Current Projects
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Firstplace
Sports Scheduling
Check out Firstplace -
Threes
Card Game
Check out Threes -
Nominal Finance
Chrome Extension
Check out Nominal
Career
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AppHub
Principle Engineer
Joined 8+ other software companies to help e-commerce brands accelerate growth.
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ViralSweep
Co-Founder
Built giveaway, contest, and waitlist tools to help brands to launch, grow revenue, and build email lists. Acquired November 2021.
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AppSumo
Brand Sumo
Developed the brand of AppSumo. Designed several iterations of the website, giveaways, and core products.
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AnyLuckyDay
Design
The predecessor to ViralSweep. Daily sponsored giveaways. Grew email list to 25,000+.
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University of Texas
Corporate Communication
Economics → Gap Year → Corproate Communication. Started several side projects and ultimately left early to work at AppSumo full-time.
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NASA
Habitability Design Center Internship
Interned during NASA's return to shuttle missions. HDC's work informed what became NASA's Artemis program.
Early Projects
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PriceKnock
Online Deals
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Tseretni
Interest Graph
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Football Bio
Social Network
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Woot Agent
Flash Sale Tracker
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Bulletin Boost
Myspace Tool
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Friend Fleet
Myspace Tool
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The Car Showcase
Social Network
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PriceKnock
Description
As AnyLuckyDay grew past 25,000 email subscribers, we noticed an increasing number of daily sponsors were digitally native brands.
Groupon and LivingSocial were just finding traction with brick-and-mortar coupons. We felt we could do the same for DTC brands.
How It Worked
We convinced a few AnyLuckyDay sponsors to offer generous coupons or offers for our audience to purchase.
Subscribers would select which categories of products they preferred to receive offers for.
Customers would buy coupons from us, and we would take a small cut.
We invested every dollar of revenue into growth via ads and social engagement.
Post-Mortem
Our business was growing and profitable, but Groupon and LivingSocial became entangled in a war for each marginal user—shelling out $50+ per email (10x more than we could afford).
Ultimately, those two companies both lost their war of attrition, suffering devaluations. Projects like PriceKnock were collateral damage.
Customers lost interest in deal-seeking as the post-2008 economy rebounded, while Facebook and Instagram ads became more performant for companies who could now generate sales directly themselves.
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Tseretni
Description
Facebook at the time was still a relatively closed network. You could find friends from your direct network, but you couldn't make new friends from Facebook at large.
A friend and I noticed each user's data could be scraped if they used the Facebook login API, so we built a site around that.
How It Worked
Someone would log in to Tseretni using the Facebook Login button.
We then categorized their profile's data ("Favorite Book", "Favorite Band", etc.) and made it searchable and discoverable on our site.
If you searched for your favorite things, we would show you other people who have logged in to Tseretni with that same interest.
You could then view their profile on Facebook and add them as a friend.
Post-Mortem
Within a week of launching Tseretni, Facebook launched this function inside of Facebook itself. I suppose we had the right intuition.
* We couldn't come up with a good name, so we settled on spelling "interest" backwards. Please don't judge us too harshly. -
Football Bio
Description
I had hoped to play competitive soccer in college, but recruitment opportunities for soccer players in small-town Texas were scarce.
Football Bio was meant to be a tool for players to find friends and showcase their abilities; a new incarnation of The Car Showcase for an audience that I actually genuinely cared for.
Unfinished Plans
Each player would have a profile where they could upload clips from their games or practice.
Coaches and recruiters could browse videos of athletes looking to play in college. The idea was to extend this into professional recruiting as well.
Eventually, enable recreational teams and leagues to organize through the site.
Post-Mortem
The site was never finished because studies took precedent. The costs of hosting a video site at the time were also prohibitive without raising venture capital.
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Woot Agent
Description
The "one deal a day" store woot.com periodically held an all-day sale called a "Woot-off."
They would sell one product at a time until it sold out, or—as a special treat—would sell 'Bags of Crap' for $5 which was, in their own words:
…a random collection of stuff that we shove into a box and sell to you. Wooters have received brand-new laptops, a single shoe, expired batteries, and more. You'll never know when they'll appear, or what you'll get!
