Participated · Series A · Mar 2024

Goalsetter provides a goal-based savings and smart-spending platform for families that combines educational media and tools to build wealth. Its financial wellness content is mapped to JumpStart.org and Council for Economic Education national standards and uses pop culture, memes, GIFs and game-based tools to engage young consumers. Features include “Learn to Earn,” which rewards kids for correct quiz answers, and “Learn Before You Burn,” which lets parents automatically freeze teens' and tweens' debit cards if they miss weekly quizzes. The company offers its app as a white-labeled youth-banking solution through partnerships with banks and credit unions including Fiserv, Trustage, CUNA Strategic Services, MSU Federal Credit Union, InTouch CU, Solutions Bank and Liberty Bank. Goalsetter recently raised $9.6M in a Series A extension and plans to use the funds to continue signing new B2B alliances and to implement existing programs ahead of a Series B raise. The company is led by founder and CEO Tanya Van Court. Goalsetter operates a financial-education app for children that combines allowance and gift management, a Goalsetter debit card, age‑tailored financial‑literacy quizzes to 'unlock' funds, and a newly introduced Goalsetter Invest feature for buying and selling stocks. The product is gamified to engage kids while teaching savings, spending, and investing behaviors. Founder Tanya Van Court built the company drawing on personal financial lessons and prior experience at Nickelodeon, Discovery Education and ESPN. Goalsetter initially grew via B2C channels focused on parents and word of mouth. Following its Series A, the company is shifting into B2B, offering white‑labeled versions of its platform to banks and financial institutions through a partnership with Fiserv. It is also pursuing partnerships with large employers to offer the platform as an employee benefit. Goalsetter provides an app and debit card that teach children financial literacy through quizzes, allowance management, goal cards and parental controls. The platform lets parents pay kids for correct quiz answers, enable family and friends to give goal cards instead of gift cards, and control or lock the kid debit card. Founder Tanya Van Court, who previously worked at Nickelodeon and ESPN, launched Goalsetter in 2019 out of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator. The company reports families save an average of $120 per month on the platform and said two families saved over $10,000 in the last year. Goalsetter is also launching a campaign for Black History Month aimed at closing the wealth gap among Black children and kids of color through financial education. To date the company has raised a total of $6.0M. Goalsetter provides parents and children a goal-driven savings platform with two main branches: a kids’ savings account (allowance, auto-save, debit card round-ups and GoalCards) and a financial-literacy learning center. Children set goals (college, bikes, gaming consoles), earn allowance through the app, and receive GoalCards from relatives to fund those goals. The company’s quiz game “It’s LIT” is mapped to K–12 financial literacy standards and uses pop-culture content to engage kids; Goalsetter plans to launch that curriculum to school districts with lesson plans and quizzes. Goalsetter monetizes by charging $1 per GoalCard sent, donates 5% of the transaction fee to children’s charities, and offers a voluntary donation function. The app skews younger than competitors and has been featured on Shark Tank; the founder declined an offer from Mr. Wonderful. Goalsetter has more than 20,000 users and graduated from the Entrepreneurs’ Roundtable Accelerator in 2017. The company has raised a total of $2.1 million to date.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2022

FinTron provides an investment and personal finance application and financial literacy programs to thousands of high school and college students. The company has built a national digital footprint, serving clients in 52 states and territories. FinTron acquired nearly 12,000 new users in 2021 alone. It intends to use the new capital to expand its organization, hire new talent, and upgrade its technology and product offerings. Planned product upgrades include a rewards engine, crypto trading capabilities, enhanced education, and a Neo-Bank offering. FinTron is led by CEO Wilder Rumpf and is based in Stamford, Conn. The company has raised nearly $10M in total capital after the latest round.

Led · Debt Financing · Jul 2021

Everstream operates a business-only fiber network offering dedicated internet access, dark fiber, Ethernet and data center solutions. The company has grown to more than 25,000 route miles of fiber and over 3,600 on-net buildings, with speeds up to 100 Gbps. Everstream serves metro and rural areas across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, providing direct connections to data centers, cloud providers and supporting 5G and next‑gen technologies. It plans to expand into seven new markets, densify existing markets, and connect thousands of macro towers across its 10-state footprint through June 2022. Financially, Everstream secured an additional $140 million in debt financing to fund this growth; that tranche was oversubscribed by $40 million. The company reported the financing brings the total invested by this group of bankers to $567 million. Everstream Solutions is a Cleveland-based network service provider that delivers fiber-based Ethernet, Internet and data center solutions to business customers throughout Northeast Ohio. The company operates over 2,500 miles of fiber across 24 counties and offers comprehensive data center connectivity at 10 Gigabit speed. In October 2015 Everstream agreed to receive a $50M investment from Boston-based M/C Partners and investors advised by the Private Equity Group of J.P. Morgan Asset Management; the transaction was scheduled to close on October 15, 2015. Proceeds are earmarked for expansion, customer acquisition and retiring existing debt. As part of the deal Everstream will acquire a majority of the fiber assets owned by OneCommunity and will be structured as a standalone organization, while OneCommunity will retain a minority interest and receive funds to support its mission-related work. Brett Lindsey, currently chief operating officer of OneCommunity and president of Everstream, will serve as Everstream's chief executive officer going forward.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2017

