Colony, RemNote, CostCertified, 100ms, B9— 11th October, 2021
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.
To start, some news out of the Headline portfolio:
Elemy (previous Sprouth Therapeutics), the leading US digital autism care solution, raises a $219M Series B led by Softbank to reach unicorn status. Being founded only in 2019, this has been an incredible growth story driven by exceptional execution by the founder Yury.
Corporate benefit card provider Swile raises $200M to become the latest unicorn out of our France portfolio. With already 15k organizations with over 500k members on the platform, there is still soo much more to come here!
Paris-based mobile gaming developer platform Homa Games announces a $50M Series A. With over 500M downloads across their games already, we can’t wait to see what Homa will enable for the mobile gaming space going forward!
Now to the most exciting companies that announced a Seed round in the past week.
Colony
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Software platform to structure, govern, and incentives participants in an all-digital organization
Lead Investors:
Eden Block
Total Raised:
Undisclosed
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
I love the idea of decentralized organizations, yet the rigidness of smart contracts that are set up to govern the future seems to be the main point of concern in my eyes — at least at this point in time. Colony looks to be a great hybrid solution and could be the foundation for an all-new class of organizations. Super excited to see what this will enable!
RemNote
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Note-taking and workflow enablement tool for students, researchers, and professionals
Lead Investors:
General Catalyst, Soma Capital, 468 Capital, Dorm Room Fund
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
Notion
My Thoughts:
No one ever thought someone would be able to disrupt Evernote, the same way no one thinks now is the time for Notion to be disrupted. Nevertheless, RemNote’s vertical focus on education and research might be a magic bullet that will enable them to take a significant portion of the market. Also, becoming the de facto tool for students, means that you become the de facto tool of the workforce of tomorrow. This is one to watch!
CostCertified
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
SaaS platform to efficiently create beautiful and accurate construction estimates
Lead Investors:
FUSE
Total Raised:
$9M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
Happyness/satisfaction is where expectations are met or surpassed by reality. Providing accurate quotes sets the expectation for one of, if not the, most expensive purchase in a consumer’s life. Making these accurate and beautiful should therefore be a key strategic imperative for any builder — beyond just the workflow efficiencies CostCertified enables.
100ms
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Live-video infrastructure platform
Lead Investors:
Accel
Total Raised:
$5M
Comparables:
Daily.co
My Thoughts:
As the internet moved from images to video it is only natural that we will move to live video next. The founders Aniket and Kshitij are also the folks that built out Facebook’s and Disney’s live-video engines, so they seem more than capable to get this right.
B9
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Digital bank account that gives a consumer access to their paycheck 15 days early.
Lead Investors:
Undisclosed
Total Raised:
$5M
Comparables:
Dave, Chime
My Thoughts:
The key to the success of any neo-bank is to be the destination of a consumer’s paycheck as it naturally makes you the primary spending account as well. B9 provides unparalleled value for cash-strapped Americans which is only realized if the paycheck is linked as a direct deposit to B9 — smart!
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, 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.