These were a hot commodity and sold out very quickly.
How It Worked
Download and install Woot Agent to your desktop.
Any time a Woot-off began, Woot Agent would sound an alarm and pop up a notification on your desktop.
Each new product featured would sound the alarm again.
If the Bag of Crap was being sold, a special sound effect would go off.
Post-Mortem
By the end of our first Woot-off, the app had over 25,000 downloads. Considering we made it just for fun, we were ecstatic.
It sounds bizarre in hindsight, but a partner from Polaris Venture Partners asked to meet in person shortly after.
He wouldn't say how he found me, but I'm sure it must have been Woot Agent.
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Bulletin Boost
Description
Myspace allowed users to post bulletins which behaved like a feed of friends' activity.
We created Bulletin Boost as a straightforward ad network, posting bulletins using the Myspace profiles we had grown using Friend Fleet.
How It Worked
For a flat CPM rate, we posted content to our 1,000,000+ friends on behalf of customers. We also joined affiliate networks and promoted products—to immediate success.
Post-Mortem
Myspace introduced CAPTCHA challenges to outbound links just a few days after we started posting our own affiliate links, effectively ending Bulletin Boost's business.
Affiliate marketing felt icky, so I'm glad our foray was cut short. There are more fulfilling ways to make money.
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Friend Fleet
Description
As Myspace grew in popularity, so too did did peoples' desire to have many friends on the platform.
To prevent spam, Myspace limited users to 500 friends added per day. This created a demand from power users who wanted to be among peoples' 500 frends added each day. Friend Fleet filled this demand.
How It Worked
Each day, a person could log in with their Myspace account ID.
We presented them with 5 other Friend Fleet members to add at a time, earning 1 point per friend added.
They could also refer a friend to Friend Fleet and earn extra points—ranging from 5 to 20, depending on demand.
Members who earned the most points per day would be at the front of the line to be added.
You could pay $20 to skip the line for one day, or $100 for the whole week.
We also used the service ourselves and created many accounts with 10,000+ friends.
Post-Mortem
We launched on a midnight and woke up to $860 in revenue the first day—not bad!
Inevitably, we ran into a "big fish in a small pond" problem, so the most simple solution was to create more ponds. We duplicated the app under different names, but usage fizzled out once everyone had their fill.
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The Car Showcase
Description
The Car Showcase started as a community for car enthusiasts and grew to a few thousand members in the 18 months we operated the site. A simple take would be to describe it as "Myspace for cars."
The site was growing at a pretty impressive rate for something a couple 18 year olds cobbled together. It had profiles for users and their cars, along with a gallery feature that rivaled Facebook's at the time.
Unfinished Plans
Allow anyone to upload and share their car's "dyno" readouts and challenge friends to see how their cars stack up. The community could vote on their favorite cars based on power and aesthetics—a fun growth flywheel.
Track the most popular makes and models of cars on the site, then sell parts through an online shop. At the time, "tuner culture" was very popular and online sales for aftermarket upgrades was relatively un-touched.
Allow members to verify their identity and rent or sell their cars on the site, much like Cars & Bids created by Doug DeMuro.
Post-mortem
Ultimately, we shut the project down because our community cared a lot more about cars than we did. It felt disingenuous to portray ourselves as gear heads.
We just wanted to look at cool cars on the internet.
