Participated · Seed · Jan 2022

Originally a distributor for photographers and designers across stock marketplaces, Wirestock pivoted in 2023 to become a data supplier for AI, offering curated and custom datasets of images, video, design assets, and 3D/gaming content. The platform has signed up more than 700,000 artists and designers and reports it supplies data to six of the largest foundation model makers. Wirestock reported an annual run-rate revenue of $40 million and has paid out $15 million to contributors; it employs about 60 people. The company uses a mix of AI and human reviews and requires applicants to complete a quality-check task before joining as contributors. Wirestock is exploring additional modalities such as audio and music and is building enterprise software and expanding teams in research, engineering, and product to scale its data-supply business. The firm shifted some internal teams to focus on annotation, labeling, and enterprise sales to meet custom dataset requests from AI customers.

Participated · Series B · Oct 2021

Clyde launched in 2018 its core extended warranty product to help merchants sell protection plans, drive revenue and improve customer experience. The platform now also includes a unified claims management tool that handles customer and product issues regardless of protection-plan ownership. Clyde says merchants using its extended-warranty solution see an 18% average attachment rate and that its results are 4x the industry average. The company has partnered with more than 300 brands and retailers across categories including electronics, furniture, appliances, fitness equipment, and watches. With the new funding it plans to expand its GDPR- and CCPA-compliant platform so merchants can identify and build direct relationships with customers even when purchases occur through third parties. Clyde also intends to expand into new markets and categories, hire talent, and scale internationally to drive higher attachment rates and more revenue. Clyde provides a platform that connects small retailers to insurance companies so merchants can launch and manage product-protection and extended-warranty programs. The product includes a merchant dashboard and e-commerce apps that show contracts sold, total revenue, gross profit, and which products most often sell protection. Clyde offers integrations with Shopify, BigCommerce, Salesforce, Magento, WooCommerce and more to enable live deployment on web and physical point-of-sale. The founding team is product-focused and emphasizes partnerships with top insurance companies as a competitive advantage. Its core operating metric is an average 18% attachment rate—18% of buyers on a Clyde-powered path purchase protection. The company positions itself to help non-Amazon/Walmart retailers capture revenue and data from warranties and has seen increased inbound interest since the COVID-19 pandemic. Clyde provides an API that lets merchants add product warranty and protection options to point-of-sale and ecommerce platforms via a plugin. Businesses can integrate insurance companies and manage administrators and protection programs through an admin portal. Co-founded by CEO Brandon Gell, Head of Engineering Josh Scaglione and engineer Nick Scaglione, Clyde is a Techstars Chicago graduate. The company currently offers protection in 48 states and manages licensing in California and Florida during onboarding. Clyde raised $3m in funding to continue expanding operations and further develop its solutions. The company is based in New York City.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2021

TAE Technologies is a nearly 30-year-old company developing compact plasma reactors aimed at commercial fusion power. Its reactor design produces a hollow-cigar plasma that generates its own magnetic field to work with reactor magnets for containment. The company recently eliminated the need to fire two plasma balls to initiate reactions, instead forming, heating, and stabilizing plasma using particle beams alone, which it says reduces size, cost, and complexity. TAE's current devices can heat plasmas to about 70 million °C, while the company says commercial systems must reach roughly 1 billion °C. Google has collaborated with TAE since 2014 on machine learning to optimize device settings and has participated in multiple investment rounds. Financially, TAE raised $150 million in the latest funding round, has closed twelve rounds to date, and has raised about $1.8 billion overall; CEO Michl Binderbauer is aiming to raise an additional $50 million before this round closes. The company is targeting to put electrons on the grid in the early 2030s. TAE Technologies develops an alternative approach to nuclear fusion intended to produce large amounts of carbon-free energy with limited long-lived radioactive waste. The company was founded in 1998 with the goal of building compact, cost-effective, and safe commercial fusion power sources. TAE says it aims to build commercial-scale fusion reactors and deliver energy to the grid in the early 2030s. Google has partnered with TAE since 2014, providing artificial intelligence and computational support. The company announced a new $250 million investment that brings its total capital raised to $1.2 billion. Management frames the financing as validation of technical progress and support for near-term commercialization goals. TAE Technologies is a 20-year-old private fusion developer that has demonstrated stable plasma exceeding 50 million degrees in its Norman device. The company says that achievement validates its confinement approach and makes commercial-scale reactors feasible by the end of the decade. TAE has not yet produced net energy and still treats energy output from current tests as diagnostic-level signals. It plans a demonstration facility called Copernicus that will start on a deuterium-tritium (D-T) cycle and ultimately transition to hydrogen-boron (pB-11) aneutronic fuel. The firm is also preparing to spin off power-management technology for peak shaving, energy storage and battery management. TAE has leveraged machine learning with Google and exascale compute via the DOE INCITE program in its development work.

