Kleiner Perkins is a venture capital firm specializing in investing in early-stage, growth, and incubation companies. The firm continues that legacy, investing in founders with bold ideas that span industries and continents, partnering with them from inception to IPO and beyond to maximize the potential of their ideas. They also focus on early computer firms using their devices and programming and service companies. It also invests in the digital, life sciences, and healthcare industries.

Kleiner Perkins

Flyer One Ventures is an international early-stage venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups from CEE region. The fund invests in future-proof startups, founded by exceptional teams, and operating on global markets worth more than $10 billion.  Flyer One Ventures funds startups in Mobile, Health Tech, EdTech, Fitness & Wellness, B2B SaaS, Gaming, FoodTech, and AI/ML industries and helps them scale on international markets. Founded by the co-founder of BetterMe and supported by Genesis Tech, Flyer One Ventures has deep expertise in Digital Marketing, Product, PR, Branding, and Recruiting. Along with the financial investment, Flyer One Ventures actively supports its portfolio companies, helping them optimize Digital Marketing campaigns, hire R&D staff, build user-friendly products, and fundraise Series A and Series B rounds.  Flyer One Ventures' ultimate goal is to support early-stage startups in the geographies with low access to early financing and help them become global leaders by mentorship and daily support.

Flyer One Ventures

Remote First Capital invests in companies that improve remote work or that leverage global work in a unique way. Second-degree effects of a globally connected world are one of the cornerstones of the portfolio.

Remote First Capital

s16vc is an early-stage founder-centric angel fund. The fund focuses on early stage technology investments, operating globally in Europe, and the US. We have brought together more than 80 founders & operators to support early stage companies in their growth.  Fund partners are active founders and operators:  - Oleg Bibergan - Co-founder & Co-Managing Partner at s16vc, venture investor & corporate finance executive with 15 years of experience spanning early, growth, and late stage deals as equity investor with GS SSG, Kismet Capital Group, and personal angel portfolio - Aleks Shamis - Co-founder & Co-Managing Partner at s16vc. Ex-Deputy CEO at Borzodelivery.com (global on-demand delivery business, operating in 10 countries) - Mike Peregudov - Founder & CEO at Pivot.ws (EdTech startup in the US market), Food Party (exit to Yandex)   - Leo Batalov - Partner, Global Co-Head of Emerging Growth Companies & Venture Capital at DLA Piper, top international law firm - Egor Rudi - Founder & CEO at Profi.ru (leading services marketplace in Eastern Europe), Co-founder at Hands.ru (first Uber-like marketplace in home improvement market) - Tolya Marin - Founder at Payment systems (fintech company with profit per employee > PayPal & 20m installs/ 5m MAU) - Andrey Khusid - Founder and CEO of Miro, the world's most popular visual collaboration platform Being founders ourselves, we are confident that people succeed, not ideas, and feel immense respect for every founder who perseveres to the point of creating impact and monetizable value.  We invest in teams who share our values:  -  People succeed, not ideas - Community, not individual - Trust - Transparency - Intrinsic motivation to help - Pay forward - Beginner mindset

s16vc

Y Combinator is a startup accelerator that invests in a large number of startups twice a year. It created a new model for funding startups. Twice a year, the company invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups. The startup accelerator works intensively with the companies for three months, to get them into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. Each cycle culminates in Demo Day when the startups present their companies to a carefully selected, invite-only audience.

Y Combinator

Sidekick Browser

Sidekick is a software startup that develops productivity tools for modern distributed teams. For those who work in a browser, it provides quick access to apps, documents, messengers, and search. It cuts onboarding time to minutes and provides a dedicated browser for work where they can access all of their work applications in one place without having to worry about passwords, credentials, or security. Furthermore, the browser facilitates collaboration. Users can create their own workspaces with pinned tabs. Sidebars can be used to display applications for specific projects and clients.

Sidekick is a browser-based tool focused on productivity, which allows teams to maintain productivity while working on multiple apps. Collective bundles of tabs can be stored separately and revisited at any time. Users can also search across all tabs, third-party tools, and workspaces from within the Sidekick interface.

The tools that power remote work are define the next generation of enterprise software.

Remote Work Tools

Sidekick

Sidekick is a browser-based tool focused on productivity, which allows teams to maintain productivity while working on multiple apps. Collective bundles of tabs can be stored separately and revisited at any time. Users can also search across all tabs, third-party tools, and workspaces from within the Sidekick interface.The tool is being used by teams from Microsoft, Dropbox, Slack, and Lyft and serves 30,000 users. The company targets product managers, engineers, and marketers, and its platform follows a B2B and B2C SaaS model, with its B2B model in early beta.In March 2021, the company announced that it raised USD 2 million in seed funding led by KPCB. The round also included participation from Remote First Capital and angel investors. The funds will be allocated for product development, specifically in activation, retention, and virality.

