Podcasts about crosslink capital

Episode 65. How do the capital allocators, technicians, government leaders, and operators take the country forward? In this special episode of All Quiet, Tyler joins ADM (ret) William H. McRaven, Matt Bigge (Partner, Crosslink Capital), and Shyam Sankar (CTO, Palantir) for the SCHOOLHOUSE Opening Night panel to discuss the profound impact of government policies, the spirit of entrepreneurship, and the lessons drawn from history on modern defense strategies. What's Happening on the Second Front:Bridging Technology and Policy in DefenseCultural and Historical Influences on Defense InnovationLeadership Dynamics in Evolving Defense OrganizationsFuture Prospects: Optimism in Technological and Generational ChangesConnect with Matt:• LinkedIn: Matt BiggeConnect with Shyam:• Linkedin: Shyam SankarConnect with Tyler:• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt• Website: Second Front

UKG, a leading provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions for all people, today introduced its second cohort of early-stage companies — from four different countries — as part of its fast-growing, in-house global startup ecosystem and virtual laboratory, UKG Labs. This newest class includes:  Bites, based in Israel, which is on a mission to enable every organization to train, onboard, and engage with their frontline employees successfully and effectively; Denim, based in the U.S., with solutions to help employers improve performance while retaining talent and ensuring the deskless workforce feels valued, rewarded, and heard; Hop In Technologies, based in Canada, which works to address transportation and mobility barriers for organizations and their employees; and Mo, based in the U.K., which makes it easier for busy managers to meaningfully recognize and engage their employees. https://hrtechfeed.com/ukg-labs-adds-4-startups-to-program/ MilitaryConnected.org out of maryland announced it has raised nearly half-a-million dollars and is growing its team as it transforms how hiring managers in corporate America attract, support, and engage military-connected talent. https://hrtechfeed.com/military-job-board-raises-nearly-half-a-million-dollars/ Charlotte, North Carolina based Accounting Sprout announced the launch of their job board and solution for accountants across the United States. Accounting Sprout was founded by a longtime HR and recruitment veteran, and they aim to fill the talent gap in the industry. https://www.jobboardsecrets.com/2023/10/30/job-board-news-bytes-roaddogjobs-accountingsprout/  Espresa, a personal benefits platform designed for global enterprises, announced the completion of its Series A funding round totaling $23 million led by Clear Ventures. All existing investors participated, including Crosslink Capital, New Era Capital Partners, Moneta Venture Capital, Ridge Ventures and Westwave Capital.  https://hrtechfeed.com/workplace-benefits-platform-raises-23-million-series-a/ DHI Group which is a public company (NYSE: DHX) that owns two niche job boards, Dice.com and ClearanceJobs.com has announced its latest earnings. Once again ClearanceJobs outperformed its bigger brother. https://www.jobboardsecrets.com/2023/11/02/dice-clearance-jobs-report-earnings/

Building a career is a series of choices, outcomes of those choices, and then reacting to those outcomes. Sometimes a small choice can have an outsized return, sometimes the reaction to an outcome can lead you down a new path. In investing we are looking for power-law returns, the small bets that we can return exponential value.Our guest today is an investor who has seen some amazing choices turn into huge returns and even better stories to teach and entertain us. Alexander Niehenke is a Partner at Scale Venture Partners where he specializes in Vertical SaaS investing.And John Ruffolo is back to talk about the news!About Alexander Neihenke:Alex Neihenke is a Partner at Scale Venture Partners since 2017. He has focused on early investments in vertical software markets where incumbents have failed to invest in advanced technology offerings. That thesis has led to investments in Archipelago, Dusty Robotics, Motive formally KeepTruckin, Root Insurance, Scout RFP, Spruce, Proscia, and Proxy. Motive has been one of the fastest growing SaaS companies of all time; Scout RFP was acquired by Workday in late 2019 for $540M; and Root completed its IPO in late 2020.He received his bachelor's from UC Berkeley.In this episode we discuss:(0:00:56) News rundown with John Ruffolo(0:16:27) Alexander's path to becoming an investor(0:18:45) The effect of watching his dad work so hard(0:20:50) Alex's experience working in the banking industry(0:24:31) How the experience at Crosslink Capital shaped his career(0:25:56) His role advising Dollar Shave Club(0:28:08) On investing in friends(0:29:46) Joining Scale Venture Partners in 2013(0:32:17) How he focused on Vertical SaaS(0:35:23) Alex's definition of Vertical SaaS(0:36:20) Misconceptions around Vertical SaaS(0:38:11) Why there's a misunderstanding around TAM(0:40:08) Case studies around misaligned TAM(0:44:04) Lessons from his investment in Root Insurance(0:48:59) How Scale's outlook has evolved over the last few years(0:52:06) Why Alex invested in Ripple Portfolio company Rose Rocket(0:54:30) Rules he lives by when joining a new board(0:57:29) What makes a good board member(1:00:00) Why Alex writes about industries prior to investing in them(1:02:52) Thoughts on the AI investing craze(1:05:47) Using data to analyze massive volumes of startups and their success(1:09:16) What would he be doing if he wasn't an investorFast Favorites:*

