Trace, Firstbase, Lolli, Sardine, Sidekick— March 29th, 2021
We see about 5,000 startups each week, and I want to give you a glimpse into how we at e.ventures 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.
Some news out of the e.ventures portfolio:
SEMRush the leading SEO and digital marketing management software goes public at a $1.8B valuation. The company publically only announced $40M of funding with us at e.ventures co-leading their Series B alongside Greycroft in April 2018. Such an incredible product that made for an amazing capital-efficient growth story. Huge congratulations to the team!
Leading direct-to-consumer convenience store GoPuff gets yet another mark-up with a $1.15B round at an $8.9B valuation. We are incredibly excited to have been part of this journey, backing the founders Rafael and Yakir since their Series B in December 2016. The sky is the limit for this one!
Now to my top seed investments to track from the past week:
Trace
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
New-age cost-center and finance management solution for modern businesses
Lead Investors:
Uncork Capital, Greylock
Total Raised:
$8M
Comparables:
SAP Concur, Expensify
My Thoughts:
High-growth businesses need to rely on the execution of their various business functions, yet cumbersome expense and budget approvals process seem to unnecessarily slow down leaders to execute. Trace streamlines these processes and if they get this right, the outcome could be truly massive.
Firstbase
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
End to end solution for founders to seamlessly launch a US-based business
Lead Investors:
Earnest Capital
Total Raised:
$545k
Comparables:
Gust, Clerky
My Thoughts:
With the amount of venture capital out in the market, it has been the most founder-friendly environment ever, which will only drive an increase in new business started. Services like Firstbase are no brainers for this new crop of founders as it lets them focus on taking a superior product to market. The EVA growth shows that they are well on their way to becoming one of the leading solutions.
Lolli
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Rewards app that allows users to earn cash-back bitcoin when shopping online
Lead Investors:
Seven Seven Six, Serena Ventures, Night Media
Total Raised:
$10M
Comparables:
Fold App
My Thoughts:
Lolli has to be the most frictionless way to give crypto-newbies their first Bitcoins. Seeing their EVA growth it looks like it's working!
Sardine
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
API-first fraud prevention platform for fintech services
Lead Investors:
XYZ Venture Capital, Village Global, 11.2 Capital
Total Raised:
$4.6M
Comparables:
Featurespace, Sift
My Thoughts:
No one likes to worry about fraud when building out their fintech offerings, so why not just outsource it to a provider that you can just integrate with a few lines of code.
Sidekick
EVA Growth Index:
No external source showing growth
Product:
Chrome-based productivity tool that lets users seamlessly switch and search across all their favorite web apps
Lead Investors:
Remote First Capital, Kleiner Perkins
Total Raised:
$2M
Comparables:
StationHQ, Slapdash, TryStation
My Thoughts:
I talked about this category last week, and how it looks to be more art than science to win here. Maybe it is Sidekick’s focus on Chrome which is what it takes. Nevertheless, I am super bullish on the category.
Hi, I am Nicolas von Blottnitz, an Associate at e.ventures’ SF office focusing on Consumer, Fintech, and SaaS business. Since joining the firm in 2018, I have led our investments in Codota/Tabnine, Polygon, Flockjay, Wise, 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.
