Participated · Seed · Mar 2022

Sweater operates a professionally managed venture fund that invests on behalf of retail investors, whom it calls “Members,” and provides investment breakdowns and company stories through an app launching soon. The team conducts due diligence and makes venture investments on behalf of those Members, enabling retail access to startup investing. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate growth and expand operations. Sweater was co-founded by Jesse Randall, Chad Lewkowski, and Matthew Klein and is based in Boulder, Colorado. The article does not disclose revenue or user metrics; its current disclosed financing is a $12M Seed round. The product focus is on making venture capital accessible and transparent to nonaccredited investors via a managed fund and accompanying app. Sweater operates a mobile-first venture investing platform that allows everyone to become investors in venture-backed startups. The company raised a $2.3M pre-seed financing to further develop its platform and accelerate its go-to-market strategy. In late November 2020 Sweater received SEC approval to pursue its proposed fund structure. The team is led by founders Jesse Randall, Chad Lewkowski, and Matthew Klein and includes former employees from SoFi, Dow Jones, and Lucid Software. Sweater plans to open a waitlist in early July 2021 with an expected public market launch in early 2022. The company is based in Boulder, CO.

Participated · Seed · Sep 2021

Coinrule provides retail cryptocurrency investors with an automated trading platform that enables algorithmic trading without writing code. Users can create and test automated trading strategies to capture market opportunities and protect assets from adverse events. The product is integrated with global exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and Bitstamp and is offered across four plans—one free and three paid tiers (Hobbyist, Trader, Pro). Founded in 2018 by Gabriele Musella, Oleg Giberstein and Zdeněk Höfler and based in London, Coinrule has joined Y Combinator's S21 cohort. The startup now has over 13,000 users trading assets worth £100m every month. Following its seed raise, the company intends to use the funds to expand operations and broaden its business reach. Coinrule provides a no‑code automated trading platform aimed at non‑professional traders, hobbyist investors and the general public to manage savings and execute strategies across multiple platforms. The product lets users automate investments to protect funds and capture market opportunities without coding. The company plans to grow its team and expand into the tokenized stock trading market. Coinrule says the funds will support its mission to democratize access to finance and foster financial inclusion. In 2020 the company more than doubled its user base, grew headcount, and now runs over ten thousand trades on the platform each month. Founded in 2017 and based in London, Coinrule recently completed a Seedrs crowdfunding round that validated its user‑focused vision.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2021

Crush Capital is a Los Angeles–based fintech company that created the streaming series “Going Public,” designed to bring IPO and pre‑IPO investing to retail investors worldwide. The core product is a 10‑episode series that chronicles founders seeking capital; the premiere season is hosted by Lauren Simmons and features on‑camera mentors and prominent business leaders. Companies featured on the show will seek investment through public offerings under the Regulation A+ exemption; two participants—NexGenT and Proven Skincare—have been announced, with three additional late‑stage startups to be revealed over the summer. The series will stream to Entrepreneur.com’s 20 million monthly visitors this fall and is being produced by Emmy‑nominated INE Entertainment. Crush Capital will use recent funding to accelerate the show’s development and advance its goal of widening retail access to IPO and pre‑IPO investing. To date the “Going Public” project has raised $6.0 million in total funding. Crush Capital is a Los Angeles fintech company co-founded by Darren Marble and Todd Goldberg with a mission to bring IPO investing to everyday Americans. It is the creator of Going Public, a 10-episode interactive streaming series hosted by Lauren Simmons that follows five entrepreneurs pursuing Nasdaq listings. The series will enable viewers to invest in Regulation A+ IPOs while they watch and will feature business leaders including Jeff Hoffman and Jaime Schmidt. The company operates goingpublic.com to increase access to Regulation A+ IPOs and other financial products. Crush Capital raised $3.25M in seed funding to finance production, operations and marketing for Going Public. The series is slated to premiere to Entrepreneur.com's audience of 14 million unique monthly viewers in the summer.