Nexford, Time is Ltd, Shipium, Poised, Guest House Shop— 14th June, 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.
We shall start with some self-promotion again this week.
Our Headline EU team invests in Claap’s $3M Pre-Seed round alongside LocalGlobe, Kima Ventures, and angels like Mathilde Collin, Tony Jamous, Matt Robinson, and Aadil Mamujee. Claap is a France-based asynchronous meeting platform with video and collaboration at its heart. With a beautiful product that is currently in beta, we are super excited to join the Claap team and create a less strenuous remote work environment. See an exclusive interview we had with Claap founder and CEO Pierre Touzeau in this link.
Now back to the most exciting companies that announced a Seed round within the last week.
Nexford
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Online university with a pay-as-you-go tuition model
Lead Investors:
Global Ventures
Total Raised:
$18M
Comparables:
Google Certificates
My Thoughts:
No secret that the education system in the US is broken which makes me incredibly bullish on any company that has a bold and innovative approach to the space — especially with this amount of capital to put to work from the Seed round.
Time is Ltd
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Analytics platform that gives insights into an organization’s productivity, collaboration, and cultural well being by plugging into the organizations existing software stack
Lead Investors:
Mike Chalfen
Total Raised:
$9M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
The value proposition here is immense and I have never seen anything comparable. Managing privacy concerns will most likely be the largest barrier to adoption here, so the right messaging in the got-to-market motion will be key.
Shipium
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
End-to-end service platform for e-commerce businesses to provide “Prime-like” delivery experiences for end consumers
Lead Investors:
Trilogy Equity Partners
Total Raised:
$10M
Comparables:
Shippo, Route
My Thoughts:
The success of direct-to-consumer (D2C) businesses is attributable to them having full control over the entire customer experience with the exception of delivery. Shipium enables these D2C brands to take more ownership over this piece which should be top of mind for any major D2C brand.
Poised
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
AI-enabled software to analyze and improve an individual’s verbal communication skills
Lead Investors:
Wing Venture Capital
Total Raised:
$5M
Comparables:
Grammarly for digital conference calls
My Thoughts:
I have always been a numbers person and I have to say that the main and most valuable soft skill I have learned throughout these early years of my career have been communication skills. I have been lucky that I have a strong group of peers whose exceptional communication skills have slightly rubbed off on me. I’d imagine not everyone has this luxury so I could only recommend a service like Poised to any new entrant to the knowledge workforce.
Guest House Shop
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Online platform that gives parties looking to sell their home on-demand access to premium furniture for better staging photos or in-person viewings
Lead Investors:
Range Ventures
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
A 1% price increase in the selling price of basically any home would pay for this service, so I see this as a no-brainer for anyone looking to sell their home and is not sure if their interior decoration is as good as it could be.
See last week’s Seeds to watch in the link below:
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.