Toast to St. Patrick's Day weekend with the latest DWAVC episode featuring Crosslink Capital's Matt Bigge, a decorated Army Ranger, Georgetown and Harvard Business School alumnus, and doting dad. Dive into our 'Shots with a VC' special as we explore Matt's journey into investing, the military tools that have sharpened his venture prowess, and the transformative impact of The Honor Foundation on the business world.Links:www.crosslinkcapital.comwww.twitter.com/biggewww.honor.org (Charity!)

Bharath Krishnamoorthy has gone from a young rebel to working for one of the world's top M&A law firms, to a startup entrepreneur. His venture, Denim, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Crosslink Capital, REFASHIOND Ventures, Anthemis, and Trucks VC.

Crimcheck a provider of background screening, reference checks, data checks, and drug testing & occupational health solutions announced that it completed the sale of its company to DISA Global Solutions, provider of drug testing & occupational health services. https://hrtechfeed.com/background-screening-tool-crimcheck-acquired/ Dalia, a recruitment marketing automation platform that helps employers get more qualified applicants for less, today announced the completion of a $5 million Series A round.  https://hrtechfeed.com/dalia-raises-5m-in-series-a-funding-to-help-employers-get-more-qualified-applicants-for-less/ SilkRoad Technology, the world-class talent acquisition leader, announced the completion of a two-way integration between its candidate sourcing solution, Search, and its applicant tracking system, Recruiting.  https://hrtechfeed.com/silkroad-technology-announces-first-true-end-to-end-talent-acquisition-solution/ Cleary, the digital employee experience platform for distributed teams, has closed a $4.5m seed funding round led by Moonshots Capital, with participation from Liberty City Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Seachange Fund, and Quiet Capital, among others. This seed round follows an initial capital raise of $3m as part of Cleary's pre-seed fundraise. https://hrtechfeed.com/cleary-announces-7-5m-in-funding-for-their-employee-experience-platform/ WorkLLama, technology provider of an AI-driven, talent marketing, relationship management, and direct sourcing suite, today announced several game-changing features to its platform, highlighting its commitment to investment in its technology.  https://hrtechfeed.com/new-features-from-workllama/

How to nail your first meeting with a VC-->1. Solve for getting a second meeting2. Nail your story/narrative3. Don't explain every part of your business! 

