iSGS Investment Works is Japan-based venture capital firm.

iSGS Investment Works

Alchemist is a venture-backed accelerator focused on accelerating the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises (not consumers). CB Insights rated Alchemist the top accelerator in 2016 based on the median funding rates of its grads (YC was #2). The accelerator’s primary screening criteria is on teams, prioritizing having distinctive technical co-founders. The organization provides seed investment into companies it admits (typically $36K), and provides founders a structured path to traction, fundraising, mentorship, and community throughout a 6-month program. The company's backers include many of the top corporate and VC funds in the Valley -- including Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, GE, next47(Siemens), and Salesforce, among others—the accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures/year. Notable alumni include LaunchDarkly, Rigetti Quantum Computing, mPharma, Matternet, and Mightyhive.

Alchemist Accelerator

Expert DOJO is one of the most active international early-stage startup accelerator and venture capital fund in Southern California. We invest on average $50,000 in each of our startups and up to $1,000,000 of follow-on investment to companies who have demonstrated exceptional growth.   We help our companies get traction and scale faster than they could ever do by themselves. Since 2018, we have invested in over 260 startups globally to accelerate their growth. What makes us special is our focus on building visionary companies. If you can visualize your unicorn, you have a higher probability of achieving its full potential. That’s where Expert DOJO comes in. We invest in pre-seed and seed companies ready to scale quickly. Most of our startups are minority and female founded technology companies. However, we remain industry agnostic and invest in founders from all over the world and from diverse backgrounds.

EXPERT DOJO

We invest along generational themes from Gen Alpha, Gen Z, Millennials onwards & follow that behavior as it evolves over time. We believe that human behavior is constantly evolving due to generational shifts and technology adoption. Recent historical events have accelerated behavior changes amongst different generational cohorts in very different ways. We bring product, growth, and venture experience to early stage startups that are building solutions to meet these changes.

Progression Fund

Wedbush Ventures is a pre-seed and seed stage venture firm investing in founders who see problems differently and apply insights from their unique experience to transform industries. Unleashing their potential, and building value together

Wedbush Ventures

Pitbull Ventures is a pre-seed VC firm in Los Angeles that backs US vertical SAAS startups

Pitbull Ventures

LEAD

LEAD.bot enhances operational efficiency in enterprises using AI, behavior science and Organizational Network Analysis (ONA). Integrating with Slack and Microsoft Teams, it identifies key influencers and experts, provides actionable insights, and promotes effective knowledge sharing. Trusted by over 2000 organizations, LEAD.bot drives performance and optimizes workforce management.

LEAD is an employee engagement platform that connects employees and/or teams through Slack and Microsoft Teams for virtual coffee chats or in-person outings. The platform also facilitates watercooler conversations by suggesting topics out of hundreds of LEAD’s watercooler topics. The platform aims to reduce the social strain of remote work and it can be used to introduce new recruits, connect disparate teams for cross-departmental collaboration, connect employees for informal learning and mentorship programs, and DE&amp;I initiatives.

Distributed workforces require new solutions for office operations, HR, payment, and more.

Remote Work Infrastructure

Organizational Learning & Development Lead

LEAD is an employee engagement platform that connects employees and/or teams through Slack and Microsoft Teams for virtual coffee chats or in-person outings. The platform also facilitates watercooler conversations by suggesting topics out of hundreds of LEAD’s watercooler topics. The platform aims to reduce the social strain of remote work and it can be used to introduce new recruits, connect disparate teams for cross-departmental collaboration, connect employees for informal learning and mentorship programs, and DE&amp;I initiatives.LEAD enables HR teams to customize the matching settings and users to discover connections based on skills, interests, and other keywords. Its AI-driven software learns from previous interactions to suggest suitable connections while prioritizing those who are unlikely to know each other. The company’s product pipeline (as of July 2022) includes the introduction of new onboarding tools and survey templates as well as new features for connectivity and data visualization.As of July 2022, LEAD offers a free version of its platform, a custom-priced enterprise plan, and a standard paid plan with variable pricing based on the number of users, starting at ~USD 32 per month (up to 24 employees). The company primarily targets companies with 100–1,500 employees.Key customers and partnershipsAs of July 2022, LEAD is used by over 1,000 organizations across the US, Canada, UK, and Germany, covering industries such as tech, real estate, manufacturing, consulting, and education. Its clients include Microsoft, Lattice, LinkedIn, QuadReal, and Harvard University.Funding and financialsIn its last funding round (March 2021), LEAD raised USD 680,000 in seed funding led by the Progression Fund. Funding utilization remained undisclosed.

