We want to start by acknowledging that, as a community, we have felt the weight of the past few months. We hope you are experiencing the care and support we all need and deserve, as well as finding meaningful moments with loved ones. In times of uncertainty, community is everything, and at Unshackled, uplifting our community has always been at the core of what we do.
It is because of this, that we also hope we can share a moment of joy, reflecting on the remarkable past quarter many of our founders experienced. We are excited to bring you the latest highlights from our team & portfolio and are proud to showcase our founders' resilience, creativity, and unwavering commitment to making a difference. From strategic partnerships and technological advancements to heartfelt interviews and well-deserved recognition, our founders continue to shape their respective industries.
We wish you all a successful and peaceful Q4.
Thank you,
The Unshackled Ventures Team
Q3 Portfolio Highlights
Purva Gupta & Sowmiya Chocka Narayanan, founders of Lily AI, were recently featured in The New York Times! Writer Teri Agnis spotlights the team's journey from moving to the United States in their 20’s with entrepreneurial aspirations, to building the first platform that bridges the gap between brand-speak and customer-speak to drive exponential growth for companies large and small. Today, Lily AI seamlessly injects customer-centric product attributes into site search engines, recommendation systems, SEO/SEM capabilities and item setup processes to drive exponential lifts in traffic, conversion, revenue and brand loyalty. Read about the exciting journey here.
Inspirit announced a strategic partnership with Snap Inc., a significant stride forward in utilizing Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance STEM education. This collaboration integrates Snap's advanced AR technology with Inspirit's Innovative Learning Hub, a synergy aimed at fostering immersive, interactive learning environments. Inspirit’s pilot case study indicates a substantial upswing in engagement and a profound interest in STEM subjects among students at Stride, Inc.
Key milestones from the initiative include:
A notable 50% increase in student engagement in STEM subjects.
An encouraging 85% of students displayed a deeper interest in exploring STEM through AR.
Approximately 77% of students reported heightened motivation due to interactive AR elements interspersed within the curriculum.
For institutions interested in incorporating advanced AR tools into their educational programs, read more about Inspirit’s comprehensive case study and the transformative potential of AR in education here.
Yidian Liu & Nathaniel Banks, Co-Founders of Polygone, were recently interviewed on the Talking Under Water Podcast to discuss the pervasive issue of microplastics, the nature of their research, and how Polygone is developing technology to monitor and remove microplastics from waterways. The team highlights where their interest in microplastics stems from, current pilots with municipalities across the country, and more about the exciting road ahead. Listen here!
Isoken Igbinedion, Co-founder and CEO of Parfait, spoke with Rosemarie Miller about the reinvention and ownership of Black beauty at the ForbesBLK Summit. Parfait is the first and only company to use AI and facial recognition technology to create custom wigs and hair products on-demand.
Congratulations to the Aavia team for the launch of the Aavia Planner! The Aavia Planner tells you the best times to work out, schedule date night or study group, and to prioritize good-for-you nutrients to beat cramps, low energy, mood swings, and more.
How to join? Make sure you have the most updated version of the app, and subscribe from the Planner tab! Their VIP membership gives you access to personalized workout and nutrition recommendations, exclusive access to our members-only VIP channel, and more.
Narayan Foods, one of Europe's largest organic food producers with a distribution scale of 75,000 stores across the EU is partnering with EVO Foods to commercialize their patent-pending plant-based egg for the EU market. This is a first-of-its-kind partnership for an Indian clean protein startup and a monumental step in scaling Evo across the world.
GridRaster, a scalable high-performance XR infrastructure for enterprises, has finalized a $1.5M contract with the US Space Force for immersive training of space operators for in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM). In an era of ever-increasing space initiatives, GridRaster is supporting these efforts and further fueling our national security efforts.
DIG Labs was awarded its first US Patent unleashing the power of AI for rapid analysis! DIG Labs is committed to assisting care and diagnostic capabilities, and this patent represents a significant leap forward in their mission. By harnessing the power of AI, DIG Labs can now provide exclusive rapid and precise analysis of mucus, opening doors to countless opportunities for improved diagnosis, treatment, and care.
Key advantages of their technology include:
Speed: AI accelerates mucus analysis, reducing waiting times for critical results.
Accuracy: Their system offers unparalleled precision, minimizing the margin for error.
Efficiency: Streamlined processes ensure optimal resource utilization.
Potential for New Discoveries: This innovation may unlock novel insights in the field of healthcare.
🔗 Patent Link: https://lnkd.in/gsEFzpZ5
Faeth Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company targeting cancer metabolism, announced the appointment of Debbie Chirnomas M.D., M.P.H., as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Chirnomas will lead the early and late-stage clinical development for Faeth’s oncology pipeline.
