Through the announcement of our Fund III and Eighteen150, our newly launched founder-in-residence program, Q2 has been the quarter of celebrating the wins and gearing up for the work ahead.
With Fund III, we are doubling down on our efforts to eliminate barriers faced by immigrant founders. We recognize that time, money, and visa constraints can often stifle creativity, innovation, and hinder progress, sometimes even blocking the initiation of an idea. Through this fund, we will continue to create an environment where immigrant entrepreneurs can explore ideas, pivot, and create without limitations. Our aim is to continue to provide a vigorous ecosystem that empowers founders to push the boundaries of what's possible.
As we reflect on the journey that has led us to Fund III, we are profoundly grateful for the support of our limited partners, advisors, and the broader startup community. Together, we are building a world that recognizes and values the national advantage immigrants bring to this country. We take immense pride in being a part of this transformation and promise to continue striving towards a future that supports the unrecognized, regardless of where they come from. The road ahead is filled with promise, and we are ready to embark on this exciting new chapter. Fund III is not just a testament to our past achievements; it is a declaration of our unwavering commitment to empowering immigrant founders to create a world that knows no shackles, only limitless possibilities.
Thank you,
The Unshackled Ventures Team
Q2 Updates
Q2 Portfolio Highlights
In a heartwarming segment on The Today Show with Hoda and Jenna, Parfait showcased their cutting-edge AI-powered wigs, a game-changer for women experiencing hair loss due to conditions like alopecia. Parfait's AI-powered wigs represent a remarkable breakthrough in the fashion industry. With advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, these wigs perfectly mimic natural hair, offering a seamless and authentic appearance. Women who suffer from hair loss, particularly those with alopecia, face numerous challenges in their daily lives, including a loss of confidence and self-esteem. Parfait's wigs serve as a powerful solution, helping these women regain their sense of self and feel beautiful inside and out. Watch the segment here!
Plantible Foods, a B2B food technology company developing the most functional and applicable plant-based protein in the world using scalable and sustainable aqua-farming and extraction technologies, was recently featured in the Washington Post. Read more about Plantible's journey from farm to plate and their commitment to transforming the food system with the magic of rubisco here!
Huge news for Aavia, who have launched their hormone health Planner! The Aavia Planner is the only tool on the market for planning your workouts, meals, social time, and more personalized to your hormone cycle. Aavia has always built their company alongside their members, who are just as excited as we are. We’re so proud of this team and the impact they’re making on the lives of their community and everyone with ovaries! Download today!
Congratulations to Aavia CEO & Co-Founder, Aagya Mathur, for being included within Forbes “10 Inspiring Founders Of Startups Focused On Women” list.
“I envision a world where future women entrepreneurs will step into a start-up ecosystem where the foundation is built on tenacity and support. In that environment - where limits are removed - they will build with even more momentum, innovate more rapidly, have even more impact on their end users, and be role models for generations to come.”
Read the full article here!
Masa is pioneering intelligent growth and analytics infrastructure for the web3 ecosystem. In April, Masa proudly stood out among 1,500 global projects and earned 1 of the 12 coveted spots in Binance’s exclusive Most-Valuable Builder accelerator. During the 11-week accelerator program, the Masa team successfully launched new products, went live with over 60 partners, and experienced a staggering growth, nearly doubling their traction to reach 500K unique wallets and 1.5M identifier mints using the Masa infrastructure. What Masa pioneers is clearly resonating: On Binance Accelerator Demo Day, Masa won an overwhelming 40% of investor votes, cementing its #1 position in the entire Binance Accelerator cohort. This landslide victory demonstrates that Masa is making waves, even in the midst of a challenging bear market. Read more about their Q2 milestones here!
CatalyzeX rolled out API integrations with ArXiv, a prominent open-access research platform and OpenReview, a peer review platform, this quarter! Now you can see open-source code implementations for AI research papers (and more!) via CatalyzeX directly on ArXiv and OpenReview.
Lily AI, a retail AI platform specializing in computer vision, natural language processing and machine learning for retailers and brands, has been named to the 2023 CommerceTech Power List as a Rising Star. The inaugural Power List award was created by Bain & Company, Bain Capital Ventures, and Coresight Research to recognize today’s most innovative commerce and marketing-tech venture-backed companies and start building a community for both current and future leaders. Selection committee members included executives from Stitch Fix, Ulta Beauty, M.M.LaFleur, Tapestry, PacSun, and FootLocker. Congratulations to the entire Lily AI team!
GridRaster, a scalable high performance XR infrastructure for enterprises, has successfully transitioned one of its SBIR efforts with the US Air Force to a Phase III contract, allowing them to deploy their solution in a production environment. During this effort, GridRaster was able to leverage its remote rendering and 3D vision-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, reducing maintenance process time by an astounding 80% and completely eliminates costly human errors through automation.
