Top Seed Companies: Candor, Astro, Improovy, Lovage Labs
Our Investor Nicolas von Blottnitz shares the top-seeded companies to keep an eye on this week.
We see about 5,000 startups each week, and I want to give you a glimpse into how we at Headline 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.
Candor
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Fintech app that lets individuals manage their stock options and swap them for an institutional-grade portfolio
Lead Investors:
Outset Capital
Total Raised:
Undisclosed
Comparables:
Carta
My Thoughts:
Any seasoned investor would point out the risk by not being diversified when allocating capital into a single high-risk investment. Individuals who get their stock options from the one start-up their work for are doing exactly that, which makes Candor such a powerful solution for employees of early-stage tech companies. I wonder how this current market landscape impacts Candor’s business.
Astro
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
HTML first build-in-box website creator for a faster end-user experience by automatically eliminating redundant code
Lead Investors:
Haystack
Total Raised:
Undisclosed
Comparables:
Gatsby, WordPress
My Thoughts:
As web applications become more complex, bandwidth is becoming less of the problem for a seamless end-user experience, but the underlying code is. Consequently, anything that is able to significantly speed this up is one to watch in my books, especially with such early signs of rocketship traffic growth.
Improovy
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Online destination for homeowners and property managers to find reviewed home improvement professionals
Lead Investors:
M25
Total Raised:
$3.3M
Comparables:
Angie’s List
My Thoughts:
Big market and real fast traffic growth which tells me that Improovy is doing something extremely right here.
Lovage Labs
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Virtual receptionists that let small business always answer their phones and point customers to what they are looking for
Lead Investors:
Campus Founders Fund, Y Combinator
Total Raised:
Undisclosed
Comparables:
Smith AI, Abby Connect
My Thoughts:
No one likes speaking to robots, but it by far beats nobody answering the phone. With NLP getting really good and the majority of small business phone inquiries falling into a defined universe, this seems like a must-have tool for the modern small business owner.
Forkable
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Digital ordering platform for enterprises to procure individually-packaged team lunches from their favorite restaurants
Lead Investors:
AngelList Quant Fund
Total Raised:
Undisclosed
Comparables:
EatClub
My Thoughts:
We are a team of just a dozen people, which seems to somewhat be the breaking point of it being possible to order unique lunches for each team member. Nonetheless, speaking from experience, the team lunches are usually amazing when everyone gets what they want — I believe it truly helps the team spirit.
Hi, I am Nicolas von Blottnitz, an Associate at Headline’s SF office focusing on Consumer, Fintech, and SaaS businesses. Since joining in 2018, I have led our investments in Tabnine, Trellis, GoFreight, 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.