Ryan Green is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gridwise, an app for gig economy drivers to maximize their earnings and profitability. Key topics in this conversation include: The complexity of effectively planning a day as a gig economy driver, and how Gridwise helps Why Gridwise avoided the obvious path to monetization Doing the unscalable How Gridwise grew to over 200k active drivers in the US Making sense of data and Gridwise Analytics Links: Show notes: http://brandonbartneck.com/futureofmobility/ryangreen LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanagreen/; https://www.linkedin.com/company/gridwise/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/gridwise_io Gridwise website - https://gridwise.io/ Gridwise app download - https://gridwise.io/download/?shortlink=5805445c&af_sub1=ToF&c=website&pid=Website&cta=free%20download Ryan's Bio Ryan Green is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gridwise, an app for gig economy drivers to maximize their earnings and profitability. Since launching in 2017, Gridwise has raised $20.4M in funding, with their latest Series A raising $12.7M led by Crosslink Capital, Autotech Ventures, and others. With 200k+ active drivers nationwide, Gridwise empowers those in the gig economy through demand insights, activity tracking, and a marketplace of gig worker benefits. Before Gridwise, Ryan served as an active duty Naval Officer after graduating from the United States Naval Academy. Following his time in the military, he worked the FX trading desk at PNC, executing multi-million trades for clients. About Gridwise Launched in 2017, Gridwise is a rapidly growing platform that has developed a suite of gig mobility solutions that enable gig workers, cities, and enterprises to leverage the most powerful gig mobility data insights in the industry to empower their operations. The Gridwise app is the leading business platform for gig economy drivers, helping them maximize their earnings and track their business performance all in one place. Their app is empowering 10% of all US drivers to run their business with unique gig demand insights, earnings and activity tracking, performance reporting, and a marketplace of gig worker benefits. Growing one of the largest gig-driver networks in the mobility industry has enabled Gridwise to amass the most comprehensive gig mobility dataset in the industry and capitalize on a $50B data-as-a-service opportunity through Gridwise Analytics. Gridwise is on its way to becoming the de facto operating platform for gig drivers and offer solutions that empower the entire ecosystem to improve the way people and goods move. Future of Mobility: The Future of Mobility podcast is focused on the development and implementation of safe, sustainable, effective, and accessible mobility solutions, with a spotlight on the people and technology advancing these fields. linkedin.com/in/brandonbartneck/ brandonbartneck.com/futureofmobility/ Edison Manufacturing: At Edison Manufacturing, our specialty is building and assembling highly complex mobility products in annual quantities of ten to tens of thousands utilizing an agile, robust, and capital-light approach.

When we are working with our portfolio companies, we find that a big part of success is building a strong sales team. But what's the best way to do that, and how should sales teams be rewarded and structured. Our guest today is Nabeil Alazzam, Founder and CEO of Forma.ai, a sales compensation platform that removes the guesswork of motivating sales teams and unlocks agility through a delivery-focused, AI-driven platform.About Nabeil Alazzam:Nabeil Alazzam is the Founder and CEO of Forma.ai. He began his entrepreneurial journey while studying Mechanical Engineering at Queen's University and continued through graduation as a consultant for ZS.During that time, Nabeil advised Fortune 100 companies on sales force effectiveness and strategy and saw first-hand the pain of poor enterprise sales compensation management. He saw a gap in the market and moved quickly to gather a team and found Forma.ai in 2016.A word from our sponsor:At Ripple, we manage all of our fund expenses and employee credit cards using Jeeves. The team at Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at anytime. We weren't asked for any personal guarantees or to pay any setup or monthly SaaS fees.Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us cashback on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook, or AWS every month. New users can earn up to 3% cashback for their first 90 days.The best part is Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days in any currency you want, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month. Jeeves also recently launched its Jeeves Growth and Working Capital initiative for startups and fast-growing companies to enable more financial freedom for companies. The best thing of all is that Jeeves is live in  24 countries including Canada, US and many other countries around the world.Jeeves truly offers the best all-in-one expense management corporate card program for all startups especially the ones at Ripple and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to officially partner with them. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of our Tank Talks special with a‍ $250 statement credit after the first $2,500 in spend or a $500 statement credit after the first $5000 in spend. Lastly, all Jeeves cardholders receive access to their Lounge Pass program and access to over 1300 airports globally.Visit tryjeeves.com/tanktalks to learn more.In this episode we discuss:02:32 Nabeil's journey to starting Forma.ai04:16 Lessons Nabeil learned as a management consultant05:44 How working with Pharmacuetical Reps shaped his view on the importance of data in the sales process08:18 Pain points as VP of sales that lead him to starting Forma11:35 How Nabeil views a proper compensation structure14:14 What founders need to consider prior to rolling out a sales comp plan17:22 How companies can implement strategies when limited data is available20:35 What you should do to implement a new sales compensation plan23:00 Creating feedback loops between sales and leadership24:54 How early-stage startups can use Forma27:37 Dealing with fallout from changing compensation plans30:25 Communication strategies to sales staff32:25 How quota and targets can lead to attrition35:11 Organizations that hurt themselves with a poor comp plan38:29 How Forma actually works41:21 Methods which Forma collects data44:22 How their recent series B came together led by ACME Capital, along with our good friends at Crosslink Capital, Golden Ventures, and Uncork Capital Fast Favorites:

