• Videolicious

  Participated · Equity · Aug 2013

  Videolicious makes a mobile app that lets users easily create videos from their phones, stitching together photos and clips and recording voiceovers. The company targets businesses and newsrooms and is used for employee training, real estate listings, and increasingly by journalists and broadcasters. It has recently focused on driving adoption among news organizations and has added enterprise-style tools to link the app and produced videos to content management systems. Those tools help news organizations manage and monetize the additional content created on the platform. More than 100 newspapers, magazines, and TV stations signed up in the last few months, and the Washington Post has 30 reporters using the app. Financially, Videolicious has raised $2.25M in the latest round and more than $4M in total to date. Videolicious offers an automatic video-creation platform that enables users to produce sales, marketing and communications videos in real time on desktops, tablets and mobile devices. The company launched Videolicious 2.0 and provides a mobile version that can be downloaded for free on iTunes. Videolicious serves more than 800,000 users across over 100 countries, including social media marketers, Fortune 500 companies, real estate agents and local businesses. Founded in 2007 and led by CEO Matt Singer, the company focuses on tools for creating video content quickly and at scale. Videolicious recently raised funding to support its product development. It intends to use the new financing for research and development efforts.

• EdSurge

  Participated · Seed · Aug 2012

  EdSurge is a Burlingame, California–based source of information and resources on edtech, founded in 2011 by CEO Betsy Corcoran. The company produces editorial content, runs conferences, operates a jobs board and offers a product called Edtech Concierge. Its mission is to connect educators with the most appropriate technology for their students and schools. As of this round the company had raised $5.6M in total funding. The new funds will be used to grow operations and to expand coverage beyond K–12 into higher education. Management and staff will continue to own the majority following the round. Edsurge is a Burlingame, CA-based independent provider of news, analysis and events focused on the education-technology community. The platform offers news, events and products for educators, helps developers understand educator and learner needs, and provides market insights for investors. Founded in 2011 and led by CEO Elizabeth Corcoran, the company has raised $2.86M to date. It recently added $960K to its Series A, bringing the round total to $2.46M. The company intends to use the funds to launch new initiatives. Backers include angel and venture investors such as Steve Blank, Catamount Ventures, Dale Dougherty and the Women's Venture Capital Fund. EdSurge provides news, analysis and events for the education-technology community, serving educators, entrepreneurs and investors. Its site aims to help educators discover products, developers understand what educators and learners need, and investors make sense of the edtech market. The company intends to use the Series A funds to organize live events across the US (EdSurge Summits), produce customized research reports for schools, edtech companies and investors, develop a nationwide hiring site, and continue growth in its mass-audience newsletters. EdSurge completed a $1.5M Series A financing led by GSV Capital. Founded in 2011 by Nick Punt, Elizabeth (Betsy) Corcoran and Agustin Vilaseca, the company is majority-owned by its employees and executives. It is based in Burlingame, California. Founded in February 2011 by veteran journalists, EdSurge operates a website and a popular weekly eNewsletter that aim to serve as a central hub for education-technology news and information. The site produces reporting, blogging and events to help educators, entrepreneurs and investors discover and evaluate edtech products. EdSurge emphasizes independent reviews and practical coverage to help schools sift through new products and adoption claims. The startup grew to a team of seven and counts tens of thousands of readers, reflecting early traction in the edtech community. As it moves forward, EdSurge plans to expand the breadth of its coverage and further develop independent reviews of edtech startups and products. Its editorial and product focus is intended to bridge a previously fragmented market and spur better product development by providing rigorous, usable information.

• Fabulis

  Participated · Series A · Dec 2010

  Fab.com (formerly Fabulis) is a social network for gay men focused on helping users discover people, places and activities across the globe. The company recently rebranded to the more memorable Fab.com and launched a global directory of “gay-friendly places” with rankings, reviews, tips and photo uploads to complement interactive profiles and an events database. It offers an iPhone app that enables check-ins, location identification, place ratings, naming companions and image uploads. The site reports over 110,000 members, with 40% of members logging in at least 10 times per month and 25% visiting more than 50 times per month; the service attracts more than 5,000 new users weekly. Financially, Fab.com raised $1.75 million in Series A funding from investors such as First Round Capital, The Washington Post Company, Baroda Ventures and Zelkova Ventures, in addition to earlier angel financing. Fabulis is a social network for gay men that launched a major 2.0 relaunch of its website and iPhone app. The platform mixes features similar to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Groupon and Yammer, enabling status updates, streams, check-ins, messaging/chat, and a gay-relevant event directory. Version 2.0 adds Facebook Places syncing, liking and commenting, Fabulis Auctions using a virtual currency called Fabulis Bits, and Fabulis Exclusives promotions. The company reports about 80,000 active members roughly five months after launch, with about 5,000 new sign-ups per week. Founder Jason Goldberg says the team plans to ship new features weekly on web and mobile. Financially, Fabulis announced an additional $375,000 in angel funding in this round, bringing total capital injected to $1.25 million. Fabulis is a recently launched New York–based social network for gay men that centers its product around profiles, messaging attempts, and popularity contests. The company has pivoted from paid messaging to a bits-driven popularity contest model where users vote each other up and can supercharge votes with purchased bits. It runs travel-related contests (trips to Fire Island and Atlantis Cruises) and awards prizes; the platform has given away $30,000 in prizes so far. Bits are sold (the article notes "bits, which sell for 1,500 a dollar and up") and are also offered to users who sign up for advertiser marketing offers such as American Airlines; some users reportedly spend hundreds on bits. Financially, Fabulis has raised $825,000 in seed funding to date, and users' total spending has exceeded the prizes awarded. The company competes with more established startups like GayCities and is focused on monetizing both user purchases and advertiser partnerships. Fabulis is a community and lifestyle website for homosexual men that launched a public beta and explicitly positions itself as not a dating site. The service is Facebook‑centric: users sign in with Facebook Connect, import Facebook friends, and see a Plans page filled with Facebook events algorithmically filtered for gay men. Users can RSVP to events (on Fabulis only or synced to Facebook), vote on profiles, and use a proprietary virtual currency called Fabulis Bits for voting and other site activities. Prior to public launch the site was invite-only and had about 14,000 registered members, including several gay celebrities. Financially, Fabulis has raised $625k in seed funding. Investors named in the seed round include The Washington Post and Allen Morgan, a venture partner at Mayfield Fund; founder Jason Goldberg previously raised more than $50 million for Jobster.

• Kima Labs

  Participated · Seed · Aug 2010

  Barcode Hero is an iPhone app from Kima Labs that makes in-store shopping social by letting users scan product barcodes to earn points, ranks, and rewards. Scanning builds a product database the company uses to personalize recommendations and encourage user contributions such as reviews and recommendations. The app gamifies shopping with category-based points, dukedoms and kingships to drive engagement and a social graph. It also provides price comparisons through a deal with PriceGrabber while positioning itself as the recommendation layer for in-store shopping. Founders Blake Scholl and Jason Crawford are Amazon veterans who previously worked at Pelago (makers of Whrrl). The team plans to expand the app to other platforms beyond iPhone quickly and to focus first on building the social graph and user experience before pursuing coupons heavily. The company says brands and merchants have already shown interest in the product's monetization potential.

No current team members are available.