Steven Kovar
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Investments
Infrastructure, Hardware, & Logistics
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Visit Greenrock Robotics
Greenrock Robotics Heavy-lift Drones Seed
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Visit Visibl Semi
Visibl Semi Chip Design Seed
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Visit Dynamo Air
Dynamo Air Heavy-lift Drones Pre-Seed
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Visit Archetype
Archetype AI Research Series A
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Visit NetworkOcean
NetworkOcean Underwater Data Center Seed
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Visit Outpost
Outpost Compute Hardware Seed+
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Visit Corca
Corca Collaborative Maths Pre-Seed
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Visit Extropic
Extropic Compute Hardware Seed+
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Visit Lightmatter
Lightmatter Compute Hardware Secondary
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Visit LayerZero Labs
LayerZero Labs Interoperability Protocol Secondary
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Visit
Perplexity AI AI Search Secondary
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Visit Chalk
Chalk ML Data Platform Seed
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Visit
Circa.xyz Supply Chain Data Seed
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Mana Investing Infrastructure Seed
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Visit SailPlan
SailPlan Marine Logistics Data Series A
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Visit
Rain Neuromorphics Compute Hardware Series A
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Visit
3Box Labs Open Web Series A
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Visit
Atomic Industries Agile Manufacturing Pre-Seed
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Visit
Plant Prefab Home Manufacturing Series B
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Visit Ox
Ox Warehouse Automation Seed
Climate
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Visit Airloom
Airloom Wind Power Seed+
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Visit Möbius Industries
Möbius Industries Recycling Pre-Seed
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Visit Marathon Fusion
Marathon Fusion Fusion Seed+
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Visit Coral Vita
Coral Vita Coral Reef Restoration Series A
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Visit Hedgehog
Hedgehog Mushroom Harvesting Seed
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Visit
Earth AI Mineral Exploration Seed+
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Visit
Kanin Energy Waste Heat Recovery Seed+
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Visit Arbor
Arbor Carbon Removal & Storage Seed+
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Visit
Planted Materials Renewable Materials Pre-Seed
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Visit Focused Energy
Focused Energy Fusion Series A+
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Visit
Renaissance Fusion Fusion Seed
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Visit Verdn
Verdn Carbon Credit API Seed
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Visit
Earth Force Technologies Forest Management Seed
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Visit Petra
Petra Boring Series A+
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Visit Twelve
Twelve Carbon Conversion Series A+
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Visit Statiq Mobility
Statiq Mobility Charging Network Seed
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Visit MycoWorks
MycoWorks Mushroom Leather Series B
Health
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Visit Rorra
Rorra Water Filter Pre-Seed
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Visit Neuralink
Neuralink Brain-Computer Interface Secondary
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Visit Pepper Bio
Pepper Bio AI Drug Discovery Seed
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Visit Function Health
Function Health Accessible Bloodwork Seed
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Visit MycoMedia
MycoMedia Mushroom-based Therapies Series A
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Visit Levels
Levels Metabolic Health Series A
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Visit Brita
LARQ→ Brita
Water Filter Series A+
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Visit Cartography
Cartography Targeted Cancer Therapy Series A
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Visit Minicircle
Minicircle Reversible Gene Therapy Seed
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Visit MindPortal
MindPortal Brain-Computer Interface Seed+
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Visit VSS Medical Technologies
Advekit→ VSS Medical
Online Therapy Seed+
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Visit Elysium Health
Elysium Health Longevity Supplements Series C+
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Visit Excision Biotherapeutics
Excision Biotherapeutics CRISPR-based Therapy Series A
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Visit Eight Sleep
Eight Sleep Smart Mattress Series C+
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Visit Wally
Wally Dental Care Pre-Seed
- Visit Peachy Patients Peachy Patients Healthcare Billing Seed
Personal Finance
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Visit Mercury
Mercury Digital Bank Secondary
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Visit Carry
Carry Investing for Founders Series A
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Visit Alongside
Alongside Crypto ETF Seed
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Visit Pattern
Pattern Digital Family Office Seed
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Visit Copilot
Copilot Finance Tracking Seed
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Visit Compound
Alternativ→ Compound
Alternative Investing Seed
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Visit Zilch
Zilch Consumer-side BNPL Series C
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Visit Ellevest
