Innovation, Impact and Imagining the Future: Part 4
In Part 4 of Innovation, Impact and Imagining the Future, we take a closer look at the work our portfolio companies have done across 2 final invesments themes: 1) the New Internet and 2) Insurtech.
Investing in the New Internet
Mint Songs
Mint Songs’ core mission is to help as many artists build a sustainable and livable income from creating music. The company believes NFTs can help thousands of music artists to better monetize their music in the ever-growing digital collectors market.
Mint Songs builds tools that enables music artists to turn their core creative assets into NFTs that they can sell and giveaway to their community. Mint’s NFT minter lets you turn songs (audio + album artwork) into eco-friendly NFTs for $0 minting fees and users can grow and display their music NFT collections on the marketplace.
Since launching the marketplace, 15K users have purchased an NFT and thousands of artists have minted songs on the platform.
Funding: The company has raised ~$5M in capital to date from Coinbase Ventures, Dapper Labs, Freestyle VC, North Island Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Michael Lazerow, Jaeson Ma and others.
Founder: Dwight Torculas & Garrett Hughes
Latest Funding Round: $4M Seed
Headcount: 13
Oooh Inc.
Oooh is a first-of-its kind social video platform that rewards users for skill and creativity. And, different from every other app where you just post selfies hoping to get noticed… on Oooh, ‘ooohs’ are what you do! Oooh is for EVERYONE, all-ages and really, really fun.
Oooh is coming out of a very successful beta with thousands of users, and have taken the cover off of stealth mode and have quietly jumped into the app store ahead of a more public launch. Oooh moderates content on the platform, and has the appropriate COPPA protections and permissioning in place for Parental Consent. Oooh wants to be a home for all ages to be recognized and rewarded for their talents.
Oooh was founded by Colin Carrier, a proven entrepreneur who was previously Twitch’s Chief Strategy Officer. Colin helped shape the growth of Twitch to over 100M users and grew its employee base from 40 to over 50x the size before the company’s acquisition by Amazon for $1B.
Funding: The company’s fundraising efforts are still in stealth mode, but are backed by leading venture capital funds and angels.
Founder: Colin Carrier
Latest Funding Round: Stealth
Headcount: 35
EST Media
Today, 60% of the world’s youth live in Asia yet not a single global media brand exists to represent Asian culture from Asia to the rest of the world. EST aims to become the definitive editorial and storytelling platform for Gen Z Youth in Asia. The company is creating a platform that combines aspects of Vice, TikTok and A24 by becoming the voice of a youth generation, building an interactive audio and visual community, and building a short and long form entertainment IP portfolio.
Most recently The Avalanche Foundation partnered with EST’s web3 social media platform OP3N and announced a $100M initiative for creatives to build projects on Avalanche. OP3N is proud to be part of the web3 paradigm shift. This is the start of the decentralized “community economy.” Web3 is all about creating together and allowing value to remain with the people. Anyone can create, anyone can own, and everyone is connected. Whether you’re a creator or you’re a fan looking to become an investor and collector, OP3N is a launchpad that supports all aspects of NFTs.
EST is founded by Eric Tu and Jaeson Ma. Eric Tu was previously US Director of Brand Partnerships at Vice Media’s creative agency Virtue Worldwide. Jaeson Ma is a principle co-owner of Triller and co-founder of 88rising. Jaeson is a long time media and technology executive having invested and grown many brands including Bytedance (Tiktok) the world’s largest privately valued company at $400B, Coinbase, Grab, Xpeng, and many others.
Funding: EST’s Seed round was led by BlueRun Ventures, with participation from Galaxy Interactive, Dreamers VC, Soma Capital, Uphonest Capital, Fubon, Avex Group and many angels.
Founder: Jaeson Ma
Latest Funding Round: $10M Seed
Headcount: 30
Investing in Insurtech
Sure
Sure continues on its mission to make digital insurance available to every consumer not only by offering insurance, but also powering the digital platforms behind the most sophisticated insurance brands and carriers like Farmers Insurance, All State and Chubb. Sure’s proprietary platform provides best-in-class technology for rating, quote and binding, policy issuance, premium collection, CRM policy administration, reporting, and more. Sure’s products make insurance accessible to every individual and strengthen the relationship between providers and consumers by streamlining the way insurance is sold and serviced.
Companies like Tesla, Uber, Intuit, Carvana, Mastercard, Revolut, Betterment, Assurant, W. R.
Berkley and more rely on their technology to fulfill distribution, policy, claims and agent needs to reach initial value quickly and drive long-term success.
Sure was recently ranked #13 in Deloitte’s Fast 500 fastest growing technology company.
Funding: The company has raised ~$120M to date from Menlo Ventures, Declaration Partners, Expanding Capital, Kinnevik AB, W.R. Berkley, WndrCo and more.
Founder: Wayne Slavin
Latest Funding Round: $100M Series C
Headcount: 100
Betterview
Betterview offers inspection and marketing services to various industries, including insurance, property management and real estate. Betterview enables P&C insurance companies to understand and manage property risk and make better decisions with less overhead using its geospatial predictive analytics platform.
Betterview works with a US-based network of UAV or drone operators to gather aerial imagery and inspect properties for potential problems. The company assigns qualified operators to obtain detailed photographs of the property, which can be delivered to the customer as a final product or analyzed by a roofing construction professional and generated into a report.
Today some of the leading insurers are using Betterview including Maiden RE, EMC Insurance, Guidewire, Munich RE, Nationwide, AIG and more.
Funding: The company has raised $15M to date from Manchester Story, Nationwide Ventures, EMC Insurance, Compound, Winklevoss Capital, 645 Ventures, Edward Lando and more
Founder: David Lyman & David Tobias
Latest Funding Round: $12M Series A
Headcount: ~50
AAF Management Ltd. (AAF) is a leading early stage venture capital firm focused on direct investments into pre-Seed, Seed and Series A stage technology companies in North America. We are sector agnostic but have a core focus on Fintech, Enterprise SaaS, Digital Healthcare, E-Commerce and Deep Tech. To-date, AAF and its partners have invested in over 120 venture-backed companies. The firm has over $150M in AUM.
In 5 years, our portfolio companies have raised over $4.2B of which $2.65B was raised after we initially invested, Today, we share the cap table with over 65 venture capital firms with more than $1B in AUM.
