Participated · Series C · Oct 2019

Crunchbase operates an API-driven database and SaaS prospecting platform that combines proprietary company and funding data with contact information and a news division. The product is used for account-based prospecting and includes discovery filters, machine learning recommendations, a Chrome extension, Salesforce sync, and email integrations. The company reports over 75 million unique annual visitors, more than 60,000 paying customers, and representation from over half of the Fortune 500. Crunchbase employed about 220 people and plans to grow the team to around 275 by year-end. In the first half of the year it drove $9 million of net new ARR at $2 million burn and aims to double its business-to-business software ARR to roughly $38 million for that segment. The platform faces competition from PitchBook, CB Insights, Owler and others, and plans include a HubSpot integration and further ML-powered suggestions and dashboards. Crunchbase emphasizes measured growth and efficiency as it scales its product and sales capabilities. Crunchbase provides private-company prospecting and research solutions, combining a rich database with prospecting software used by salespeople, entrepreneurs, investors, and market researchers. The platform includes features such as a Salesforce integration, enhanced search, and updated company profiles. Crunchbase reports over 55 million users and more than 3 billion API calls per year. Customers have reported significant ROI gains from recent features. Leadership says the company will continue building new features and investing in data to help customers grow. Crunchbase is headquartered in San Francisco. Crunchbase began as part of TechCrunch and was later spun out into an independent database and directory of company information. Its core product aggregates company profiles, funding history, executive data, original coverage, and third-party integrations (for example, Siftery and SimilarWeb) to provide market intelligence. The company reports about 55 million annual visitors and "tens of thousands" of paid subscribers, with subscription pricing noted at $29/user/month (varying by contract); it has 120 employees after tripling headcount since 2017. Crunchbase says it performs 3.9 billion annual data updates sourced from user uploads, manual and automatic inputs, and roughly 4,000 data partnerships that drive about 1.6 billion annual API calls. Management is winding down advertising and plans to focus on expanding paid subscribers and adding predictive, personalized features using machine learning and other AI technologies. Since 2017 it has grown its annual revenue run rate tenfold and more than doubled traffic since being spun out, and it is pursuing subscription and licensing revenue growth. Crunchbase is a database that charts startups, other tech companies, the people who work for them, and those who fund them; the company spun out from TechCrunch in September 2015. Its core products include a free service, the Pro tier (launched September 2016 at $29/month), and the newly announced Crunchbase Enterprise business-intelligence product. Enterprise enables BI-style queries to follow investment trends, identify growth industries, and find peer companies, and about 5,000 companies are using it, including Microsoft, IBM Watson, Nestle, Samsung, Slack, Target, Volkswagen, and Deloitte. The free service draws roughly 27 million visitors per year and about 10 million sessions per month. Crunchbase is planning a Marketplace to integrate third-party data via APIs (aiming to secure about 15 providers) and will use the funding to expand analytics, data visualizations, and platform capabilities. The company employed 40 people at the time of the article and plans to double headcount to about 80 by year-end, hiring in engineering and data science. CrunchBase, spun out of TechCrunch/AOL/Verizon late last year, provides a searchable database of private-company information, funding events, investors and people in startups. The company has launched paid data-access plans that tier access to its APIs and live data. It previously offered data under varying Creative Commons and non-commercial licenses and now provides commercial and non-commercial licenses with priced tiers. The free plan offers a 2013 historical MySQL snapshot and limited access to an Open Data Map API but not the full REST API. Paid tiers include a $999/month plan for live internal-business data use and a $4,999/month plan for developers building public apps; CrunchBase positions three tiers as Basic, Commercial and Advanced. CEO Jager McConnell said the new funding will be used to accelerate growth and invest heavily in engineering to build the next generation of CrunchBase.

Participated · Equity · May 2017

Renovo develops a software platform it positions as an autonomous operating system for leading automakers and fleet operators. The company aims to provide core software and services to support self-driving vehicles and fleets. Renovo debuted a high-profile demo in 2015 with a self-driving DeLorean developed with Stanford and has since expanded testing: it is listed as a permit holder for self-driving vehicle tests on public roads in California. Financially, Verizon invested as part of a new $10 million financing round led by True Ventures, bringing Renovo’s total funding to $14.5 million across two rounds. Renovo was founded in 2010. Verizon views its network and services as a strategic component for autonomous driving, highlighting the importance of data transfer and collection in Renovo’s market. Renovo Motors, founded in 2010 and based in Campbell, California, develops an all-electric coupe. Founded by Christopher Heiser and Jason Stinson, the company operated in stealth for over four years to refine a patent-pending electric vehicle technology and recently launched its production prototype. The Renovo Coupe employs a patent-pending 740-volt lithium-ion battery pack and two twin sequential axial flux motors producing more than 500 horsepower and 1,000 ft-lbs of torque. The powertrain delivers 0–60 mph in 3.4 seconds and the coupe is on sale now in limited quantities, with shipments slated to begin in 2015. Renovo closed an undisclosed funding round led by True Ventures and plans to use the proceeds to continue R&D focused on enhancing its electric propulsion technology.

