Qwoted, Majority, Gearflow, Lizee, Rocketlane— 28th 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.
To start this week, some super exciting news out of the Headline portfolio:
Headline portfolio company Deposition Solutions, one of EU’s leading fintechs and open-banking enabled deposit marketplaces connecting banks and depositors, merges with its close European rival Raisin. After backing Deposit Solutions at the See, we see this as a huge win for both entities involved and are super bullish on what is to come here.
Digital health insurance provider Bright Health goes public at a~$12B valuation. We at Headline backed the company from the Series B onwards and have been continuously impressed by how the company continues to execute. Big congratulations to the team!
Qwoted
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Online network for reporters to connect with industry experts to get the right information or quotes they need for their articles
Lead Investors:
Third Prime
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
We have seen a major push to fragmentation of journalism over the last few years, which has made it more difficult for reporters to get the right sources for their work as they do not have the brand of major outlets behind them. Qwoted, therefore, makes all the sense in the world in my eyes and I love seeing the EVA traction they have been able to build to date. It looks like they are running away with this.
Majority
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Digital Neo banks for US immigrants
Lead Investors:
Valar Ventures
Total Raised:
$19M
Comparables:
Fair, Cheese
My Thoughts:
Being a US immigrant myself, I have learned firsthand how difficult it is to get access to financial services — and that is with a white-collar job. Given that the US is effectively one large country of immigrants, I think there is a big business to be built if they are able to truly differentiate themselves by being hyper-focused on their target market’s needs.
Gearflow
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Digital marketplace to streamline the procurement of parts and tools between construction projects
Lead Investors:
Watchfire Ventures
Total Raised:
$5M
Comparables:
RenoRun
My Thoughts:
This seems like a massive e-commerce market that Amazon won’t be owning anytime soon, given how local the fulfillment of these types of products has been to date. Gearflow should be able to build a massive business here.
Lizee
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Software platform that enables retailers and brands to spin up and manage a circular economy rental business
Lead Investors:
Undisclosed
Total Raised:
$1M (Last seed round undisclosed so this figure is not accurate)
Comparables:
The RealReal
My Thoughts:
There is a huge push of the fashion space becoming more eco-conscious and the greenest t-shirt out there is the one that was never produced. Lizee’s ability to enable brands to provide the same value proposition to their end customers while producing a fraction of the products is incredibly intriguing. I’d love to see this model gain mainstream traction.
Rocketlane
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Software platform that enables businesses to streamline their customer onboarding process and accelerate the time to value of their offering
Lead Investors:
Nexus Venture Partners, Matrix Partners India
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
UserGuiding, GuideCX
My Thoughts:
We have seen first-hand in our portfolio that SaaS companies will successfully sign a customer but they never onboard them properly which leads to churn before the customer even started. In my eyes, customer onboarding is too slim of a function in most businesses which might make this an uphill battle for RocketLane or maybe is exactly the massive market opportunity for them to conquer.
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.
