Marco, Sugar, Virtual Internships, MicroAcquire, DevRev — 19th July, 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 this, week some news out of the Headline portfolio:
London-based embedded banking and finance solution Weavr raises a $10M round led by Headline. We are very excited to be joining the team and look forward to what is to come. Check out an interview we had with the founder Alex in this link.
Leading vertical SaaS solution for US-based auto repair shops Shopmonkey raises a $75M Series C. Big congratulations on the team which keeps executing exceptionally well and we look forward to seeing what is to come from the Shopmonkey team in the future.
Enough of this self-promotion and now to the most exciting tech companies that announced a Seed round last week.
Marco
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Digital asset/inventory financing platform for SMEs
Lead Investors:
Arcadia Funds
Total Raised:
$75M
Comparables:
ClearBank, Pipe
My Thoughts:
Getting loans from traditional banks is incredibly outdated and cumbersome. The ClearBanks, Shopify, and Pipes of this world have solved this for specialized use cases and verticals, yet there is still a massive market of more generic businesses that MacroFi can cater to. They also just closed a $75M debt vehicle alongside the Seed round, so they are ready for business.
Sugar
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
White label app solution for apartment buildings to enable communication of tenants, opening doors via their smartphone or pay rent
Lead Investors:
Ben Zises, Concrete Rose Capital, LAUNCH, Jason Calacanis, Consonance Investment Managers, Agya Ventures, Sequoia Capital (SSF), MetaProp, Claire Cormier Thielke, Debut Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, The Community Fund, Jonathan Wasserstrum
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
Hemlane
My Thoughts:
I am baffled by how tech-backwards big-city apartment buildings are given the amount of money residents spend. Surely this experience should be the norm across any big-city apartment within the next 5-years.
Virtual Internships
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Digital discovery platform for remote internships
Lead Investors:
Surge
Total Raised:
$3M (Two investments are undisclosed so this figure is not accurate)
Comparables:
Nothing notable outside the traditional career discovery platform
My Thoughts:
We at Headline actually ran a couple of remote internships throughout the pandemic and enjoyed the ability to work with talent from all over the country. Especially for major city-based businesses, this means they can hire interns for which otherwise the high city rents would have been prohibitive to being able to take the usually low-paying job.
MicroAcquire
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Online marketplace for small businesses to get acquired
Lead Investors:
Musaab Hakami
Total Raised:
$6M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
With the commoditization of equity financing, it only seems natural that the exit to these businesses is given a marketplace as well, especially for the long-tail of companies that traditional m&a professionals won’t work with. Additionally, the founder Andrew has been able to build an amazing brand around MicroAcquire with the Cameos of Russ Hanemann for the platform being priceless.
DevRev
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Developer-customer relationship management focused on enabling developers to build product with end-user feedback at their core
Lead Investors:
Dheeraj Pandey
Total Raised:
$50M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
I like how this could potentially be the first software any founder might use as it is core to the creation of the product, but will still be in action at the IPO of that same business as customer-focused product development is something no great tech company should ever lose. Additionally, this is built and funded by Dheeraj Pandey (founder and ex-CEO of Nutanix) who looks to be all in on this given the capital committed — definitely one to watch and recommend to our portfolio!
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.