ActivTrak is a cloud-based productivity monitoring software provider. The platform offers data and analytics which can be used to detect workplace productivity gaps. The platform collects data from employee activity logs and computer screenshots, although it does not log keystrokes or record video of a user’s screen. ActivTrak also facilitates a range of tasks for admins such as blocking websites, flagging suspicious activities, IP address connections, and monitoring web, and app traffic.Other features offered include productivity reports and coaching, headcount and workload management and personal insights. In November 2023, the company added capabilities to measure the usage of AI tools, automatically detecting and classifying the use of such tools and websites to help organizations manage and improve AI adoption across the workforce.Activtrak generates revenue via monthly subscriptions (USD 10 and USD 17) per user, and custom pricing for larger enterprises.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 9,500 enterprises used ActivTrak’s platform, notably including Allstate, asembia and Nobu. ActivTrak closed 2023 with a 40% growth in its customer base (adding ~2,200 customers).Funding and financialsIn November 2020, ActivTrak raised USD 50 million in a Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire Ventures CEO and managing director joined ActivTrak’s board as part of the deal. The new proceeds were earmarked for scaling global sales and marketing campaigns, expansion of its platform using AI driven analytics, and improving integration with its technology partners.

ActivTrak

inFeedo is a people predictive analytics company based in India. The Y Combinator-backed startup founded in 2013 is currently focused on “Amber” (launched in 2016), an AI-enabled bot that helps manage employee engagement, predict attrition, and get a pulse on company culture in real time. The company also offers AI-driven exit surveys and analytics to improve retention.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 700,000 users across 250 organizations utilized inFeedo’s platform. Notable clients included GE Healthcare, Puma, Tata Group, and Lenovo.Funding and financialsIn its latest funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9099">March 2022</a>) inFeedo raised USD 12 million in Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures, reportedly tripling its valuation from less than 18 months ago. The fresh funds will be used for its second employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback for all employees and its go-to-market activities in North America. Further, the company claims it has achieved annual revenue of USD 1.6 million as of November 2020.

inFeedo

Donut provides solutions to keep employees engaged with casual conversations. Its first product, Intros, makes connections between teammates via Slack to emulate quick meetups and in-person introductions at work, which are now virtual.Donut’s new product, Watercooler, launched in October 2020. It attempts to reinvent the micro-interactions between employees at the office watercooler online. The product will integrate with Slack, where a newly-designated channel for Watercooler will be created. The product will post questions automatically within the customers’ desired frequency and pre-selected topics.The company uses a freemium subscription model with paid plans starting at approximately USD 2 per user per month.Key customers and partnershipsThe company claims it has supported four million connections (one million since the Covid-19 pandemic) across its 12,000 customers, including companies such as Okta, Zapier, Slack, The New York Times, and Invision.Funding and financialsDonut announced a USD 12 million funding round led by Accel, along with its new product, Watercooler. The USD 12 million raised was accumulated over multiple rounds before the Covid-19 pandemic, with proceeds earmarked for product development.

Donut

Matter is an employee feedback platform founded by Brett Hellman. Hellman was the founder of messaging app “Hall”, which was founded in 2011 and later sold to Atlassian for USD 20 million in 2015.Matter uses 360-degree feedback to evaluate skills in employees which are linked to career success. The platform links skills such as influence, inclusiveness, empathy, resourcefulness, and multitasking to evaluations. Matter is currently available in beta.

Matter

Mesh is a Y Combinator-backed company that allows employees to set goals, track tasks, share feedback, and engage in one-on-ones. The company also offers an AI coach (Mesh Maven) to help employees stay in line with their key objectives, improve the quality of feedback provided and summarize 1:1s. Mesh also offers nudges and surveys to improve employee engagement alongside relevant analytics.The company generates revenue via monthly subscriptions per user, priced at USD 4 (Base) and USD 7 (Premium).&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, the company served over 100+ enterprises, including NTT Data, Grant Thornton and Groww. The platform also offers integrations with third-party software such as Gmail, Microsoft Teams and Slack, among others.Funding and financialsIn its most recent funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9768">April 2022</a>) Mesh raised USD 11 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global. The fresh funds were earmarked to expand its global footprint across the US and APAC regions. In line with this, the company planned to expand its headcount across the engineering and sales departments.

Mesh

Companies offering tools to infer employee morale (through surveys and quick assessments) and productivity, including functions for goal setting, review, and feedback.

Companies that offer the entire spectrum of HR tools including payroll processing benefits, onboarding, compliance, analytics, scheduling etc

Companies providing either standalone or combined payroll and benefits services to businesses.

EoR - Companies that assist businesses in hiring distributed teams globally in compliance with foreign labor laws. EoRs become the legal employer of offshore employees. Solutions include payroll, benefits, and taxes.

PEO - Companies that offer similar services to EoRs but establish a co-employment arrangement with businesses and do not become the legal employer.

Companies offering tools such as chatbots, surveys, games, and other activities to infer, assess and improve employee morale and sentiment.

Companies that provide a centralized space for employees to access internal and external resources, enterprise applications, and enable workers to communicate across departments, and stay up to date on organizational announcements.

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

Employee and performance management solutions use AI/Ml to infer engagement insights and sentiment analysis

Offers tools for companies to hire contractors globally, and conduct employee and performance management

LEAD

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