Participated · Equity · Apr 2022

Landline operates a white-labeled regional bus service that partners with carriers such as American Airlines, United Airlines and Sun Country to transport passengers from regional hubs to major airports and check them and their luggage before arrival. The company’s core product bundles ground transport and check-in so travelers arrive at the airport already checked and ready for security, and it currently operates in nine cities across Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado. Landline has built airline-grade infrastructure — a ground transportation certificate, insurance, and a safety and security team — and employs about 100 people, many of whom are full-time drivers and roughly a quarter in operations. The startup is piloting a door-to-door product to pick travelers up at home and is working toward Transportation Security Administration approval to further streamline or distribute security/check-in processes. Landline plans to use new capital to expand its geographic footprint, grow its team (including an on-shore software development group) and accelerate infrastructure buildout for its distributed check-in vision. Financially, the company recently closed a $28 million financing and has $38 million in total funding. Landline is a Los Angeles-based startup operating specialized shuttle bus services. It is launching services in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the Midwest. The company currently offers connections between Duluth International Airport and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Landline raised $3.85 million in funding led by Upfront Ventures. The financing also included Mucker Capital and Matchstick Ventures. The reported funding is for its airport bus service and regional expansion efforts.

Participated · Series D · Mar 2022

Glia provides an AI-driven customer service and engagement platform that supports video, voice, messaging, email and chatbot channels and enables agents to screenshare for hands-on assistance. The company counts more than 250 banks, credit unions, insurance companies and other financial-services firms as customers, with financial services representing the majority of its base. Glia says it has handled over 10 billion interactions, a dataset it uses to train its machine-learning models. Revenue grew sharply during the pandemic, with the company reporting a 150% increase between 2020 and 2021. Going forward Glia plans to invest heavily in R&D to build more AI and analytics tools to support agents and to advance its messaging, voice and video solutions. It will also invest in business development to expand internationally and build services for multinational customers, leveraging a partnership with RingCentral; the company is headquartered in New York and has a substantial team in Tallinn, Estonia. Glia provides an integrated digital customer service platform that combines screen-guided agent interactions, virtual customer-service assistants, CRM tooling, natural language suggestions, and computer vision to diagnose and resolve user issues. Its distinguishing capability lets agents proactively join a customer’s app or web page and see or guide the user’s on-screen actions with the user’s awareness. Glia also supplies agent coaching tools—suggested questions, phrasing, and links—to improve response quality and speed. The company has strong traction in financial services and growing adoption in insurance, education, retail and other verticals. Management reported revenues grew 150% in 2020, and the company plans to use new funding to continue product development, scale operations, and pursue acquisitions. CEO Dan Michaeli is based in New York and the company maintains a substantial operation in Estonia; Glia was founded in 2012 (previously known as SaleMove). Glia (formerly SaleMove) is a New York City–based provider of an AI digital customer service platform for financial services companies. Its platform enables communication via Messaging, Video, Voice, CoBrowsing and Artificial Intelligence and integrates these to create a holistic System of Engagement. Led by co-founder and CEO Dan Michaeli, Glia serves financial services customers and maintains additional offices in Tartu and Tallinn, Estonia. On March 13, 2019, Glia raised $20M in a Series B round led by Insight Venture Partners, bringing total fundraising to $29M. As part of the investment, Lonne Jaffe of Insight Venture Partners will join Glia’s board. The company intends to use the funds to expand product development, sales, solutions, and marketing organizations. SaleMove, founded by Justin DePietro and Dan Michaeli and an Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator graduate, builds a web-based platform to make high-ticket online sales more personal by connecting visitors with live representatives via text, voice, or video. Visitors activate an action bar to invite an agent who can co-browse with them using a second on-screen cursor while talking. The backend surfaces visitor signals such as general location, browser, page being viewed, and time on site to operators and helps staff planning by showing peak visit times. Setup requires a single line of JavaScript and partner companies pay a set monthly fee per website; startups that have raised under $5 million receive steeply discounted rates. The team is working on a forthcoming iPad app to close the interactivity gap and enable more thorough remote demos. SaleMove has secured $250,000 in seed funding from ERA, Autobytel founder Pete Ellis, and SinglePlatform's Adam Liebman and expected to be live in 20 local dealerships and companies by the end of the month.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2022