  Shawn Vo is the CTO and co-founder of Axle, the all-in-one financial platform for modern freight brokers. Back in May, they completed a $10 million Series A round of funding led by Crosslink Capital. This financing follows a record year for Axle, during which volume grew 850% on their payments and financing platform. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Shawn spent seven years in financial technology, building software for fast-growing startups and consulting for the top 20 largest banks before starting Axle with his longtime business partner and friend, Bharath Krishnamoorthy. He is also member of the Forbes Technology Council, as well as an angel investor in fintech and developer tools. We discuss the importance of digital transformation initiatives, integrations and personalization in freight brokers' tech stacks. I also learn how moving toward open platform tools will benefit brokers so they can continue to build a tech stack that's personalized specifically for their back-end, data-driven processes. 

Manish Sood has taken his idea for a startup to becoming a billion-dollar company. They are aiming to go even far larger than that. His venture, Reltio has raised funding from top-tier investors like Brighton Park Capital, NewView Capital, Sapphire Ventures, and Crosslink Capital.

FinTech is both an undeniable tech movement, as well as, an ambiguous buzzword that founders can use for caché. So what is it and how can startups truly utilize tools from the FinTech world to give their own companies superpowers. Our guest today, Joe Keeley, is the Co-Founder and CEO of JustiFi, a platform that allows Vertical SaaS companies to add sophisticated FinTech to their service offerings and how that can save companies in processing fees and give customers more flexibility in payments. We also discuss how startups should think about choosing third-party service providers when entering the embedded fintech arena and why it may not be the smartest choice to build your own in-house payments team from scratch. They recently announced a Seed+ round led by our good friends at Crosslink Capital aligned with existing investors Rally Ventures and Emergence Capital.About Joe Keeley:Joe is the CEO and Co-founder of JustiFi Technologies, a venture-backed fintech business providing payments and fintech infrastructure and strategy for vertical SaaS platforms.Prior to JustiFi, Joe founded and grew College Nannies, Sitters & Tutors (CNST), the nation’s largest in-home childcare and tutoring company. He led CNST to over 200 franchises in the USA and United Kingdom (a milestone less than 5% of franchisors achieve) and over 13,000 employees. In 2016, College Nannies, Sitters & Tutors was acquired by Bright Horizons Family Solutions (NYSE: BFAM), the largest corporate-sponsored childcare operator globally.He has been named the prestigious Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of The Year”, the “Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Top 25 under 25 to Watch” by Business Week Magazine, “20 under 30 Who Will Change the World” by Citizen Culture magazine, one of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal’s “Young Entrepreneurs” and “40 under 40”, Glass Door’s Top 100 Companies to Work For, Minnesota Business 100 Best Companies to Work For, and Entrepreneur Magazine's top 100 Franchise concepts many years running.A word from our sponsor:At Ripple, we manage all of our fund expenses and employee credit cards using Jeeves.The team at Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at any time. We weren’t asked for any personal guarantees or to pay any setup or monthly SaaS fees.Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us up to 3% cash back on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook or AWS every month. The best part is Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days in any currency you want, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month.Jeeves also recently launched its Jeeves Growth and Working Capital initiative for startups and fast-growing companies to enable more financial freedom for every entrepreneur. The best thing of all is that Jeeves is live in 24 countries including Canada, the US and many other countries around the world. Jeeves truly offers the best all-in-one expense management corporate card program for all startups especially the ones at Ripple and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to officially partner with them.Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of our Tank Talks special with a $700 sign-on bonus and skip the waitlist that already has thousands of companies by visiting tryjeeves.com/tanktalks - Use Referral Code - TankTalks to get setup today!In this episode we discuss:02:42 Joe journey to creating CNST04:19 How Joe embraced technology as a solution for childcare and tutoring05:42 Why Joe’s first company was bootstrapped07:51 Why Joe and his co-founders decided to launch JustiFi11:21 Solving the processing fee problems for small business13:06 The history of FinTech and embedded FinTech16:05 How smaller businesses can benefit from embedded FinTech18:53 Why startups benefit from outsourcing FinTech tools21:02 How businesses should choose an embedded FinTech partner23:45 Choosing a generalist vs specialist service partner26:40 Why being the best at what you do is the most important thing as a startup28:32 Why Vertical SaaS is JustiFi’s current target market31:48 What lowering fees has meant to JustiFi’s customers34:12 How bigger is JustiFi’s Total Addressable Market35:58 Plans for JustiFi’s recent fundraiseFast FavoritesPodcastThe BBC MinuteNewsletter/BlogMorning BrewTech GadgetSonosNew TrendBack to officeBookThe Giving TreeLife LessonWork Hard and Be NiceFollow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