Ellevest Investing for Women Series B
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Visit Republic
Republic Investment Platform Series B
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Visit ALT
ALT Collectible Market Series B
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Visit Equi
Equi Alternative Investing Seed+
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Visit Varo Bank
Varo Bank Digital Bank Series E
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Visit Prometheus
Prometheus Alternative Investing Seed
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Visit Ember Fund
Ember Fund Crypto Investing Seed+
- Visit 101.xyz 101.xyz Crypto Education Pre-Seed
- Visit Stonks Stonks Investment Platform Seed
- Visit Moves Moves Gig Worker Credit Union Seed
- Visit Altro Altro Credit Building Series A
- Visit Oxygen Oxygen Digital Banking Series A+
- Visit Letter Letter Digital Banking Seed
Luxury & Leisure
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Visit Atlas
Atlas Luxury Concierge Series A
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Visit Komos
Komos Tequila Series A
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Visit Americana
Americana Provenance Tracking Seed
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Visit Captain Experience
Captain Experience Adventure Sports Seed
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Visit Wander
Wander Luxury Travel Seed
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Visit Rosaluna
Rosaluna Mezcal Seed
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Visit DRNXMYTH
DRNXMYTH Pre-made Cocktails Seed+
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Visit Sandbox VR
Sandbox VR VR Gaming Series A+
- Visit Maison Marcel Maison Marcel Rosé Seed+
- Visit Elude Elude Travel Booking Pre-Seed
- Visit Los Dos Los Dos Tequila Seed
Business Tools
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Visit Objection
Objection Claim Verification Pre-Seed
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Visit Cognizo
Cognizo Search Optimization Seed
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Visit Exponent
Exponent Developer Tools Seed
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Visit North
North Cloud Optimization Series A
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Visit Judgment
Judgment Labs AI Monitoring Pre-Seed
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Visit Boardy
Boardy Professional Networking Seed
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Visit VideoGen
VideoGen Video Generation Seed
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Visit Salt AI
Salt AI AI Development Seed
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Visit Intro
Intro Coaching Series A
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Visit Oxla
Oxla Distributed Database Seed+
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Visit Atlas
Atlas 3D Modeling Seed
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Visit Qatalog
Qatalog AI Business Operations Series A+
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Visit Fluent
Fluent AI Business Analytics Seed
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Visit Gumroad
Gumroad Content Distribution Common
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Visit Orb
Orb Metered Billing Software Series A
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Visit Atlas UP
Atlas UP AI Business Operations Seed
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Visit Internet Research Unit
Internet Research Unit DTC Performance Data Seed
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Visit Lemonade Finance
Lemonade Finance International Payments Series A
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Visit Founderpath
Founderpath Growth Capital Series A
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Visit Paragon
Paragon SaaS Integration API Series A
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Visit Brex
Brex Expense Management Series D
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Visit Documatic
Documatic Issue Reporting Seed+
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Visit Airhouse
Airhouse Warehousing Series A
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Visit Daydream
Daydream AI Business Analytics Seed
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Visit Causal
Causal→ Lucanet
Financial Planning Series A
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Visit Capchase
Capchase Growth Capital Series B
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Visit Pipe
Pipe Growth Capital Series B
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Visit Setscale
Setscale Working Capital Seed
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Visit Conduit
Conduit International Payments Seed
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Visit Harmonic
Harmonic Startup Company Database Seed+
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Visit Orderful
Orderful Electronic Data Interchange Series B
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Visit InterPrice Technologies
InterPrice Technologies Corporate Treasury Seed
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Visit Discord
Ubiquity6→ Discord
Social Gaming Series B+
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Visit Settle
Settle Working Capital Seed
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Visit Pepper
Pepper Food & Beverage Software Seed+
- Visit Brainbase Brainbase Licensing Management Series A+
- Visit Safe Safe Private Links Pre-Seed
- Visit TalentDrop TalentDrop Recruiting Seed
- Visit Level Level Lending Capital Seed
- Visit Kitch Kitch Commercial Kitchen Marketplace Pre-Seed
Marketing
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Visit Fourthwall
Fourthwall Creator Merchandise Series A+
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Visit rolla
rolla Video Creation Pre-Seed
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Visit Fireside
Fireside Creator Platform Seed+
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Visit Lunchbox
Lunchbox Restaurant Catering Series B
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Visit Tags
Tags Influencer Marketing Pre-Seed
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Visit Whalesync
Whalesync App Data Pipeline Seed