Payrailz provides cloud-based payment technology that automates tasks and creates predictive, “do it for me” payment experiences for financial institutions. Its platform emphasizes AI, dynamic workflow, open data exchange and a robust SDK to enable banks and credit unions to offer differentiated digital payment services. The company positions itself as bridging the gap between tech-enabled consumers’ expectations and traditional payment approaches through digital channels. Payrailz’s solutions aim to make payments more engaging and to simplify user workflows by automating common payment tasks. The company communicates a focus on ongoing product innovation and on helping financial institutions meet current and future payment expectations. Payrailz builds cloud-based digital payments technology that offers advanced bill payment and money transfer solutions to banks and credit unions. Its platform emphasizes “do it for me” automation, predictive and more engaging payment experiences using AI, dynamic workflow, open data exchange and a robust SDK. The company positions its products to bridge the gap between tech-enabled consumers’ expectations and legacy payment approaches. Payrailz highlights cloud infrastructure and open APIs as core to future product development. The announcement was issued from Glastonbury, Conn., where the company is based. The company says it is focused on product innovation to revitalize the payment experience for financial institutions and their customers.

Participated · Debt Financing · Apr 2016

Founded in 2012 by Yancey Spruill, DigitalOcean provides a cloud platform designed to simplify app creation for developers, startups and SMBs. The company targets a range of users from individual developers to small and medium businesses. It reports $300M in annual recurring revenue and serves more than 500,000 customers globally, with nearly two-thirds located outside the U.S. DigitalOcean’s core product is a developer-focused cloud for building modern applications. The company says it will use new funding to continue expanding operations and its business reach. CEO Yancey Spruill is cited in the company’s founding and leadership. DigitalOcean offers self-serve cloud infrastructure targeted at SMBs and developers, attracting roughly four million website visitors per month and converting tens of thousands of new customers. The company reports all revenue as recurring and had an annualized run rate of $200M in 2018 and $250M toward the end of 2019, with an expectation to reach a $300M annualized run rate in the first half of 2020. Management says DigitalOcean grows at a mid-20s percentage rate, posts EBITDA in the low-20s, and experiences de minimis churn after customers have been on the platform for a year. The firm emphasizes low customer-acquisition cost via its self-serve motion and reinvests operating cash flow into the business rather than relying on equity dilution. Leadership expects to become free-cash-flow profitable within two years and plans to scale to $1 billion in revenue over the next five years; an IPO remains an option but is not imminent. The company intends to use recent funding to invest in partnerships, boost product investment, and grow an early-stage inside sales capability. DigitalOcean is a cloud computing platform built for software developers and is led by CEO Ben Uretsky. The company provides developer-focused cloud infrastructure and reported a registered customer base of 708,000 users who have launched over 13 million servers. DigitalOcean secured a $130M credit facility to purchase equipment and support its global expansion. That credit facility complements an $83M Series B equity financing. The company plans to use the financing to meet increasing demand for its platform and to continue expanding internationally. DigitalOcean provides cloud infrastructure services focused on simplicity and competitive pricing for developers. The platform has attracted 500,000 developers who have launched over 6 million cloud servers since launch. The company plans to broaden its feature set, including networking improvements such as floating IPs and a cloud storage service slated for the first half of 2016. DigitalOcean has expanded its global footprint and is shifting focus from pure scaling to product development. Financially, the company has raised $173.2 million to date, including a $50 million debt financing in December, and has occasionally been profitable. Management intends to use the new capital to build features that help startups grow on its platform. DigitalOcean offers simple SSD-based cloud hosting aimed at developers, with an intuitive control panel, API and KVM virtualization. The company reports it has spun up more than 2 million cloud servers and offers $5/month plans with a 99.99% SLA; users can create a server in 55 seconds. DigitalOcean has five server locations (New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Singapore and London) and is headquartered in New York City. The company has seen rapid user growth—more than 26,000 new active users in October (a 57% year-over-year increase) and an average of 20,000 new users deploying servers per month this year. Management plans to expand internationally and accelerate feature development by hiring engineering talent and tripling headcount before the end of next year. Some capital will be used to lease additional equipment to scale globally and support continued customer acquisition.