The Venture Codex

Participated · Equity · Jun 2026

HICX provides a supplier data foundation that centralizes supplier onboarding, supplier information, risk and performance management for large organizations. The company supports deployments in more than 120 countries and was founded in 2004. Following the £15M growth funding and refinancing package, HICX plans to invest in its platform and customer roadmap, expand commercial capability and pursue selective acquisitions. The financing was provided by HSBC Innovation Banking with participation from existing investor Wavecrest Growth Partners. Management characterized the funding as a validation of HICX’s role as a governed supplier data foundation amid rising AI automation and regulatory demands.

Led · Series B · Mar 2026

Recentive Analytics builds predictive modeling and forecasting analytics tools for sports, media and entertainment clients, aggregating extensive validated first- and third-party data sources. The company released Velo, a generative AI tool that offers a natural language interface for users to query data on topics such as ticket and merchandise sales, television viewership projections and scheduling impacts. Recentive cites its ability to consolidate a wide array of inputs—including non-typical entertainment factors and local variables like weather—as a key differentiator. Its customer list includes the NFL, MLB, NWSL, ESPN, Live Nation, USTA, the Big Ten, Arctos, the Thunder and college programs such as the University of Oklahoma. CEO Andy Tabrizi emphasizes the company’s role in informing and quantifying the impact of decisions rather than issuing recommendations. Velo has built-in guardrails and a quality-assurance step to maintain user trust in outputs.

Led · Series A · Mar 2025

Carpool Logistics operates a technology-driven vehicle shipping marketplace that bundles multiple vehicles into single shipments to reduce turnaround times and costs while offering real-time tracking and security measures. The company plans to use new capital to accelerate technology development, expand product development, optimize logistics capabilities, and scale sales and marketing to drive customer acquisition and market expansion. Since its founding in 2021, Carpool has grown to serve over 1,800 clients—including auto auctions, dealerships, manufacturers, and fleets—and has shipped more than 150,000 vehicles. The platform emphasizes reducing environmental impact and integrating with customers’ workflows to make shipping a competitive advantage. Carpool is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a member of Atlanta Tech Village and a graduate of Georgia Tech’s ATDC. The company previously raised a $3.5 million seed round in 2022 from Atlanta Ventures and Overline Ventures. Carpool Logistics operates a logistics technology platform for shipping cars that connects vehicle shippers (auto auctions, dealers, manufacturers, and consumers) with auto haulers who have available truck space. The platform enables multiple clients to share space on a single truck to lower costs and reduce emissions. Led by CEO David Cummings, the company leverages marketplace and optimization technology to coordinate vehicle moves. Since launching in May 2021, Carpool Logistics has completed over 10,000 vehicle shipments and serves almost 250 customers. The company recently raised $2M and intends to use the funds to expand operations and accelerate development to address vehicle shipping challenges facing dealerships, auctions, manufacturers, and consumers.

Led · Series B · Nov 2024

Trolley provides an end-to-end payouts platform for the internet economy, automating the payout lifecycle and offering tax compliance, digital reporting, ID verification, and fraud-prevention tools. The company serves finance and product teams across hundreds of organizations, including SoundCloud, Envato, Downtown Music, Bugcrowd, Creator IQ, and BandCamp. Annually it processes billions of dollars in payouts to over 210 countries and territories and supports more than 4 million recipients. Trolley has seen 484% revenue growth over the past three years and was named to the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 rankings for the second consecutive year. The company is approaching profitability and says the new capital will accelerate product development, expand its payment network and customer base, and advance compliance and fraud-prevention capabilities. Trolley is a payouts platform that began as Payment Rails and has evolved into a global payouts ecosystem serving hundreds of businesses. The company automates mass payouts, collects tax and banking data, and provides risk-management tools via a white-label platform and API. Trolley says it has paid out to over 1.1 million creators, musicians, artists, makers, vendors, on-demand workers and suppliers, and supports payments to 215+ countries in 135+ currencies. Demand accelerated since early 2020 as remote work and global contractor use increased, driving platform adoption. The company currently has about 40 employees and plans to expand its product roadmap, banking networks, payout methods, tax compliance offerings, and ERP/accounting integrations. The recent Series A funding will be used to accelerate these product and market expansions. Payment Rails provides an API-first payouts platform that enables businesses to send payments to any individual or company in over 220 countries, in any currency and to any payment method. The product targets online marketplaces, on-demand and share-economy platforms, ad networks, affiliate platforms, app stores and other businesses with international payout needs. Through its API, customers can access global banking, international ACH, faster payment systems and real-time networks on a pay-as-you-go basis with no setup costs. The infrastructure leverages Blockchain and Ripple for treasury and liquidity management and uses AI and machine learning to optimize payment routing by speed, cost, partner and FX rates. The platform also incorporates AI and fuzzy logic for AML watchlist screening and machine-learning–based fraud detection. Payment Rails is in public beta with an official launch scheduled for November 2017 and has closed funding to support its commercial rollout.

Participated · Equity · Nov 2023

Volante offers low-code cloud payments services used to modernize legacy financial infrastructure, including real-time payments, payments-as-a-service, U.S. wire transfers, corporate-to-bank integrations, and embedded preprocessing. Its platform is adopted by about 150 major banks and financial organizations, including Citi, BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, the Bank of Chile, and Poste Italiane. The company says seven of the top 10 U.S. banks, two of the largest card networks, and two of the top three banks in Switzerland are customers, and that 66% of all U.S. commercial deposits are powered by Volante. Volante is based in New Jersey and has strategic investors that include BNY Mellon, Citi, Poste Italiane, and Visa Ventures. The business positions itself to serve both large incumbents and mid-tier banks with individual, composable services rather than a single large-platform rip‑and‑replace approach. Management plans to accelerate its product roadmap around global real-time payments, the UK New Payments Architecture, ISO 20022 modernization, and expanded open-banking and Payments-as-a-Service offerings. Volante Technologies provides payments and financial messaging solutions delivered in the cloud as a software-as-a-service. The company offers an ecosystem of business services that simplify and automate complex systems and processes across payments, capital markets, and financial message integration. Its clients include the world’s largest banks, market infrastructures, exchanges, clearing houses, corporate treasuries, and card networks. Volante was founded in 2001 by Vijay Oddiraju, who serves as CEO. The company recently raised growth funding and intends to use the proceeds to accelerate its cloud expansion globally and to enter new geographies, market segments, and industry verticals.