Animoca, also known as Outblaze Ventures, focuses on developing and publishing mobile games and educational applications for iOS and Android devices. Since its debut in January 2011, the company has launched over 150 titles across smartphones and tablets. Animoca also operates several brands, including Dream Cortex, to broaden its reach in the mobile entertainment space. In only ten months on the market, its apps have amassed more than 40 million downloads worldwide, underscoring strong early traction with users. The firm’s rapid content rollout demonstrates an aggressive product strategy targeting global smartphone audiences. Backing from major technology investors suggests confidence in the company's ability to scale its portfolio further. While revenue figures were not disclosed, the significant download volume highlights Animoca’s potential for future monetization and growth opportunities.

Participated · Series A · Sep 2019

Mednition develops KATE, a machine learning clinical decision‑support solution deployed at emergency departments and designed to improve triage accuracy. KATE integrates with popular EHR systems and augments existing triage processes, with over 70 emergency nurses contributing to its dataset. The system has been used at Adventist Health White Memorial, averaging 160 patients per day, and a study showed potential triage accuracy improvements of 26.9% overall and up to 93.2% for high‑acuity patients. Mednition says its dataset includes more than 10 billion de‑identified patient clinical data points, which it uses to continuously refine KATE. Proceeds from the recent financing will be used to expand the company’s customer care team and to scale commercial deployment of KATE. The company was founded in 2014 and is based in Burlingame, California.

Led · Series C · May 2018

NeuroVision Imaging develops noninvasive diagnostic solutions and blood-based biomarkers aimed at early detection and monitoring of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The company focuses on measuring beta-amyloid protein complexes in blood as a potential screening tool that could identify disease decades before symptoms appear. Current studies are led by Leyla Anderson, MD, PhD, VP of Biomarker Development, and Blaine Roberts, PhD, and will validate recent findings using blood samples from the Australian Imaging and Biomarker Lifestyle study (AIBL). NeuroVision says its technology can measure protein complexes with sensitivity and specificity above industry standards and intends these tools to improve clinical trials, treatment monitoring, and enable earlier interventions. The company was formed in 2010 and is headquartered in Sacramento, California, and its team has experience in fluid biomarkers, imaging, and data science. The article does not disclose revenue or other operating metrics. NeuroVision Imaging is developing digital imaging and diagnostic solutions to identify retinal pathology related to Alzheimer’s disease. Its core product is a low-cost, noninvasive eye imaging system that measures retinal autofluorescence to detect amyloid beta (Aβ) plaque in the eye. The company has developed proprietary image-processing and machine-learning algorithms to quantify eye pathology as an assessment of amyloid status in the central nervous system. NeuroVision holds the exclusive worldwide license to the underlying technology, which was discovered by a team at Cedars‑Sinai Medical Center. The company says its goal is to create an accessible product to help identify people who may be affected by Alzheimer’s and is pursuing validation and regulatory approval. NeuroVision was formed in 2010 and is led by CEO Steven Verdooner. NeuroVision Imaging develops a proprietary retinal imaging test for early detection and monitoring of Alzheimer’s disease that combines a retinal imaging system with a high-bioavailability curcumin formulation. The company’s founding team, under Keith L. Black, M.D., and Maya Koronyo-Hamaoui, Ph.D., validated noninvasive retinal imaging in transgenic mouse models and human cadaver studies. NeuroVision holds the exclusive worldwide license to the technology from Cedars-Sinai and is led by CEO Steven Verdooner. Commercialization plans call for establishing a simple eye test as a noninvasive, high-resolution optical standard of care for AD diagnosis, prognosis assessment, and monitoring response to therapies. The company intends to use new funding to advance validation and pursue regulatory approval for its retinal imaging technology.