2017 in Review: New Investments
By Patrick Casey
Originally posted December 12th 2017
2017 is drawing to a close. Although we have a few more weeks — and a couple of investments to close — before launching into 2018, we want to share a review of our investing activity this past year.
We made new investments in 20 exceptional companies in 2017 across seed and post-seed / light series A rounds. In addition, LaunchCapital made follow-on investments to double down on 13 companies that were already part of our portfolio.
In this post, we’ll focus exclusively on the new additions to the LaunchCapital portfolio. Read on to learn more about them.
Our newest portfolio companies come from Massachusetts, New York, California, and Texas.
They hail from 5 metropolitan areas — Boston, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Houston.
Half are focused on Enterprise Software and Services.
Despite the predominance of Enterprise Software and Services startups, the new portfolio companies operate across a diverse set of industries.
More than half of the new additions were founded in 2014 or later.
The post-seed companies tend to be older than the seed-stage companies, but not by much. The median post-seed company was founded in 2013, and the median seed-stage company was founded just one year later, in 2014. The middle 50% of seed-stage companies are between 2.5 and 4.5 years old. The middle 50% of post-seed companies are between 4.5 and 5.5 years old.
The average post-money valuation was ~$6.4M for seed-stage companies and ~$13.7M for post-seed companies.
Among our 15 seed-stage investments, San Francisco-based deals resulted in the highest average valuation.
The average round size was ~$1.4M for seed-stage companies and ~$3.8M for post-seed companies.
We welcome all of these new companies to the LaunchCapital family. Here’s to a successful 2018!
BentoBox offers restaurants beautiful, mobile-friendly websites that drive revenue and customers — complete with a simple, hospitality-focused management system.
Betaworks voicecamp is an eleven-week accelerator program for early-stage companies building voice-based products.
Cake is the digital destination for end of life planning and honoring life. It is the easiest way to discover, share, and store your end-of-life preferences.
CStorePro provides inventory management software that quickly integrates with any back-office POS systems for convenience stores and gas stations.
Elsen provides financial institutions with a platform that combines premium data, high-performance computing, and intuitive design for investment analytics.
ExecVision offers AI software that analyzes recorded phone calls and generates insights to help sales teams and managers improve performance and increase sales.
Fitivity offers a collection of more than 400 content-centric workout apps that help users accomplish hyper-specific sports and fitness goals.
LoveStoriesTV is the place to watch wedding videos. It’s building the largest library of real wedding films to inspire brides and connect them to national and local wedding vendors and suppliers.
Mendel Health uses artificial intelligence to match cancer patients to the best treatments based on their clinical history and a massive knowledge base of cancer research.
Minibar Delivery is an on-demand alcohol delivery service. It provides fast delivery and the best way to shop for wine, spirits, beer, and mixers.
PeopleGrove is an integrated mentoring and advising platform for universities. It connects students and professionals with the mentors, advisors, and network.
Qeepsake’s text messaging-based service is the easiest way for parents to capture and preserve memories about their children.
Repsly is a simple, SaaS-based mobile CRM and data collection tool for field teams with a powerful console for managers.
Sea Machines is a marine robotics company developing autonomous self-driving technology for boats.
Sunsama offers a smart, user-friendly calendar that makes it easy for teams to plan meetings, track notes and action items, and coordinate their schedules.
VisitDays offers a SaaS-based solution for schools to engage prospective students and predict the likelihood that each will apply and enroll.
Worklete offers training programs to help companies prevent workplace injuries, protect workers, and consequently reduce workers’ compensation costs.
Wyebot develops plug-and-play, automated, and secure solutions that improve the reliability and performance of WiFi networks.
Yumble is a weekly subscription that delivers healthy, delicious and fully cooked meals specifically designed for kids.
Two of LaunchCapital’s new portfolio companies are not featured on this list because they are not yet publicly announced. Also, our investment in betaworks voicecamp is excluded from the analysis because it was not made as part of a traditional seed or post-seed / light series A round.
Originally published at launchcapital.com.