There’s a lot of hype around AI—both its capabilities and the extreme predictions of its utility and potential harm to society. Our guest today is using AI to help reduce harm by detecting fraud at scale in the financial sector. Ronan Burke is Co-Founder and CEO of Inscribe, a platform that has a mission to save billions of dollars lost to fraud by onboarding trusted customers faster and finding bad-faith users quicker using AI.About Ronan Burke:Ronan Burke is the Co-Founder of Inscribe.ai, which he founded after graduating from University College in Dublin. He participated in YCS18 and Inscribe is trusted by companies like BlueVine, Petal, Fair, and Ramp, and backed by Y Combinator, Uncork Capital, Crosslink Capital, and Foundry Group.In this episode we discuss:01:37 Ronan’s path to founding Inscribe with his twin brother03:02 How they viewed startups growing up in Ireland04:44 Growing the startup ecosystem in Dublin05:20 The launch of Inscribe08:06 Deciding which brother was CTO and which was CEO09:52 Ronan experience at YC12:54 What fraud means to Inscribe and how the pandemic made their service even more urgently needed16:09 The ROI of Inscribe to onboarding customers and detecting fraud from preexisting customers19:29 The three steps Inscribe uses to validate customers21:54 How Inscribe searches the dark web for templates and other fraudulent activities23:33 How the volume of data helps their ML24:00 What a typical fraud case looks like25:28 The market size for fraud detection26:55 Competition to Inscribe28:00 What the sales process looks like when selling to large FinTechs30:19 Case studies for Inscribe31:53 How their fundraising process went33:23 Plans for the next few years34:20 Plans for a hybrid model workplaceFast FavoritesPodcastTim Ferris ShowNewsletter BlogSimon Taylor FinTech Brain FoodTech GadgetLogiTech Stream CamNew TrendHybrid WorkingBookPrincipalsLife LessonIf you care about something, double down on it.Follow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

There’s a term one hears to describe the venture capital market in 2021—frothy. What does that actually mean and what does it mean in the larger historical context of Venture Capital? We speak with Phil Boyer, a partner at Crosslink Capital since 2014. Crosslink was founded in Silicon Valley in 1989 and has institutional memories of the beginning and end of Dot-Com bubble 20+ years ago and the global financial crisis in 2008. How does the firm’s deep history inform what is happening today, what is the outlook for the future, and how can founders pitch their companies to funds like Crosslink.About Phil Boyer:Phil brings over a decade of experience as a technology investor with deep sector expertise within enterprise and vertical software (AI, cloud, developer tools, SaaS, security). He is passionate about serving as a partner with early-stage founding teams, with an eye towards helping strong technical teams build category-defining companies. At Crosslink, Phil’s investments include Armory, BetterUp, Iron Ox, Molekule, Overjet, Verodin (FEYE), and Weave (IPO NYSE: WEAV), among other companies.Prior to Crosslink, Phil was an investor with NYC-based venture capital firm Tenfore Holdings, with early investments in Optoro and Trulioo during his tenure. Before beginning his venture capital career, Phil wrote and published research on the technology sector at Credit Suisse and RBC, where he covered companies such as Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, eBay, Priceline, Yelp, and many others.A word from our sponsor:Ripple Ventures is always focused on helping our founders and CEOs find the best partners to work with. But before we introduce any provider to our companies, we always make sure we try the product first. And when it comes to managing business expenses at Ripple, we were super excited when the team at Jeeves came knocking on our door.Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at any time. We weren’t asked for any personal guarantees or pay any setup or annual fees either. Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us up to 3% cashback on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook or AWS every month. The best part,  Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month. Jeeves offers a truly all-in-one expense management corporate card program for international startups and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to partner with them. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of a $700 discount and skip the waitlist  by visiting tryjeeves.com/tanktalks to learn more.In this episode we discuss:02:49 The evolution of metrics founders need for later round financing07:34 Why Team is so important to investors at the series A round12:17 How growth velocity can be just as important as size of ARR16:27 What is Net Dollar Retention and why is it important to investors22:49 How to properly calculate CAC/LTV25:03 Deal velocity and speed to close as a metric28:17 Is it better to land and expand deals or to hunt for bigger deals from an investor perspective32:06 Conviction in your model is important and knowing what you want to build33:49 How the speed of venture rounds is affecting the market and larger considerations for founders36:46 How Crosslink is dealing with the market39:55 The Crosslink Alpha network and how it brings value to its foundersFast FavoritesAcquiredHow I Built ThisNewsletterWhat’s Hot in Enterprise IT by Ed SimTech GadgetAirpodsTrendxOpsBookThe Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben HorowitzLife LessonThe only thing that stays constant is change.Follow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Brett Fox, a startup advisor who has also worked in venture capital. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/foxbrett/ and https://www.brettjfox.com) In this episode, Brett talks about what to do if you lose a co-founder while raising capital, how many people to bring to VC pitch meetings, top mistakes startup CEOs make, how establish an emotional connection with investors, how to get investor to compete for your deal, and much more. Brett has advised dozens of startups on strategy, growth, and fundraising. He previously worked as an EIR at Crosslink Capital. See his writings at https://brett-j-fox.medium.com/ How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $3 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at https:/www.foundersuite.com/

