Leadout Capital: Summer 2024 Newsletter
Dear Leadout Capital Community,
We hope your summer is off to a great start! We are pleased to share updates from the first half of the year from the Leadout portfolio, community, and team.
We’re excited to highlight the news — announced today — that one of our portfolio companies, Momentum.io, has successfully closed a $13 million Series A funding round led by FirstMark, with participation from Stage 2 Capital. Existing investors, including Basis Set and Leadout Capital, joined the round. See the announcement here.
AI is having a moment, especially as consumer products like ChatGPT have become popular with individual consumers over the past year. Many companies in Leadout’s portfolio also use AI to help their customers build their businesses.
Momentum develops cutting-edge software specifically to support enterprise sales teams. Consistent with our founder-market-fit thesis, we supported Santi, Ashley, and Moiz early because they were clear about what the customer needed, having spent time in sales roles themselves. And, as a team, they have consistently out-executed the competition.
Momentum’s progress shows the transformative power of applied AI in enterprise software. As the B2B sales landscape continues to evolve, we believe Momentum is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for AI-driven sales solutions.
New Investments:
Streamlane is a software platform that forecasts and optimizes your shipping operations. The company was founded by Julie Kierszenbaum, Laure Kierszenbaum, and Mikhail Ulinich. Julie and Mikhail worked together at Ipsy, one of the largest subscription commerce businesses in the beauty and cosmetics industry. They lived the customer problem that shipping costs and inefficiencies represent to large D2C brands. Streamlane uses artificial intelligence to help online retailers save money on shipping and improve their processes.
Portfolio Company Spotlights:
AFI Payments won the 2024 Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge Award. It is the first fintech company to allow mobile money payments between Ghana and Togo.
AtoB announces a new global fuel card partnership with Mastercard.
Basis has been acquired by Digits, the creator of the world’s first automated bookkeeping solution for startups. Through this acquisition, Basis will help Digits accelerate its FP&A roadmap and extend its dashboard and reporting capabilities into financial planning.
Cloudsmith released Cloudsmith Navigator, a meta-index of the most popular open-source software (OSS) public indexes, such as npm, PyPi, Maven, and RubyGems, into General Availability. Additionally, the team brought on Karen Dardner as the Chief Marketing Officer and was recognized by the Digital DNA Awards for three separate awards.
Creatify was accepted into the 3rd batch of AI Grant, one of the top accelerator programs for AI startups. The company has also announced a series of product updates, including AI Video APIs, Custom AI Avatars, AI Avatar Accents, Batch Mode, and Workspace.
CRS introduces a series of new products, including Equifax Credit Attributes to enhance lenders’ credit assessment processes and PDF Credit Reports to streamline credit data in a consistent, standardized format.
ENDVR announced major updates to the ENDVR mobile app, which includes gamified elements that aim to drive engagement and increase sales for Endvr brand partners and their dedicated sales associates. Additionally, Endvr was recognized by G2 with a series of awards, including the 2024 Best Software Awards and G2 Spring Report 2024.
Expo launches a series of new products and updates, including Expo Router v3, Expo SDK 50, Expo SDK 51, and Expo Orbit v1.
First Bite emerges from stealth and announces its $2mm funding round. Additionally, First Bite founder Reed McCord makes two podcast appearances, where he shares his early experience helping scale Impossible Foods, the black box of foodservice distribution, and how First Bite helps brands identify and sell to the most likely restaurant customers.
Kraftful was selected by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies of 2024. The team also announced a series of product updates, including Kraftful 2.0 and Kraftful Surveys.
Laws of Motion shares about its AI-powered sizing solution in a feature by WWD.
Liferaft was featured in a post on the employer-sponsored health benefits & ICHRA landscape by our friends at QED.
Lovewick announces Lovewick Distance Dates, which are on-demand virtual dates for long-distance couples.
Pavilion was recognized as a GovTech 100 company, highlighting its impact on bringing more innovation to the GovTech sector in the US.
Stellation Care was one of five companies accepted into the 2024 Health Equity Business Accelerator by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
SYKY appoints Nicola Formichetti, formerly the artistic director for Diesel, as the first artistic director.
As always, check out our job board or tell a friend about it for exciting jobs at our companies.
Parting thoughts:
- Leadout Investor recognized: We are thrilled to announce that our very own Dion Dong has been recognized as one of the top emerging venture investors to watch by the Emerging Venture Capitalists Association (EVCA) in their prestigious 2023 EVC List. This annual list spotlights 25 rising stars who are shaping the future of the venture capital industry. We are proud to see Dion recognized in this cohort. We are excited to continue to work with Dion as he makes meaningful contributions to our portfolio companies and the broader startup ecosystem.
- NYTech Week — We spent a few days together (including on bikes*) as a company meeting with entrepreneurs and other investors during New York City’s Tech Week in early June.
Warm regards,
Ali, Steve, Yun-Fang, and Dion
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