Top Seed Companies: MotherDuck, Payload, Scoop, Sensible, Deal Engine
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.
MotherDuck
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Portable and modular open-source in-process SQL OLAP database management system
Lead Investors:
Redpoint, Andreessen Horowitz
Total Raised:
$47.5M
Comparables:
Clickhouse, SQLite
My Thoughts:
There we were, thinking the venture market had cooled down. Along comes a great product idea with a veteran team, the team that built big query at Google, that announces their $12.5M Seed led by Redpoint and $35M Series A led by Andressen Horrowitz, all on the same day, all while being pre-product launch. Can’t wait to see what they bring to market!
Payload
EVA Growth Index:
Product:
Headless content management solution for TypeScript that also acts as an application framework so that a developer can dynamically embed content while coding at the same time
Lead Investors:
Gradient Ventures
Total Raised:
$4.7M
Comparables:
CosmicJS
My Thoughts:
This seems incremental, but enabling a developer to build the infrastructure of an app while embedding and managing the relevant content for it should drive drastic efficiencies. Looking at their web traffic, which also includes Github activity, tells me that I am not the only one thinking that.
Scoop
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
Location-based team calendar to let individuals make sure that when they go to the office, they won’t be the only one from their team or social group there
Lead Investors:
Semil Shah
Total Raised:
$8M
Comparables:
TeamUp, Skedda
My Thoughts:
Few things are more disappointing than going to the office, sacrificing the efficiencies the quiet home gives you, to pick up some team spirit and social interactions, but then you are the only one there. This seems like a feature, but might just be the killer wedge to becoming a team’s calendaring solution
Sensible
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
SaaS platform to extract structure data from documents to leverage it in the business processes in real-time
Lead Investors:
Craft Ventures
Total Raised:
$6.5M
Comparables:
Rossum AI, Docparser
My Thoughts:
One would imagine that this is a problem that is already solved. However, existing solutions in the market for document data extraction are still catered to highly technical talent and operate very slowly. Given how large the opportunity is, Sensible is definitely one to watch.
Deal Engine
EVA Growth Index:
No external sources showing growth
Product:
AI-enabled corporate travel software that automates tasks like travel cancelations or rescheduling, among others
Lead Investors:
F-Prime Capital
Total Raised:
$5.3M
Comparables:
TripActions
My Thoughts:
This product looks incredibly well done, automating all the otherwise time-intensive and annoying tasks that go into managing corporate travel.
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.