BrowserStack, a software testing platform, has announced its Series B fundraise of $200 million from BOND, at a valuation of $4 billion, making it the highest for any Indian SaaS unicorn. Insight Partners and existing investor Accel participated in the funding. The Series B fundraising makes BrowserStack India's second SaaS unicorn this year, after Chargebee, which attained the tag in April. In its press release, BrowserStack stated that the funding would be used to support its acquisitions, expand its product offerings, and scale growth. Miami-based Novo, a digital banking platform for small businesses, has raised $40.7 million in a Valar Ventures-led Series A funding round. Other investors – Crosslink Capital, Rainfall Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, and BoxGroup – participated in the funding round, the company said in its press release. The company stated that it would use the proceeds from the investment to introduce new capabilities for assisting small businesses save time and money by optimizing their cash flow.Tel Aviv-based Bringg, a cloud platform that helps retailers and logistics providers in last-mile delivery operations, has announced its Series E fundraise worth $100 million, led by Insight Partners at a valuation of $1 billion. The Series E fundraising grants it the unicorn status, making it the first company in last-mile delivery and fulfillment cloud technology to attain the status, its press release said.Vianai Systems, an AI startup, has announced that it has raised $140 million in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The Palo Alto-headquartered startup said that many industry stalwarts participated in this round. The new round takes the total to at least $190 million.   20 minute VC podcaster Harry Stebbings has raised funding for 20VC. The current raise represents a 15-fold increase over the $8.3 million initial funds, which was launched less than a year ago. Mr. Stebbings' early-stage fund, 20VC Early, will invest $250,000 to $750,000, while his growth-stage fund, 20VC Explorer, will invest $1 million to $5 million.  DuckDuckGo, an online privacy startup, has claimed a $100M revenue increase. This growth is attributed to secondary investment from existing and new investors. In the last year, its apps have been downloaded over 50 million times. The company intends to extend its operations throughout Europe and other parts of the world.Copenhagen-based Templafy, a B2B business document creation SaaS platform, has raised $60 million in its Series D funding round led by Blue Cloud Ventures. Existing investors – Insight Partners, Seed Capital, Dawn Capital, and Damgaard Company – had participated in the round, reports state.Gloat, a talent marketplace platform helping enterprises worldwide harness talent, has announced its Series C fundraise worth $57 million, led by Accel. Existing investors – Eight Roads Ventures, Intel Capital, Magma Venture Partners, and PICO Partners-participated in the funding round. Trigo, a retail checkout system developer, has raised $10M (the exact amount is undisclosed). Its total funding has crossed $100M with this funding, and it looks to partner with Germany's REWE Group to help them set up a ‘grab and go' shopping experience for its new store in Cologne.Brella, a hybrid event platform, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Connected Capital. The platform, previously utilized as an offline networking tool, shifted from live events to a virtual event platform once the pandemic struck.Introhive, AI-powered sales, and revenue acceleration platform, has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by PSG, a growth equity firm. Other investors include Mavan Capital Partners, The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), and Evergreen Capital.