Landing, the community-powered social platform where users create and publish virtual mood boards and collages, launched a mobile feature called “Creation,” allowing users to express their creativity on the go. Previously only available on the web app, Creation is arguably the most popular tool amongst Landing’s 275,000+ users since it lets them create mood boards from scratch, add shoppable links, access the community library of over 4.5 million images, upload their own images, as well as use other basic editing capabilities like rotate, undo, redo, delete, layering and more.
Read more about Landing’s exciting launch in TechCrunch here!
Earlier this month, Syndicate publicly announced that over the last year they have been building infrastructure to unlock the next wave of web3 products with leading startups and Fortune 100 companies. Syndicate's new Transaction Cloud, APIs, and modular smart contracts (and more to come) radically improve the experience for developers (DX) and their end users (UX), making web3-powered products easier to build, grow, and use at mainstream scale. Learn more and get started in under 5 minutes here or reach out to the Syndicate team at hello@syndicate.io.
The founders of Pod Foods, Fiona Lee & Larissa Russell, were selected for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning Women North America Class of 2023. Now in its 16th year, the program identifies talented entrepreneurs with scalable companies in the United States and Canada and connects them with the networks and resources they need to accelerate growth and scale their businesses. Pod Foods is a full-service B2B marketplace platform in the grocery supply chain, connecting CPG brands with grocery retailers.
Q3 New Investments
Our Residency program, formerly Eighteen150, has welcomed eight incredible founders from China, Nigeria, India, Russia, and Brazil to the Unshackled community! These founders are solving big problems in fintech, climate, real estate, transportation, AI, entertainment, and the food & beverage space. In addition, 50% of our residency founders are female founders! We can't wait to share more about them in the upcoming months.
We were blown away by the 400+ applications we received from talented immigrant founders from 48 countries and 28 states—a heartfelt thanks to everyone who applied and shared their stories. We're gearing up to do it again in early 2024, so keep an eye out for when we open applications for our next round!
Unshackled Updates
Unshackled’s Founding Partners, Manan Mehta & Nitin Pachisia were invited to speak at two distinguished events in collaboration with the U.S. Treasury. From NYC to Washington, D.C., we found ourselves at the epicenter of critical conversations about the future of entrepreneurship, venture capital, and the American dream.
More about these insightful conversations here.
On October 18th for NY Tech Week, Nitin Pachisia, joined the founders of Open Avenues, Plymouth Street, and Andrew’s Mixers to discuss and demystify the topic of immigration for foreign national founders and tech talent. The event consisted of solutions-oriented discussions on viable options within the immigration system, specifically for Cap-Exempt H-1B visas, O-1 visas, and investor capital.
On National Immigrants Day, we announced the launch of the Immigreat Community - The preeminent community for immigrant founders, by immigrant founders.
🌐 Immerse yourself in a hub of excellence.
🤝 Foster connections and drive collective success.
📖 Share knowledge, ignite growth.
If you are an immigrant founder, we invite you to submit your application for membership in the Immigreat Community. Elevate your journey with us!
Unshackled investor Alexis Maciel was invited to join an NEA-hosted panel to discuss ‘The Power of Community’ in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Highlighting her personal and professional background, Alexis shed light on why she believes part of her early success is rooted in the support of the community around her and the integral role that community plays in her work at Unshackled, championing immigrant founders, and pioneering a more inclusive venture capital industry.
On October 23, 2023, USCIS published a notice of proposed changes to the H-1B program. We collaborated with our immigration partner, Serotte Law Firm, LLC to outline what these changes would mean for immigrant founders, employers and workers alike, and the program's overall efficiency and integrity. Read more here.
Manan Mehta spoke with The Wall Street Journal to share his thoughts on what these changes could mean for the future of innovation in the United States and our national advantage.
Hiring
Q4 Hiring highlights
Inspirit - Marketing Specialist
Faeth - Research Assistant, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Computational Biologist
LilyAI - VP/SVP, Product (Enterprise B2B SaaS Required), Revenue Operations Manager, Senior Product Manager (Internal Products, Workflows & Operations), & More
Polygone - Research Interns
Bolsiyo - Product Designer, UX UI Junior, Desarrollador Front - Senior (Colombia)
Luminai - Senior Software Engineer (EU), Quality Assurance Engineer Team Lead, Automation Strategy Advisor, Account Executive
Plantible Foods - Plant Operator - Downstream Processing, Facility Supervisor
Gridraster - Engineering & Developer roles
Lynk - Open roles across business development and engineering
Allocate - Senior Product Designer
TextQL - Software Engineer
About Unshackled Ventures: Unshackled Ventures is the only early-stage venture capital fund that enables unrecognized and excluded immigrant founders to start companies in the U.S. Since its founding in 2014, Unshackled has proven its thesis that investing and supporting this population drives strong investment returns across key industries, including American infrastructure, generative AI, healthcare, space, and enterprise SaaS. To date, the firm has invested in 80 companies and over 200 entrepreneurs.