Hive is a productivity platform for project management and collaboration. The platform provides automated workflows, project planning layouts, and action templates to assign and keep track of project tasks. Hive focuses on improving task execution with instant feedback cycles for editing and approvals. Additional features include note taking (Hive Note), instant messaging, online meetings, and file sharing.Hive offers a variety of ways for teams to organize their projects, including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, tables, and calendars, with updates made in one view automatically reflected in all others. The platform allows team members to create action cards with files, sub-actions, dependencies, and comments to stay on top of their objectives, and have access to a personal to-do list that compiles all assigned tasks from all projects. Managers can use Hive to assign approvals, share proofs, provide feedback, and collect project forms from clients and customers. Hive also uses AI and machine learning to provide insights on team productivity and identify potential risks, and to optimize resource allocation and client billing.Key customers and partnershipsThe company’s customer base includes Google, Toyota, Comcast, and Starbucks. Hive offers integrations with over 1,000 SaaS platforms, including Asana, Trello, Basecamp, and Smartsheet, allowing users to import tasks from these platforms.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5208">August 2021</a>, Hive raised USD 10 million in a funding round led by Rembrandt Venture Partners with participation from Zoom, and existing investors Tribeca Venture Partners and Angelpad. Hive is one of the first startups to receive an investment from Zoom’s “Zoom Apps Fund” (a USD 100 million global venture fund). The fresh funds were allocated toward platform development.&nbsp;

Hive

Grain’s software allows users to record, highlight, transcribe, and share online meeting content from tools such as Zoom in an effective manner. It automatically records and transcribes meetings, allowing users to create shareable video clips from highlighted transcript sections. Grain leverages AI to generate customizable meeting notes and answer questions about the transcript. It supports coaching and collaboration through comments and training content creation. The platform offers deal analytics and insights, tracking key account activities and integrating with tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, and Slack. &nbsp;The company’s products focus on distributed teams, sales, product and user research, and hiring teams.In April 2022, the company acquired Ping Pong, a video messaging platform.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9759">April 2022</a>, Grain raised USD 16 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management. The funds were raised to expand operations and develop its ​​video meeting system of record for content, which allows employees to collaborate around insights, topics, relationships, or teams.

Grain

Air is a creative operations platform designed for creative teams to streamline their workflows and collaborate more effectively. It offers a comprehensive solution that goes beyond basic cloud storage systems, catering specifically to the needs of the creative process. Air allows users to collect content, approve assets, share versions for feedback, and organize their work seamlessly, eliminating the need for additional organizational efforts.Air provides a centralized hub for content collaboration, approval, and versioning. Air's technology streamlines various aspects of the creative workflow, including content collection, asset approval, version control, and feedback sharing. Unlike traditional cloud storage solutions, Air's platform is tailored to the specific requirements of creative teams, enabling them to work more efficiently and effectively.Key customers and PartnershipsThe company’s customer base includes notable firms such as Native, Together, Spindrift, and Univision.&nbsp;Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8139">January 2022</a>, Air raised USD 10 million in an “Operator Round” led by Headline with participation from Tiger Global, Lere Hippeau, and 50+ strategic founders and marketing executives including Peter Rahal (Co-Founder, RXBAR), Kipp Bodnar (CMO, HubSpot), and Joe Thomas (CEO, Loom), valuing the company at USD 110 million. The funds were used to accelerate Air’s go-to-market activities and growth.

Acapela was co-founded by Roland Grenke, founder of Dubsmash, a video sharing social media app. Acapela facilitates online meetings without real-time interaction between participants; instead, members contribute to meetings over time.Acapela provides voice and video messages integrated with popular productivity tools such as Asana, Google Workspace, Notion, and Atlassian. Additionally, meetings will generate tasks and meeting summaries automatically. The company identified distributed tech teams as its initial target segment and plans to shift focus toward small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and larger enterprises eventually. The product is currently in invite-only beta.In October 2020, the company exited stealth mode with a USD 3 million seed funding round led by Visionaries Club. The round included Entrepreneur First and other notable individual investors, such as Christian Reber (founder of presentation software Pitch) and Taavet Hinrikus (founder of online money transfer service TransferWise).

Acapela

iObeya is a cloud-based enterprise visual management platform that enables organizations to digitize their Lean, Agile, and Industry 4.0 practices. The platform provides virtual "Oobeyas" (Japanese for "big room"), which are digital collaborative workspaces where teams can align, synchronize, and visualize their work using digital boards, sticky notes, and other visual tools. iObeya's platform allows teams to recreate the in-person experience of paper-based visual management practices with real-time collaboration, enhancing team efficiency, creativity, and problem-solving.iObeya's technology supports a wide range of enterprise use cases, including industrial product lifecycle management, manufacturing operational excellence, product development, and continuous improvement for business performance and agility. It integrates with various systems like ERP, MES, BI, and Application lifecycle Management (ALM) tools such as Atlassian Jira and Microsoft Azure DevOps Server.Key customers and partnershipsiObeya's customer base includes global enterprises such as Airbus, Thales, Volvo, Philips, Cartier, Axa, Eli Lilly and Company, Western Digital, General Electric, Kimberly-Clark, Danaher, and Sanofi.Funding and FinancialsIn July 2020, iObeya raised USD 17 million in a series A funding round led by Red River West with participation from Atlantic Bridge Capital and Fortino Capital Partners. The funds were allocated to develop its platform further and accelerate the company’s expansion in the US.

iObeya

Platforms that provide virtual workspaces using spatial technology to combine a variety of productivity and collaboration tools in a single space.

Platforms that provide standalone presentation software, prototyping and web development software, templates, and design workspaces.

Platforms that facilitate task delegation and tracking with board, timeline, and kanban style views.

Platforms that provide standalone video communication tools and complementary products such as interactive interfaces, presentation features, and transcription software.

Platforms that offer chat and email-based collaborative tools.

Solutions in this industry hub are predominantly offered under a B2B SaaS model

Some solutions in the virtual office and video conferencing segments are based on AR/VR

Facilitates hybrid workforces by offering tools for employees to collaborate regardless of location

Meeting transcription and note-taking apps, design, and project management tools use AI/ML for product development

Sidekick

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