An early-stage start-up, Britive, that brings privileged access control to a multi-cloud world, has announced a $10 million Series A. The investment was led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from previous investors, Upfront Ventures, and One Way Ventures. The company helps automate permission-ing across multiple cloud vendors, and software services, whether that involves a human or a machine, that is seeking permission. The company currently has 40 employees, a number that Britive expects to double, in the next 12 months, as they put this capital to work. Unbounce, a Vancouver start-up known for helping marketers create automated landing pages, announced that it has acquired Snazzy dot AI, an early-stage automated copywriting start-up. Unbounce's Chief Strategy Officer, Tamara Grominsky, says that her company focuses on helping customers convert their customers into sales, and with Snazzy, it gets some pretty nifty technology, based on GPT-3 artificial intelligence technology. The product is aimed at the marketing generalist, charged with overseeing landing pages, and who is responsible for a range of tasks including writing copy. Upstream, a new professional networking platform, just closed a $2.75 million seed round, bringing their total raised to $3.25 million. The round was led by Ibex Investors, and managing partner Nicole Priel. The investment also includes participation from 8-Bit Capital, Human Ventures, NYVP, Converge Venture Partners, and a few angel investors. Unlike LinkedIn, Upstream focuses on generating meaningful connections between its members, and one way they go about it, is by hosting digital events, that start with a speaker, followed by breakout matched sessions, that are five minutes each.Fintech start-up Pipe, which aims to be the “Nasdaq for revenue”  had raised $150 million in a round of funding that was closed in March. Now, the Miami-based Start-up confirms that it has actually raised, $250 million at a $2 billion valuation in a round that was massively oversubscribed. More than 4,000 companies have signed up on the Pipe trading platform since its public launch in June 2020, with just over 1,000 of those signing up since its March raise. Pipe's platform assesses a customer's key metrics, by integrating with its accounting, payment processing, and banking systems. It then instantly rates the performance of the business and qualifies them for a trading limit. Forecast, a start-up that uses artificial intelligence to both reads, and integrates data from different enterprise applications, to build a bigger picture of the project, and potential outcomes have raised $19 million. Headquartered in London, the company plans to use some of the funding to expand to the U.S., and some to continue building out its platform and business. This funding, a Series A, comes less than a year after the start-up's commercial launch, and it was led by Balderton Capital, with previous investors Crane Ventures Partners, SEED Capital, and Heartcore also participating. Düsseldorf-based prop-tech start-up, Dabbel, is using AI to drive energy efficiency savings in commercial buildings. It's developed cloud-based self-learning building management software, that plugs into the existing building management systems, taking over control of heating and cooling systems, in a way that's more dynamic than legacy systems, based on fixed set-point resets. Dabbel says its AI considers factors such as building orientation, and thermal insulation, and reviews calibration decisions every five minutes, meaning it can respond dynamically to changes in outdoor and indoor conditions. Founded in 2018, the start-up claims this approach of layering AI-powered predictive modeling, atop legacy BMS to power next-gen building automation, is able to generate substantial energy savings, touting reductions in energy consumption of up to 40%. European start-up studio, e-Founders states that the portfolio companies have reached a valuation of $2 billion together — only 18 months after reaching $1 billion. E-Founders says it is focused on building the future of work. In practical terms, it means the company is building B2B SaaS start-ups, with a focus on productivity, and workflows. For instance, Front, Aircall, and Spendesk all started with e-Founders. When e-Founders comes up with a new project, they act as a sort of third co-founder. The start-up studio tries to find a CEO and a CTO. In exchange for a third of equity, the e-Founders core team helps take the project off the ground. When the start-up raises a seed round, e-Founders move on from day-to-day activities and focuses on new projects. And it has been working well. With 30 portfolio companies, there are now 1,500 people working for an e-Founders-backed company. Combined, they generate $131 million in annual recurring revenue.