Participated · Series C · Aug 2019

ScaleFactor is an online intelligent finance and automated accounting platform that consolidates financial data and automates back-office tasks such as bookkeeping and payroll. The company positions itself as a business OS for small- and mid-size businesses, giving owners real-time visibility and proactive financial insights previously available only to enterprises. ScaleFactor offers automated bookkeeping, payroll, and other financial process automation to streamline operations and establish consistent financial habits. The company plans to expand its 'business OS' capabilities and to offer new solutions including ways for SMBs to access capital that are often inaccessible at their size. ScaleFactor has recently expanded nationally into Denver, released its inaugural State of SMB Finance Report, and was named to Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces for 2019. Financially, ScaleFactor raised a $60 million Series C and has raised a total of $100 million in the past year to support product expansion and growth. ScaleFactor offers an intelligent finance and automated accounting platform that consolidates and automates back-office operations into a single “business OS.” Its current product suite includes Automated Bookkeeping, Bill Pay and Invoicing, Cash Vision, and Business Insights. The company translates financial information into usable business insights to help small and midmarket business owners be proactive and focus on growth. ScaleFactor reported over 700% annual customer growth in 2018. The new capital is intended to add features and headcount at its Austin headquarters and support nationwide expansion. Recent senior hires (CTO, SVP Marketing, and a lending lead) are intended to accelerate product development and broaden capabilities such as connecting customers to capital. ScaleFactor provides a modern accounting and finance platform that automates taxes, inventory, invoicing, bill pay, payroll and 1099 management while integrating with software like Xero, QuickBooks, Gusto, Expensify, Salesforce and Shopify. The company was founded by former 'Big Four' CPAs and is positioning itself as a central hub for SMB financial operations. ScaleFactor says it is experiencing rapid customer growth and reports upwards of 850% year-over-year growth. The product aims to translate financial information into usable business insights so owners can focus on running and growing their businesses. ScaleFactor plans to expand its marketing and business development teams and invest heavily in enhancing its technology offerings on the platform. The company targets the roughly 19 million U.S. companies with under 100 employees as its addressable market. ScaleFactor provides a cloud-based finance and accounting platform that automates bookkeeping, tax compliance and financial analysis using machine learning. The product translates complex financial data into a proactive management cockpit for business owners and accountants. ScaleFactor targets the 29 million small businesses in the U.S. and aims to move firms from reactive accounting to proactive financial guidance. The company plans to use the new funding to propel product development, including further automation, forecasting solutions, mobile development and a Trusted Partnership Network. ScaleFactor integrates with existing cloud software and becomes more precise with use as its machine-learning models learn from data. The platform is positioned as a single place for owners and financial experts to run and monitor business operations in real time.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2017

Rec Room offers a user-generated, immersive social gaming platform that runs on iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Oculus, and Steam, letting players build and hang out in virtual “rooms.” The company focuses on tools that enable creators to build games and social experiences, and its platform supports both casual meetups and more structured events like virtual weddings and meetings. Rec Room has seen rapid user growth — from 2 million creators/players in March to 37 million users overall, with 12 million rooms on the platform. Monthly user count grew almost 450% since November 2020, and mobile users increased tenfold in that period. The company does not disclose revenue figures but said it paid out about $1 million to game creators in March. Rec Room plans to expand to new platforms, build more experiences, invest in trust and safety systems, and continue enhancing creator tools. Rec Room launched as a VR-only platform and later expanded to traditional game consoles, PC and mobile to broaden its reach. The product emphasizes creator tools and an on-platform economy, with 2 million players having created content. The company reported surpassing 15 million lifetime users and showed 566% year-over-year revenue growth; CEO Nick Fajt said the player base has tripled in the past 12 months. Rec Room is on track to pay out more than $1 million to creators this year. Venture interest has been driven in part by investor FOMO following Roblox’s public debut, as Rec Room follows similar paths around creator monetization. Rec Room is a social gaming platform that started as a VR-centric social hub and gaming platform for virtual reality users. In recent years the company has expanded beyond VR to reach every major gaming platform and scale for a young user base. CEO Nick Fajt says the company has tripled its total audience year-over-year; Rec Room has about 10 million registered users, with more than 1 million engaging creator tools and 4 million distinct rooms. The console user base grew substantially in 2020, and Fajt expects mobile to become the most common point of entry by the end of next year, though Android remains one of the last major platforms without the app. The company plans to scale its creation tools and creator payments, targeting $1 million paid out to creators by the end of 2021. Despite slow VR market maturation, Rec Room remains committed to VR and recently updated its Rec Royale battle royale for Quest 2 and iOS. Financially, the company has raised just shy of $50 million to date and continues to pursue cross-platform growth. Against Gravity builds Rec Room, a cross-platform social VR world where users create and share rooms and multiplayer experiences without coding. The platform supports a wide range of hardware and is about to add iOS support to expand its user base. Rec Room is approaching one million user-created rooms and the studio employs 35 people. Monetization is currently light, but the company plans to let creators charge in-game tokens to play certain user-made experiences later this year. Timing for expansion has been tied to maturation of standalone VR hardware like Oculus Quest. The studio was founded in 2016 and is based in Seattle. Against Gravity develops augmented and virtual reality social experiences, with its flagship product Rec Room. Rec Room is a virtual reality social club where people can play active games against competitors around the world. The app is available for HTC Vive and Oculus Touch. The company raised $5M in venture capital to support hiring and expand operations. Founded in April 2016 and based in Seattle, WA, Against Gravity focuses on growing its VR social platform and team.