This month at January Ventures: Bloom Money raises £1M pre-seed, Edlyft selected for Google for Startups Black Founders Fund, and more!
We’ve got loads to celebrate this month! Check out our portfolio news, food for thought, and more below.
Portfolio Highlights:
Maren Bannon unpacked the Q2 State of Private Markets report with Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta. Watch the recording here for the latest trends on startup fundraising.
Bloom Money has secured £1 million in pre-seed funding and celebrated the launch of their beta. Co-founded by Nina Mohanty and Dan James, Bloom Money digitizes an informal financial management system employed by ethnic communities across the world. A daughter of two immigrants to the U.S., Mohanty says she decided to work on this problem after she moved to the U.K. and learned for herself just how difficult it can be for an immigrant to set themselves up financially. “I just felt that there was not just an economic justice point to this, but also a huge opportunity, where people only think of the U.S. as a country of immigrants, but increasingly across Europe, we know migration is growing,” she said. Congratulations to the entire team!
Edlyft, led by co-founders Erika Hairston and Arnelle Ansong, are one of only 23 startups that have been selected for the prestigious Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. Edlyft, which enables companies like Netflix and Tinder to “to train and engage their emerging talent before their first day on the job,” joins the fourth cohort of the Fund. The idea came from their own experiences as Black women computer science students at Stanford and Yale. After working with over 3,000 students across the country in computer science, Erika and Arnelle came to uniquely understand the gap between what students learn in school and what they need to know to be effective in the job. Congratulations to Arnelle, Erika, and the entire Edlyft Team!
Y Combinator CEO and Initialized Capital Founder Garry Tan spoke with our portfolio company Pano AI about early detection of #wildfires using #AI in this powerful video interview. We’re excited for this opportunity to build awareness of Pano AI among policymakers and other key decision makers to keep communities safe from the increasing threat of wildfires. “Right now, someone literally has to call in a fire…and by the time someone gets to it, it’s a megablaze,” said Founder and CEO Sonia Kastner. Pano is changing that. Watch the interview here.
Sano Genetics has secured a prestigious grant from Innovate UK to develop “Light The Way,” a new platform for people at risk of genetic motor neurone disease (MND), better known in the US as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). “At no cost to those participating, ‘Light The Way’ will provide access to genetic testing and counselling, as well as genetic education, peer support, and opportunities to participate in new research and studies as well as an approved gene therapy available in the US.” Congratulations to the entire Sano Genetics team!
📣 REMINDER:
There's still time to apply for the latest installment of our #PitchCollective series – an event offering founders the chance to pitch to early-stage leading investors. We are looking for US-based B2B software companies that have raised less than $500K.
Founders can apply at https://bit.ly/pitchcollective for the chance to pitch a group of VCs at our virtual pitch event. Participating investors include January Ventures, Supply Change Capital, Concrete Rose Capital, and Baukunst. We look forward to reviewing your application!
Calling all early-stage founders!
This is the final call to participate in the 5th annual January Ventures company building survey! The purpose of this survey is to understand what founders are experiencing in today’s market conditions. What is it like operating in the current environment? What challenges are underrepresented founders facing while fundraising? What can the venture community do to better support founders?
The survey, which will take less than 10 minutes, will help us better serve founders and be instrumental in understanding the current market.
Share and/or take the founder survey here.
Portfolio News:
🏅Elektra Health has landed a spot on Accenture’s 2023 Healthech Innovation Rising Star list! Co-founders Jannine Versi and Alessandra Henderson are on a mission to smash the menopause taboo and this is a well-deserved honor!
📝 Turing Biosystems’ co-founders Adam Amara and Rémy Boutonnet have been featured by Creator Fund, exploring what it’s like to be co-founders with your best friend.
Where we were last month:
We hosted a workshop on Fundraising in Today’s Current Market with Nancy Torres (Partner at Ulu Ventures), Amias Gerety (Partner at QED), and Lucy Deland (Co-founder and Partner at Inspired Capital). See the recap here.
We attended Insight Capital’s summer social in NYC to celebrate the announcement of their 2nd 20/20 Vision Capital fund. Congrats on $118M in capital commitments to invest in diverse-led, top-tier, early-stage funds. We’re proud to be a part of this community!
Maren Bannon spoke with Dominic-Madori Davis from TechCrunch on how the current environment is impacting emerging VCs funds.
Save the Dates:
📆 Mark your Calendars and please say hello if you are at any of these events!
🎤 Maren Bannon will be a speaker at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 on Sep 20 discussing what you need to raise a Series A in today’s climate. Mark your calendars!
🎤 Jennifer Neundorder will be sharing insights on early stage investing at the Nantucket Conference on September 28th.
🎤 Maren will also be speaking about the AI revolution: taking an unknown step for health at the Sifted Summit in London on Oct 5.
🎤 Jennifer Neundorfer will be speaking on how diversity drives returns: lessons from winning portfolios at SOCAP in San Francisco on October 24.
🎤 Maren Bannon will be speaking about unveiling the secrets to successful AI investments at Web Summit in Lisbon on Nov 14.