Led · Seed · Jan 2014

Freeno.me is focused on enabling earlier cancer detection by developing a platform that builds on emerging evidence of cell-free circulating DNA as a biomarker to detect and monitor cancer at stages where clinical benefit can be gained. The project combines proprietary software architecture being generated by Freeno.me with Loxbridge Research's experience in cell-free DNA, including Loxbridge's founding of Premaitha Health, to produce interpretable and actionable information for researchers, clinicians and eventually patients. Planned applications include treatment monitoring and new companion diagnostics, with eventual deployment via cloud computing and mobile applications. Freeno.me is already in early discussions with pharmaceutical companies about using the platform to enhance clinical trials. The project received $700K (£425K) as a Verizon Powerful Answers Award, which will serve as seed funding and be used for recruitment of staff and further development of the data analysis software platform. Freeno.me was co-innovated with Thiel Fellow Riley Ennis and is being advanced by Loxbridge Research, the UK-based investment and project-management company.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2013

Zenverge is a Santa Clara, California–based fabless semiconductor company that develops advanced content networking ICs built around its patented ZEN architecture. Its ICs are deployed in operator gateways, media servers and cloud infrastructure to enable pay-TV services and a ubiquitous TV Everywhere experience. The company supports streaming of live and recorded content to tablets, smartphones, game consoles and streaming clients, as well as seamless wireless TV and optimized DVR storage. Led by CEO Amir Mobini, Zenverge focuses on content networking solutions for home media gateways and related digital media devices. The company closed an $11M financing to support a revenue ramp and to enhance its portfolio of content networking ICs for the home media gateway market. Zenverge is a Santa Clara, California-based fabless semiconductor company focused on Advanced Content Networking ICs built around its patented ZEN architecture. The company describes the ZEN architecture as a core technology for next-generation digital media devices. Led by CEO Amir Mobini, Zenverge closed a financing (amount undisclosed) to support its growth. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate deployment of media gateways through its list of tier-1 operators. Zenverge also plans to accelerate its roadmap of higher-performance ICs and lower-cost system solutions. No operating metrics or revenue figures were disclosed in the article. Zenverge develops Advanced Media ICs built around the patented ZEN architecture to power next‑generation digital media devices such as HDTVs, Blu‑ray recorders, set‑top boxes, multimedia NAS devices, headless gateways, media streamers and movers, portable device adapters, PCs and network video equipment. Led by CEO Amir Mobini, the company supplies silicon targeted at cable, telco and satellite markets and intends to develop unified solutions for those markets. Following the financing, Zenverge plans to use the proceeds to accelerate support and growth, expand adoption of its existing products, develop unified solutions for cable, telco and satellite markets with Entropic, and continue its development activities. The company is headquartered in Cupertino, California. Its core product strategy centers on the ZEN architecture as the foundation for its Advanced Media IC lineup. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article. Zenverge develops Advanced Media integrated circuits for consumer and professional applications. The company is headquartered in Cupertino, California. It closed a $30M Series C round to support growth. Zenverge will use the new capital to ramp production and expand marketing and development activities. The funding is intended to broaden the company’s product offerings. Ken Lawler of Battery Ventures joined the company’s board in conjunction with the financing.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2013

LocalResponse is a New York-based social advertising platform that targets ads and marketing campaigns based on social network signals and check-ins. It sells to national brands and agencies and helps retarget social signals across mobile, tablet, and desktop display ads. The company has run campaigns for Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Walgreens and works with 125 advertisers. As of last summer it was delivering about 7 billion impressions per month. LocalResponse is almost at profitability and is on a $10 million annual run rate, and founder Nihal Mehta says he hopes to triple that by the end of the year. LocalResponse aggregates explicit and implicit check-ins from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Instagram and dozens of other services to help local businesses identify influential customers. Its proprietary technology analyzes the Twitter firehose, photos and natural language to find intent-focused signals (e.g., “I’m headed to ShakeShack”) and prioritizes them for outreach. Businesses can reply to those check-ins with canned or custom marketing messages, coupons or promotions; LocalResponse limits outreach to no more than one message per user every seven days. In a six-month private beta in New York City the company ran over 2,000 campaigns, reporting average link click-through rates of ~60% and 15–20% redemption rates. The product launches with roughly 500,000 pre-indexed businesses and offers a free tier today, with a planned freemium model and a separate brand-and-agency platform in development. Financially, LocalResponse closed $1.5 million in funding in December and intends to raise a larger round in the summer.