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Visit Vorage SMS
Vorage SMS SMS Marketing Seed+
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Visit Malomo
Malomo Order Tracking Seed+
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Visit CommerceBear
CommerceBear Omnichannel Marketing Seed
- Visit Cargo Cargo Video Sales Pre-Seed
- Visit Vurbl Vurbl Audio Network Pre-Seed
Consumer
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Visit Boomerang
Boomerang Item Returns Seed+
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Visit Stillers Soda
Stillers Soda Soda Seed
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Visit Giant
Giant Childrens Entertainment Seed
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Visit Hangout FM
Hangout FM Music Sharing Seed+
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Visit Magic Mind
Magic Mind Health Beverage Seed+
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Visit ZBiotics
ZBiotics Probiotic Prophylactics Seed+
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Visit Better
Better Carb-neutral Bread Seed+
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Visit Oui The People
Oui The People Skincare Seed
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Visit Branch
Branch Office Furniture Series A
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Visit Spinn
Spinn Coffee Maker Series B
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Visit Recess
Recess Adaptogenic Beverages Series A
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Visit Gainful
Gainful Workout Supplements Series A+
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Visit Arber
Arber Gardening Pre-Seed
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Visit Maev
Maev Raw Dog Food Seed+
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Visit Kabo
Kabo→ Unknown
Dog Food Seed+
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Visit Omaze
Omaze Charity Raffles Series C
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Visit THE LIST
THE LIST Fashion Seed+
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Visit Google
Alter→ Google
AI Avatars Seed
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Visit Agua Bonita
Agua Bonita Agua Fresca Pre-Seed
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Visit Reel
Reel Bamboo Toilet Paper Seed+
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Visit The Hedgehog Company
The Hedgehog Company Holding Company Pre-Seed
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Visit Golden Ratio
Golden Ratio Golden Coffee Pre-Seed
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Visit Plant People
Plant People Mushroom Snacks & Supplements Pre-Seed
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Visit maude
maude Intimacy Essentials Series A
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Visit Deep Sentinel
Deep Sentinel Security System Series A+
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Visit Graza Oil
Graza Oil Olive Oil Pre-Seed
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Visit kencko
kencko Health Beverage Series A
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Visit The Essential
The Essential Membership Marketplace Seed+
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Visit Italic
Italic Membership Marketplace Series B
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Visit Fig1
Fig1 Skincare Seed+
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Visit Fable
Fable Dining Ware Pre-Seed
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Visit Burrow
Burrow Furniture Series C
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Visit Yumi
Yumi Baby Food Series B
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Visit Lemon Perfect
Lemon Perfect Beverage Series A
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Visit RePurpose
RePurpose Sustainable Paper Series A+
- Visit Farmstead Farmstead Delivery Grocery Series A+
- Visit Ugly Drinks Ugly Drinks Sparkling Water Seed+
- Visit Disco Disco Men's Skincare Seed
- Visit Spark Grills Spark Grills High-temperature Grill Seed+
- Visit Cutlets Cutlets Restaurant Pre-Seed
- Visit Allset Allset Home Services Pre-Seed
- Visit TRILL TRILL Streetwear Marketplace Pre-Seed
Mistakes
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Visit MoviePass
MoviePass Movie Theater Subscription Series A
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Visit Zette
Zette Paywall Credits Seed
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Visit Sidechat
Sidechat Social Network Seed+
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Visit Ten Lives
Ten Lives Vegan Cat Food Pre-Seed
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Visit Spire Law Firm
Spire Law Firm Law Firm Seed+
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Visit ZERO
ZERO DAO Infrastructure Token Sale
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Visit Kambio
Kambio Modular Homes Pre-Seed
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Visit Aku
Aku Digital Banking Seed
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Visit Block
Block Health App Seed
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Visit Strada
Strada Art Space Seed
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Visit Headgum
Headgum Podcast Studio Series A
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Visit Morpher
Morpher Investment Platform Series A
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Visit Valence
Valence Professional Network Series A+
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Visit AuditMate
AuditMate Elevator Services Seed
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Visit Lighthouse
Lighthouse Rental Rebates Seed
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Visit hitRECord
hitRECord Creative Network Series A+
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Visit Float
Float Expense Management in Canada Seed
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Visit Superplastic
Superplastic Collectible Toys Series A+
Contact
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Find Steven on Twitter
@stevenkovar Twitter
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Find Steven on Bluesky
@stevenkovar Twitter
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Find Steven on LinkedIn
/in/stevenkovar LinkedIn
Thanks
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