Techstars is a global platform that provides investment and innovation. Through the Techstars Worldwide Entrepreneur Network, founders and their teams connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporate partners who will help their companies grow. Techstars operates four divisions: Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelerator Program supercharges success and Techstars Startup Programs inspire, educate, and connect entrepreneurs. Techstars Venture Capital Fund invests in innovative and disruptive companies. Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships help brands create products and services. Techstars' accelerator portfolio includes more than 1,000 companies with a market cap of $8.1 billion.

Techstars

Neo is a mentorship community and VC fund that brings together a diverse group of tech veterans to accelerate tomorrow's leaders.

Female Founders Fund is an early-stage fund investing in technology companies founded by women. They also invest in e-commerce, media, platforms, advertising, and web-enabled services businesses. Founded in 2014, the fund has built a recognized brand investing in female-run internet and software startups.

Female Founders Fund

Lux Capital manages over $5 billion in assets focused on founding, seed, early-stage, and growth investments at the intersection of technology and the sciences. Lux takes an active role in helping entrepreneurs build successful businesses in high-growth sectors. Its investment team has built over 20 companies from scratch. Lux's investment strategy ensures portfolio companies are better connected, have a deeper insight, and command industry leadership faster than their competitors.

Lux Capital

NEO Investment Partners are focused on really exciting, authentic European brands with high potential to grow in new markets and channels. When they find a brand that fits these criteria, they invest and help the management team to build the foundations they need to grow internationally, providing strong partnership to support that expansion. They believe growth should never be at the expense of the brand's DNA, and that the best brands in Europe can touch customers in every corner of the world.  They bring more to the table than funding. Their unrivaled global experience and powerful international network development and implementation expertise provide the fuel to accelerate a brand's successful growth into new markets. their responsive and resourceful team can facilitate strategy development, assist with brand analysis, practical problem solving, business planning, financial, tax and legal navigation, and local market partnerships.  Their people are as energetic and creative, diligent and dedicated as the brand owners they work with, and when they get together with an entrepreneurial management team that wants to grow, fantastic synergies happen.

NEO Investment Partners

At Founders, Inc. we're quietly building the next gen. of emerging tech companies. We start companies from scratch through our venture Studio: - thirdweb ($30M raised)  - buildspace ($10M raised)  - Zeet ($4M raised)  - Scenario ($6M raised)  And we bet on early-stage builders - sometimes even before they're ready to start a company (past investments include Lexica, Levels.fyi, and more). Are you a prolific builder with an affinity for emerging tech? We'll be your first check.

Founders, Inc.

Womp

Womp is a 3D software company that makes it simple for users to bring their 3D ideas to life. Womp was founded in 2017 by founder and CEO Gabriela Truela as a design and consulting studio. Womp's support for social and collaboration features, which encourages users to learn from one another, improve their 3D design skills, and share their artwork with the rest of the world, is a key differentiator. The service offers a free tier as well as subscription-based tiers with access to premium features.

Womp is a web-based platform that enables users to create 3D artwork and assets collaboratively in real time, which can be exported for 3D printing and used in social media or video games. As of April 2022, the platform was accepting waitlist applications for a private beta program for ~1,000 users, with plans to expand to more users in the coming months. At launch, Womp is set to include notable features such as Blend, which allows users to merge materials and integrate objects in real time and, livestreaming, which allows users to share their innovative creations with their audience.

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

Remote Work Tools

Womp is a web-based platform that enables users to create 3D artwork and assets collaboratively in real time, which can be exported for 3D printing and used in social media or video games. As of April 2022, the platform was accepting waitlist applications for a private beta program for ~1,000 users, with plans to expand to more users in the coming months. At launch, Womp is set to include notable features such as Blend, which allows users to merge materials and integrate objects in real time and, livestreaming, which allows users to share their innovative creations with their audience.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10095">April 2022 </a>, Womp raised USD 4.7 million in a seed funding round led by Female Founders Fund and Haystack. The fresh funds will be used to refine Womp’s core technology, roll out new premium features, and expand headcount, with an overarching goal to simplify the 3D content creation process.

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

Womp

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