May 23
Top Seed Companies to Track: Blinq, Sustain. Life, Formally, Deep, Pongo
Our Investor Nicolas von Blottnitz shares the top-seeded companies to keep an eye on this week.
We see about 5,000 startups each week, and I want to give you a glimpse into how we at Headline think about trending tech companies and tracking new investment opportunities. In this post, I’m highlighting top tech companies that have announced or raised a seed round within the past week.
Blinq
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Digital business card that lets anyone share their personal detail by a snap
Lead Investors:
Blackbird Ventures
Total Raised:
$3M
Comparables:
Beacon
My Thoughts:
I am someone who believes we don’t need paper for 99% of its traditional user cases, and business cards seem to be right at the top of that list of redundancies. I also really like how creative you can get in the digital format. Solid early EVA growth as well.
Sustain Life
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
SaaS platform that enables businesses to accurately report, analyze and manage their carbon emissions
Lead Investors:
Tapestry VC, Michael Shanahan, 4Sided Venture Studio
Total Raised:
$23M
Comparables:
Persefoni
My Thoughts:
Emissions have become top of mind to the modern enterprise yet managing these have historically been very unsophisticated. This will be a must-have solution in my eyes for the coming decade.
Formally
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Cloud platform to let individuals hire and interact with their attorneys in a digital-first format
Lead Investors:
Bessemer Venture Partners
Total Raised:
$2.3M
Comparables:
N/A
My Thoughts:
I really like the idea of streamlining the interactions between attorney and client as it should not only drive efficiencies for both parties involved but reduce the billables as well.
Deep
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
VR app that enables anyone to build their own virtual world
Lead Investors:
Undisclosed
Total Raised:
$200K
Comparables:
Roblox
My Thoughts:
Take a look at the video on the sight. I could see myself spending hours on the platform building whatever I want and this is just the alpha. Even though it’s early days for Deep, this should be one to watch.
Pongo
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Mobile-first platform that lets anyone build an e-commerce store in under three minutes
Lead Investors:
Ascend.vc
Total Raised:
$265K
Comparables:
Shopify, Kleap
My Thoughts:
With the creator economy on the rise so many individuals have things to sell that don’t warrant a full Shopify store. Pongo with its extremely low touch approach should therefore be able to better cater to a massive emerging segment than the existing incumbents.
See last week’s Seeds to watch in the link below:
Hi, I am Nicolas von Blottnitz, an Associate at Headline’s SF office focusing on Consumer, Fintech, and SaaS businesses. Since joining in 2018, I have led our investments in Tabnine, Polygon, Flockjay, Solid, and Grin.
What is the EVA Growth Index?
The EVA Growth index is a composite of third-party data sources around a company’s website traffic. The vertical green lines in the charts represent a point in time where the company raised outside capital.
