Founders' Co-op is a seed-stage venture fund built by founders, for founders. Based in Seattle, they help the strongest entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest build companies that the best growth investors in the world choose to back. As the largest and longest-running seed-stage specialist fund in the region, they are a trusted partner to early-stage founders and a trusted point of access to Pacific Northwest dealflow for out-of-region investors at the seed stage and beyond.

Founders' Co-op

Draper Frontier is a venture capital firm that finances early-stage media and technology companies.  Frontier backs passionate entrepreneurs and provides a breadth of business assistance, including strategy, corporate management, hiring, customer acquisition, and fund raising.

Frontier Venture Capital

Liquid2 Ventures provides technology startups with seed-stage investments and is based in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded in 2015 by Joe Montana, Mike Miller, and Michael Ma.

Liquid 2 Ventures

Ride Ventures is an early-stage technology venture capital investment firm that invests in the different technology sectors.

Ride Ventures

Greylock Partners invests in entrepreneurs that focus on consumer and enterprise software companies. The firm invests in companies that define new markets, including Airbnb, AppDynamics, Apptio, Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET), Cloudera, Docker, Dropbox, Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD), Medium, Nextdoor, Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), Pandora (NYSE: P), Pure Storage, and Workday (NYSE: WDAY). It was founded in 1965 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

Greylock

About Endeavor Endeavor is the world’s leading community of high-impact entrepreneurs. Today, Endeavor’s network spans nearly 40 countries and supports more than 2,000 entrepreneurs, whose companies generate combined revenues of over $28 billion US, have created more than 3.9 million jobs, and, in 2020, raised over $4 billion US in capital. Endeavor’s unique entrepreneur-first model and network of trust provide a platform for founders to dream big, scale up, and pay it forward to the next generation of entrepreneurs.  About Endeavor Catalyst Endeavor Catalyst is the rules-based, co-investment fund of Endeavor, set up to invest exclusively in Endeavor Entrepreneur-led companies and to sustain Endeavor’s long-term operations in a mission-aligned way. Launched in 2012, Endeavor Catalyst has ~$250M+ AUM across three funds and has made 200+ investments to date in 32+ different markets. Today The Endeavor Catalyst portfolio has 37 companies valued at $1B+, including 29 unicorns. Investments include Globant (NYSE:GLOB), Rappi, and Creditas  in Latin America; Yemeksepeti.com and Careem in MENA; and Bukalapak and Carro in Indonesia.

Endeavor

Gaingels is a venture investment syndicate in service of the LGBT+ community and its allies, investing in companies with LGBT+ founders and C-suite leaders at all stages of growth, as well as in more established companies resolved on building more inclusive teams, with a global portfolio of 130+ companies and $70M in deployed investment capital to date.  The Gaingels network also actively supports its portfolio in identifying and recruiting diverse talent to their C-suite and board leadership teams and fosters a vibrant global community of industry leaders, investors, operators, and entrepreneurs who share a common goal for positive social change through business and successful investments.

Gaingels

Karman Ventures (fka Moving Capital) is a venture capital firm backed by early employees of Uber and other decacorn startups.

Karman Ventures (fka Moving Capital)

Glue

Glue provides hassle-free tools for clients to keep teams connected from wherever they are and track their spending and the payoff with software. Glue helps teams understand the connection, so they can prioritize engagement tactics and measure their impact. Glue combines insights with actions to help leaders strengthen employee connections and retention.

<div>Glue (formerly Mystery) is an employee engagement platform that offers customized virtual and in-person events for hybrid and distributed teams. Initially launched as a B2C event platform, Glue pivoted to B2B employee engagement services to boost morale and motivation among remote teams. Glue&rsquo;s managed marketplace of virtual events covers a wide range of areas, including freestyle rapping, caricature classes, and comedy. The planning, booking, and execution of events are carried out by Glue and the platform collects data on employee preferences and calendars to automatically match teams to the most suitable events.</div>

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

Remote Work Infrastructure

Employee engagement startup Mystery rebrands as Glue and uses software and AI to boost stickiness

<div>
 
 Glue (formerly Mystery) is an employee engagement platform that offers customized virtual and in-person events for hybrid and distributed teams. Initially launched as a B2C event platform, Glue pivoted to B2B employee engagement services to boost morale and motivation among remote teams. Glue&rsquo;s managed marketplace of virtual events covers a wide range of areas, including freestyle rapping, caricature classes, and comedy. The planning, booking, and execution of events are carried out by Glue and the platform collects data on employee preferences and calendars to automatically match teams to the most suitable events. 
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s virtual events cost between USD 25 and USD 200 per person/per event and have no minimum participant requirement. 
 
 
 Glue also offers AI-backed meetups to build employee connections at work and employee surveys for engagement. The company acquired PopStage (March 2023), an HR software company focused on creating virtual experiences to integrate its capabilities. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of April 2024, the company had over 5,000 teams using its platform notably including Microsoft, Google and Etsy.
 
 
 Funding and financials 
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8427">
 February 2022
 </a>
 , Glue raised USD 18.5 million in Series A funding from Greylock, bringing its valuation to USD 100 million. Funds were earmarked to expand its offering and double headcount to support the growing demand for proactive employee engagement solutions. 
 
</div>

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

Glue

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