been commercially validated to improve bioprocess development efficiency and reduce R&D risk, and the company has formed multiple partnerships with domestic biopharmaceutical companies, MNCs and CDMOs. Great Bay Bio intends to use the proceeds from its near $10M Series A to accelerate global commercialization of its three platforms.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2022

Bounty Media operates a Zero Party Data platform that empowers consumers to control their personal data and be rewarded for sharing it with advertisers and publishers. The company serves advertisers and publishers across news networks, telcos, games and OTT partners, and counts three of the world’s seven largest advertisers — including Procter & Gamble — as clients in Southeast Asia. Bounty launched in Indonesia in 2021 and has expanded into Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines while expanding its team in Singapore. Its partners (Viu, Vidio, dtac, Indosat) serve a collective audience of 187 million; the company plans to reach a 1 billion person audience by the end of 2023. Bounty says it is building the foundation of a marketplace for consumers to sell their data for $1 a day and will continue rollout across Southeast Asia and the rest of APAC through 2022 and 2023. The company was founded in November 2019 in Singapore.