The SMBX, Willo, Mage, Ando–25th 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:
Brazil-founded turned global banking and payment platform Pismo raises $118M Series B led by Softbank. We backed the company at Seed with our Brazil fund, led the Series A in collaboration with our Brazil and US fund, and are excited to participate in this round as well with our growth fund. So much more to come here!
Product lifecycle management platform for e-commerce merchants raises $41M Sereis A led by Headline. We all know that ongoing customer relationships are key and Clyde is one if not the most powerful solution to guarantee customer satisfaction post product purchase. Spectacular to have Clyde part of the Headline family!
Lastly, our EU team created a comprehensive market map of the Shopify SaaS space in Europe. See a link to it >> here
Now to the most exciting companies that announced a Seed round in the past week.
The SMBX
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Fintech marketplace that lets consumers invest in the bonds of their local small businesses
Lead Investors:
Group 11
Total Raised:
$15M
Comparables:
MainVest
My Thoughts:
Small businesses struggle with getting low-cost capital, so leveraging their customers as a funding source makes all the sense in the world. From a consumer perspective, it is nice to directly see where one’s invested capital is leveraged — quite a unique experience in the investing space.
Willo
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Interactive video interview platform for hiring practices
Lead Investors:
1818 Venture Capital
Total Raised:
$1M
Comparables:
Alcami, HireVue
My Thoughts:
When hiring some new junior team members earlier this year we leveraged Loom to get asynchronous videos from candidates to get a better understanding of their persona beyond just a box-standard CV. The output had a ton of signal. Creating a dedicated solution that interacts with the candidate in real-time takes this to a whole new level and is a product I am looking forward to trying in our next hiring stint.
Mage
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Low-code platform that lets developers easily integrate AI applications into their products
Lead Investors:
Gradient Ventures
Total Raised:
$6M
Comparables:
Fritz AI, Obviously AI
My Thoughts:
It shouldn’t take a Ph.D. in computer science to integrate predictive models into software applications anymore, and existing AI platforms from Google or Azure are still very cumbersome to work with — at least I can’t figure it out. With AI eating the SaaS world, I see platforms like Mage becoming very relevant in the next five years, and with the founder Tommy being an ex-product manager at Airbnb for the last five years, this is one watch!
Ando
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Digital consumer bank that only invests deposits in green initiatives
Lead Investors:
TTV Capital
Total Raised:
$6M
Comparables:
TreeCard
My Thoughts:
With the primary features of digital banking becoming commoditized over the last decade, I see the market going into a new era of brand verticalization where consumers pick their digital bank less around features, but their values, brand, and messaging. Climate change is top of mind especially for younger generations, so I see Ando having the possibility to gain significant market share in that demographic.
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.