Phil Boyer is a Partner at Crosslink Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm focused on enterprise applications, infrastructure, vertical software, and frontier technology. As a passionate technology investor, Phil shares how he evaluates early-stage founding teams and provides real-life examples of category-defining companies. His portfolio includes Weave, Chime, Coupa, Yotascale, Descartes Labs, among others.Unlike large companies, tech startups have the advantage of flexibility; founders can quickly change priorities.The foundational story of every successful startup clearly shows the founding team leaving everything to build the company.Some of the world's most successful tech startups started with strategies that seemed scrappy.The advisory role of a venture capitalist post-investment includes acknowledging that the founders and operators are running the business.Non-profit: Alpha

Two large DSOs and an award-winning dental AI company, Overjet, join the podcast today to discuss how AI is revolutionizing dentistry and where it will take the DSO industry in the future. This fascinating and information-packed podcast dives into the clinical and nonclinical applications for AI and how it benefits payor, provider and patients alike. The data insights and diagnostic uses are beyond exciting as AI has the ability to propel dentists into becoming even better clinicians. If you want to understand how AI is transforming dentistry, this podcast is for you! In recognition of Overjet’s achievements in pioneering AI-driven dentistry to improve oral health for everyone, CB Insights recently named Overjet on their List of 100 Most Innovative Artificial Intelligence Startups in the World that are redefining industries — the first time ever a company in dentistry was included on their annual AI 100. It’s been a year of rapid growth for Overjet since the company came out of stealth in 2020 with the launch of powerful dental AI software and financing from VCs that included Crosslink Capital and the MIT-affiliated E14 Fund. Built upon multiple cutting-edge computational dentistry and AI techniques pioneered by Overjet over two years of extensive R&D, Overjet's clinical and claim intelligence platforms are already being used by some of the largest dental customers in the nation.  Founded by PhDs and leading experts from MIT and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Overjet has assembled the largest and most seasoned team of technologists and domain experts with deep AI, dental and insurance experience. Overjet's leadership team includes Dr. Wardah Inam, PhD, CEO and cofounder; Dr. Robert Faiella, DDS, chief dental officer and former president of the American Dental Association; Deepak Ramaswamy, PhD, CTO and former Amazon executive; Dr. Chris Balaban, DMD, clinical director; and Shaju Puthussery, COO and former chief analytics officer at DentaQuest, the largest Medicaid dental benefits provide If you like our podcast, please give us a review on iTunes http://apple.co/2Nejsfa Our podcast series brings you dental support and emerging dental group practice analysis, conversation, trends, news and events. Listen to leaders in the DSO and emerging dental group space talk about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry. The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry has listeners across North & South America, Australia, Europe, and Asia. If you like our show, tell a friend or a colleague.

Bay Area-based Iron Ox today announced a $20 million Series B. The funding, led by Pathbreaker Venture and family office firms, brings the robotics company's total funding up to $45 million to date. A number of other investors also took part in the round, including Crosslink Capital, Amplify Partners, ENIAC Ventures, R7 Partners, Tuesday Ventures, […]

Overjet, a startup focused on using AI to help dentists and insurance companies understand dental scans, today announced that it has raised $7.85 million in what it describes as a seed round. According to Overjet's CEO Wardah Inam (an MIT PhD in electrical engineering and computer science), the company raised the funds from Crosslink Capital, […]

Dilip Goswami is the co-founder and CEO of Molekule which is a San Francisco-based science and clean air company that has developed a fundamentally new approach to cleaning the air. The company has raised $100 million from top tier investors such as Crosslink Capital, Uncork Capital, Foundry Group, TransLink Capital, Highway1, Foxconn Technology Group, Hack VC, Founders Circle Capital, Hone Capital, CSC, Inventec Corporation, and RPS Ventures.

Deidre Paknad is the cofounder and CEO of Workboard which is an enterprise SaaS company that helps companies unlock growth by making alignment and accountability remarkably easy. The company has raised over $60 million from Andreessen Horowitz, GGV Capital, Crosslink Capital, Floodgate, Granite Ventures, M12, and Opus capital to name a few. 

In this episode, Tej Singh and Adele Li interview Jay Goldklang, the Founder and CEO of Great Jones, a modern, full-service operating platform that allows property investors to find quality renters, receive reliable income, and access local vendors for unit upkeep. Great Jones has raised over $20M from Crosslink Capital, Zigg Capital, Juxtapose, Seamless founder Jason Finger, and serial entrepreneurs Kevin Ryan and David Rosenblatt. Interview topics include Jay's path from Yale and Stanford GSB to 1stdibs and Great Jones, his love of sports fueling his youngest entrepreneurial pursuits, and the value-add that Great Jones provides property owners, from leasing to maintenance.