Aryeo, Kickfurther, Toucan, Grin, CareCar— May 3rd, 2021
We see about 5,000 startups each week, and I want to give you a glimpse into how we at e.ventures think about trending tech companies and tracking new investment opportunities. In this post, I’m highlighting top tech companies that have announced or raised a seed round within the past week.
Happy Monday,
I will start this week’s newsletter with some classic VC self-promotion, as we at e.ventures lead Keeper Tax’s $13M Series A. It is no secret that the US 1099 workforce (on-demand labor) has been growing exponentially through the introduction of on-demand platforms like Uber, GrubHub, or GoPuff. With the work from home revolution, this trend has gone even further upmarket from a salary perspective to the knowledge worker crowd, which even further expands this market. KeeperTax is the best solution to help this work population manage and write off all their work-related expenses in real-time helping their customers save thousands in tax expenses every year. We are incredibly excited to be joining the team and look forward to seeing how KeeperTax revolutionizes 1099 taxes.
Now to my top five Seed companies to watch from last week:
Aryeo
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Real estate agent content management platform to manage, syndicate, and automate listing content
Lead Investors:
Undisclosed
Total Raised:
$4M
Comparables:
RealContent
My Thoughts:
Massive market, and insane EVA growth for a Seed stage company, speaks for an exponentially increasing amount of users here — definitely one to watch.
Kickfurther
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Crowdfunding platform dedicated to e-commerce businesses to raise money for inventory
Lead Investors:
LightShed Ventures
Total Raised:
$7.5M
Comparables:
Shopify Capital
My Thoughts:
We have seen this time and time again where you have a killer ecommerce brand take off at a breakout rate, but struggles to deliver products to its customers as it does not have or can raise the capital to stock a sufficient amount of inventory. Kickfurther lets these ecommerce businesses outsource these funding needs to a brand’s customers/fans who truly understand the value of the product and therefore might just act as better early-stage debt providers.
Toucan
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Browser extension that teaches you a new language while you browse
Lead Investors:
LightShed Ventures
Total Raised:
$8M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
I am a Grammarly user and love how the software actually teaches me how to write by correcting my errors no matter in what interface I am in. I’d imagine this is even more powerful for language learning, so this looks like an incredibly intriguing solution.
Grin
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Digital orthodontic platform that offers a catalog of teeth-straightening services
Lead Investors:
Triventures
Total Raised:
$14M
Comparables:
Smile Direct Club, CandidCo
My Thoughts:
It has been a year or two since we have seen a new play dental-tech space. Grin is going beyond the now industry-standard clear aligners, by providing a whole catalog of tailored dental products all wrapped in a telehealth experience.
CareCar
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Care service marketplace that connects non-emergency medical transportation and in-home supportive care to vulnerable elderlies
Lead Investors:
Impact America Fund, Kapor Capital
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
I don’t want to believe that the best solution for non-emergency trips to medical providers is Uber, so CareCar makes all the sense in the world to me.
Hi, I am Nicolas von Blottnitz, an Associate at e.ventures’ SF office focusing on Consumer, Fintech, and SaaS business. Since joining the firm in 2018, I have led our investments in Tabnine, Polygon, Flockjay, Solid, and Grin.
What is the EVA Growth Index?
The EVA Growth index is a composite of third-party data sources around a company’s website traffic. The vertical green lines in the charts represent a point in time where the company raised outside capital.
