Participated · Seed · Aug 2023

ShapesXR is a creation and collaboration platform for XR content and experiences that enables remote product teams to brainstorm and ideate in 3D, rapidly prototype, and co-edit in real time. Users can create immersive storyboards to show designs in function and invite teammates to ideate, iterate and run design reviews. Led by CEO and founder Inga Petryaevskaya and based in San Mateo, California, the company focuses on tools for XR and metaverse workflows. ShapesXR recently raised $8.6M in seed funding to support growth and development. The company intends to use the proceeds to grow its business reach and expand the product onto new platforms such as Apple’s Vision Pro and the Magic Leap 2. Investors named in the articles include Supernode Global, Triptyq Capital, Hartmann Capital, Geek Ventures, Boost VC, LETA Capital, WXR Fund and STRATMINDS, alongside early backers like HTC VIVE and The VR Fund.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2023

Wavely Diagnostics builds a smartphone-based diagnostic app that turns a phone into an acoustic tool to detect fluid in a child’s ear, enabling data-driven virtual pediatric ear infection care. The process is non-invasive, requires no additional hardware or special training, and is designed to give parents and providers reliable answers from home. The platform completed a phase I pilot and is currently in a phase II pilot with a leading U.S. health system. Wavely plans a broad public app store launch in late 2023 and intends to expand its diagnostics to enable nearly 70% of acute pediatric visits to shift to virtual care. Financially, the company has secured investor and grant funding totaling $6.35M to date, including a $1.8M Phase II SBIR grant for remote diagnostics awarded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The company is currently offering the app to healthcare systems for pilots while preparing for wide-scale commercialization. Wavely Diagnostics is building smartphone-based digital diagnostics that turn a phone plus a paper funnel into a non-invasive acoustic tool for pediatric assessment, starting with ear infections. Its first product helps parents determine signs of possible ear infection and connects families to virtual physicians who can prescribe treatment. The app is designed to be user-friendly and requires no special hardware beyond a simple paper funnel. Wavely intends to expand the telehealth-integrated platform to offer additional virtual pediatric care solutions beyond ear infections. The company is preparing a commercial launch in spring 2022 and aims first at parents and at-home consumers, then at healthcare partners. Financially, Wavely has raised seed capital and received non-dilutive grant funding to advance product development.

Participated · Equity · Nov 2022

inCitu builds mobile augmented-reality (AR) visualizations that let anyone see and explore proposed and upcoming development projects in situ, at real scale, with no headsets or special devices required. The company turns large datasets into accurate, informative visualizations of future skylines, individual buildings, affordable housing, mixed-use developments, parks, bridges, neighborhood rezoning and regional infrastructure. Its customers across the U.S. include cities, real estate developers, technology companies and other urban-development stakeholders. Led by Founder & CEO Dana Chermesh-Reshef, inCitu also licenses its data to technology partners. In 2022 the company signed partnerships with Snap Inc. and Esri after concluding a two-year program. The company plans to use the newly raised capital to accelerate growth and expand operations.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2022

mpathic is a leader in AI-powered actionable conversation analytics specializing in healthcare, life sciences, and client services. Its conversational analytics platform leverages natural language processing and generative AI to detect and correct cultural attunement issues in real time during provider–patient interactions. The company was awarded an NIH SBIR Phase I grant to develop the project titled "Empathy for Everyone: Generative AI that Improves Patient-Provider Cultural Attunement in Real Time," aimed at addressing racial bias in mental healthcare AI. mpathic is partnering with Wave to build a diverse, representative dataset for model training, drawing on Wave's focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. A team of psychologists and researchers from mpathic and Wave, including Alison Cerezo, Grin Lord, Amber Jolley-Paige, Jay Palat, Tad Hirsch, Sarah Adler, and Alison Pickover, will execute the project. The initiative aims to reduce disparities in mental healthcare by improving cultural attunement, increasing retention and therapeutic outcomes for minority patients. mpathic builds enterprise software that analyzes conversations across texts, emails, audio calls and other channels to help employees detect potential misunderstandings and adjust communication in real time. The product targets use cases in customer service, insurance claims, healthcare and human resources—'anywhere where empathic conversations impact key outcomes.' CEO and co-founder Grin Lord, a trained psychologist, has described mpathic as 'Grammarly for empathy.' The company was founded in 2021 and is based in the Seattle area. mpathic has 12 employees. Financially, the company has raised $4 million in a recent seed round and $5.2 million in total to date.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2022

Prisms VR leverages virtual reality to teach math through experiential, tactile and visual problem-solving rather than rote memorization. Founded in 2020 and launched in 2021, the company has been adopted by 100+ school districts across 26 states and reaches more than 80,000 students. Its core product is a VR math content module available via the Meta Quest store with a 7-day free trial and a $24 annual subscription. Prisms emphasizes helping students understand the "why" behind math by enabling embodied, real-world problem experiences that build toward abstractions. The company is backed by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Prisms plans to use new funding to accelerate growth and adoption, expand programs to more U.S. schools, develop products for higher education and other subjects, and grow its team. Prisms VR builds a spatial VR learning platform that teaches mathematics by letting students perceptually experience real-world contexts and use tactile interactives and visualizations before connecting to symbolic notation. The product is designed for K-12 STEM, with flagship middle‑school math, algebra and geometry experiences deployed in classrooms; the company partners with districts to provide hardware, teacher training, and implementation services. Prisms is backed by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and positions its approach on learning-science research and co-development with frontline teachers and administrators. The company plans to expand its reach to more than 100,000 students across 65 school districts in 15 states by the end of 2022. It is preparing a consumer at-home learning solution for grades 7–12 with STEM content libraries and multiplayer experiences to support collaborative problem solving and high-impact tutoring. Prisms was founded by Anurupa Ganguly, an MIT graduate and former high-school teacher and administrator, who leads the company as CEO.