Carefull, Talkshop, Zencastr, Citadel, LocTax — February 22nd, 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.
To start, some top news out of the venture and tech landscape from last week:
e.ventures portfolio company Bumble and dating app where women make the first move goes public. This makes the founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd the youngest woman ever to take a company public. What an incredible success story for the team — we are extremely humbled and thankful to have been part of the ride!
Bitcoin cracks the $55k mark, making for a market cap of over $1T. Yes, that is a T for trillion — Satoshi must be proud.
Boast.ai gets a $100M credit line from Brevet Capital to help start-ups front their R&D tax credits. This a novel concept we have seen evolve over the last year, which seems like a no-brainer for tech-companies to adopt for additional liquidity. The company has taken on $23M in venture funding to date with Radian Capital leading their Series A in December last year.
Now to my top seed investments to track from the past week:
Carefull
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Fintech-app that lets family caregivers monitor all transactions, bills, and payments that derive from their loved one’s account to catch any fraud or strange behavior
Lead Investors:
Bessemer Venture Partners
Total Raised:
$3.2M
Comparables:
Greenlight
My Thoughts:
There are 50M seniors in the US today, which will grow to over 70M in the next decade, so the TAM here is massive. Also, this age segment has been more deceptive to fishing attacks than any other, which makes Carefull a no-brainer product for family caregivers to adopt.
Zencastr
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
SaaS solution to record podcasts remotely via video
Lead Investors:
Kickstart
Total Raised:
$4.6M
Comparables:
Anchor
My Thoughts:
Podcasts have become a main-stream channel for individuals and brands to reach/engage their audience. In this remote world, Zencastr is a seamless solution to create content for this channel. The EVA growth speaks for itself.
TalkShop
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Online platform for creators to host social-shopping live-streams
Lead Investors:
Spero Ventures
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
Bambuser, LiveBuy
My Thoughts:
Social shopping is mainstream in India and China, it seems only a matter of time until it takes over the western-world as well. We are seeing early signs of this with Bambuster and LiveBuy in Europe.
Citadel
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Software platform for real-time income and employment verification
Investors:
Abstract Ventures
Total Raised:
$4M
Comparables:
Mati, Fincity
My Thoughts:
A core ingredient to drive seamless experiences across all types of fintech, proptech, or employment platforms — definitely a massive market opportunity.
Loc.Tax
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Software platform to streamline the tax-management of global organizations
Investors:
Cavalry Ventures
Total Raised:
$3.6M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
The only thing more complicated than taxes are taxes on an international stage — we at e.ventures can speak from our own experience. There is a clear why now as well, with remote-work driving more international workforces for modern companies.
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 Codota, Polygon, Flockjay, Wise, 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.