Cache Energy, a climate tech company providing long-duration energy storage that is safely installed anywhere and transported everywhere, announced their acceptance into both the Joules Accelerator & Launch Alaska's 2023 Tech Deployment Track Cohort! As part of the Joules Accelerator program, Cache Energy will participate in a 90-day program focused on connecting to industry partners and business development opportunities. As participants in the Tech Deployment Track cohort, Cache Energy will work alongside Alaska partners to vet and develop projects in communities around the state. Congratulations to the Cache Energy team!
Daniel Liss, co-founder & CEO of Teaser AI, joined Julia Chatterley on CNN to share how TeaserAI is using artificial intelligence to overcome a major shortcoming in the dating game – the amount of time wasted in small talk that can go nowhere in the early stages. Watch the full segment here!
In an era saturated with data, turning that data into actionable insights remains a complex and challenging process. TextQL realized that the way forward was to create a privacy-first AI analyst that could outperform humans in speed, accuracy, and cost. Ana by TextQL helps you get data questions answered in seconds, not hours. With Ana, you can clean your data, find correlations, identify outliers, and get visualizations while having complete control and privacy of your data. Learn more on Product Hunt!
Inspirit has officially launched its Innovative Learning Hub, a groundbreaking EdTech product aiming to transform STEM education by offering immersive, engaging experiences.
"In my 25 years studying VR, I have not seen a company like Inspirit that places such a strong emphasis on the rigor of implementing teacher professional development and curriculum alignment with VR to ensure successful integration and long-term usage in the classroom.” said Jeremy Bailenson, Founding Director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab and Professor of Education
Dive into the full article to understand how Inspirit is helping students explore complex concepts in an engaging, tangible, and enjoyable way, equipping them with essential skills for the future.
Lynk Global, Inc. (Lynk), the world’s leading sat2phone telecoms provider, and PNCC, Palau’s largest Mobile Network Operator, jointly announced the start of initial service to provide satellite-direct-to-mobile phone services to the island nation using Lynk’s “cell-towers-in-space”. PNCC is the first MNO in the world to launch Lynk’s sat2phone technology as a service for their subscribers. Read more about this exciting partnership here!
Formally, a legal tech company with a mission to increase access to justice, launched Formally AI to supercharge legal workflows. Formally AI combines secure portable data with powerful AI-driven workflows, designed to save time and redefine the legal industry. There has never been a better time to positively transform the legal industry as we know it — That is why Formally is starting with a clear set of ethics guidelines designed to enable the responsible adoption of legal AI. Join the waitlist here!
Q2 New Investments
Stealth consumer climate tech company led by a Ph.D. grad from Harvard focused on climate and sustainability.
Stealth company helping sales tech companies build interoperable products through a set of tools and APIs that cover all of their integration needs.
Unshackled Updates
We are proud to announce our $35M Fund III, dedicated to investing in visionary immigrant founders at the earliest stage. With a proven track record, Unshackled is 73% institutionally backed, with a 72% graduation rate from pre-seed to seed. Our remarkable founders have raised over $750 million, propelling growth and innovation. We look forward to lifting the burden of immigration and financial restraints for more remarkable founders. Details from Christine Hall in TechCrunch.
On July 18th, Unshackled launched Eighteen150, our founder-in-residence investment program, funding solo immigrant founders to support their journey toward pursuing the American dream.
We're allocating $5M from our recent fund III raise toward remarkable talent lacking access and resources to start their own company in the US. Currently, immigrants make up 65.7% of America’s labor force, and we're proud to support the nation's competitive edge by investing in fresh, driven, and often overlooked entrepreneurs. We look forward to bolstering our national advantage by fostering exceptional solo immigrant founders.
Apply to Eighteen150 today! Applications close August 27, 2023 at 5:00PM PT
Sign up for our upcoming virtual information session to learn more!
Following Unshackled’s Fund III announcement, our team enjoyed a sunny day in the Bay sailing to Sausalito. Here is your reminder to celebrate every win! Small, big, simple, hard-earned, all of it!
Hiring
A comprehensive list of job openings at Unshackled portfolio companies can be founder here → https://unshackledvc.notion.site/Unshackled-Ventures-Portfolio-Jobs-403c15af6dfb4979b83f045a51a711e7
Q2 Hiring highlights
⚖️ Formally - Product Lead, GTM Lead, Head of Revenue & Strategy, Account Executive, Software Engineer (Full-Stack), and more
⛓ Syndicate DAO - Senior Backend Engineer
💫 Landing - React Native Engineer, Contract
💜 Aavia - Senior iOS Engineer (SwiftUI)
⚡️Cache Energy - Process Engineer (coming soon)
📳 Gridraster - Engineering & Developer roles
🚀 Lynk - Open roles across business development and engineering