Leadout Capital: June 2023 Newsletter
Dear Leadout Capital Community,
We hope this newsletter finds you in good health and high spirits.
It has been a dynamic and eventful period since our last newsletter, and despite a challenging market (interest rates, inflation, regional banking crisis), we are seeing promising opportunities in the early-stage venture landscape. And, as we crest the midpoint of the year, we wanted to share some exciting updates and highlights.
Investment Highlights:
Since our last newsletter, we have successfully invested in several remarkable early-stage companies across various sectors. These ventures have demonstrated tremendous potential and alignment with our fund’s investment thesis. We are proud to support their entrepreneurial journeys and look forward to witnessing their future success.
Expo.dev: Founded by Charlie Cheever and James Ide, Expo is an open-source platform built for developers to create universal native apps for Android, iOS, and the Web using JavaScript and React Native.
Stellation Care: Founded by Michelle Xie & Diana Zhu, Stellation Care is building a provider analytics platform for Medicaid and Medicare plans to enable best-in-class patient-provider matching, network design, and referral optimization
Syky: pronounced “psy-che,” Syky is a new Web3 platform designed to support creatives who are looking to sell both physical and digital renditions, as well as offering a space to trade products, share news, and chat. The company was founded by Alice Delahunt and recently announced its financing round.
YourPath: YourPath offers medication-assisted treatment and counseling services for people with substance use issues. The founding team consists of Jordan Hansen, Philip Gyura, and Jeffrey Larson, and the company recently announced its seed round of financing.
Portfolio Company Spotlights:
R-Zero raises a $105 million Series C led by CDPQ, with participation from investors including DBL Partners, Mayo Clinic Ventures, John Doerr, and more.
Syky raises a $9.5mm Series A led by 776 Ventures, with participation from investors including Brevan Howard Digital, First Light Capital, and Polygon Ventures. Vogue Digital — Digital fashion startup Syky raises $9.5 million and launches first NFT (01/17/23). Syky was also recently selected as a 2023 Technology Pioneer by World Economic Forum.
Pavilion (fka CoProcure) announced a new rebrand with the same mission of helping public servants save time and money by collaborating on purchasing. The team was also featured in a ‘Why You Should Join’ post (written by Eric Zhou & Usman Hanif). The team is continuing to grow, including Govind Wakhlu, who recently joined as the VP of Product & Design, alongside other amazing hires.
Expo released Expo Router, making it faster and easier to organize screens in an app with much less code and providing out-of-the-box benefits such as app content search engine indexing. The team also recently released Expo SDK 48! Find out more here.
Additionally, Retool wrote a great summary of why developers should choose Expo for their react native projects. Retool — Putting the Expo vs React Native debate to rest (02/16/2023)
Series Financial founder Brexton Pham recently spoke to TechCrunch on the SVB Crash and how the company was pushed out of stealth to help financial institutions and enterprises looking for a full-stack financial services solution. Techcrunch — One founder’s account of what’s left behind from SVB’s crash (03/15/2023)
AtoB was featured as the #1 spot for OnDeck’s 2023 Top Companies List. In addition, the company also announced a partnership with Uber Fright to power their carriers’ fuel cards and spend management software. Techcrunch — Uber Freight offers carriers a fuel card powered by startup AtoB. (04/27/2023)
Near Space Labs launched strategic partnerships with SkyFi and Tensorflight to expand access to high-resolution imagery.
Momentum launched Momentum Sales AI to help customers capture conversational summaries after calls and sync notes to the CRM. Check here for a closer look at Momentum’s new product releases in Q1 2023.
Stellation was 1 of 13 companies that participated in Pear’s W23 demo day. Pear VC — Pear Demo Day W23. (05/30/2023)
Kraftful comes out of beta and launches the ChatGPT for product research. Check it out here. Kraftful — Kraftful Beta: ChatGPT but for Product Research. (02/21/2023)
Cloudsmith launched a new rebrand along with ‘Unpacked 2023’, Cloudsmith’s inaugural virtual conference for DevOps professionals and engineering leaders.
New Job Board:
We just launched a new job board for our portfolio companies! Our portfolio companies are always hiring; check it out or recommend it to friends looking for new opportunities!
Other highlights include:
Our venture partner Yun-Fang was recently featured in Business Insider’s Seed 30 list (2nd year in a row) as one of the top seed investors! Read more here.
We have enjoyed traveling more to spend time with our community of investors, founders, and operators. We’re especially grateful when friends and former colleagues involve us in conversations about leadership, innovation, and culture.
Ali speaking at the Women of Wealthfront group, which she helped establish as VP of Partnerships
What We’re Consuming:
Books: Chip War by Chris Miller, a timely history of the rise of the chip industry and the geopolitical implications Podcasts: The Making of Modern Ukraine — Yale Historian Timothy Snyder’s undergrad class: History of Ukraine from the year ~980 to the current conflict with Russia Watchlist: Tour de France: Unchained (Netflix) — check out this amazing documentary on UCI pro cycling and really understand what a ‘Leadout’ is :-)
Looking Ahead:
As we embark on the second half of the year, we remain steadfast in our commitment to identifying and nurturing the most promising early-stage ventures. We are continuously exploring new investment opportunities, forging strategic partnerships, and expanding our network of advisors and industry experts.
We would love to hear from you if you are a founder or entrepreneur (or know a great founder) working on an innovative technology solution.
Warm regards,
Ali, Steve, Yun-Fang, and Dion
For our previous update, click here. Follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter for the latest.