The Immigrant Precedent
Q2'22 Highlights and Updates
Q2 Updates
Congratulations! We made it through the first half of the year and we at Unshackled continue to believe that now is a great time to be a pre-seed founder and funder. The funding and talent market have been on a wild roller coaster in 2022. There have been over 50,000 individuals laid off this year and yet, over half of our portfolio companies are actively hiring. VC funding is trending down in regards to pace, round sizes, and valuations and yet, our teams are raising strong seed, seed+, series A, and series B rounds. While we continue to live in “unprecedented” times, there is precedent for immigrants to be the ones that push through and remain focused on staying resilient and finding solutions. As a team, we have spent hours meeting with our portfolio companies in both one:one and one:many sessions and feel incredibly fortunate to work with our founders everyday - It is their energy and positivity that keeps us going.
Q2 Portfolio Highlights
When news broke that the Supreme Court had struck down Roe v. Wade, Unshackled and the Aavia team felt shock, hurt, and disbelief. When reproductive autonomy is called into question, it’s scary. After reflecting and processing as a team, Aavia quickly decided that their actions speak much louder than words. Aavia has always been a leader in data privacy among women's health applications. Since the ruling, they have committed to revisiting their security practices, and took a long and hard look at how user data exists within their app. Aavia has engaged a security firm to audit their privacy practices, and is actively collaborating with their legal team to ensure that they are the safest health app in the market. These practices take time; and the team will share updates with you regularly. You can find Aavia's privacy policy, including a simple terms version here. If you have suggestions, questions, concerns, or just want to talk, please reach out via the chat function in the Aavia app, or at SUPPORT@AAVIA.IO.
Allocate, which democratizes access to private alternatives within the innovation sector announced their $15.3 Series A led by M13 Ventures! Allocate is a platform that offers venture fund products for wealth advisors, family offices, and qualified individual investors based on their investment objectives, any pre, and post-investment transactions, and reporting activities. They enable investors of all types to discover, assess, and access the highest quality fund to manage. Read more here!
Formally, a legal tech company on a mission to make legal processes accessible for everyone, announced their $2.3M pre-seed round. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and BBG Ventures with participation from Unshackled Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Graph Ventures, and Dorm Room Fund. Innovation has been slow in the legal industry, especially when it comes to leveraging technology for clients and consumers. Formally’s platform leverages intelligent technology and accessible design to streamline and simplify complex legal processes. Formally is currently hiring across engineering, marketing, and business development. Read more here!
Masa Finance has come out of stealth and has announced their $3.5M Pre-seed raise (closed in November 2021) from Unshackled Ventures, GoldenTree Asset Management (a $46bn credit-focused fund), Flori Ventures (Celo-focused fund), GSR, Decentranet, Intersect VC, Lateral Capital, Peer VC, Alves Ventures, and several angel investors. Masa’s decentralized credit protocol bridges off-chain data with on-chain data to create the world’s first Hybrid Credit Protocol & Decentralized Credit Bureau. Masa reflects a more equitable future that provides access to capital to a global population, mostly overlooked by traditional finance. Masa is now raising a Seed Round to increase the engineering team's size and launch the protocol's production release, conduct a public token sale, scale users and node operators, and bring developers and lenders to the platform. Read more here!
Prisimpop announced their $5M seed led by Female Founders Fund with participation by Foundation Capital, Revolution Capital, Plum Ventures, Mucker Capital and Uphonest Capital! Prismpop's social shopping platform aims to amplify the creation and sharing of female lifestyle content to support Gen Y and Z consumption habits. Read more about the founders behind Prisimpop and the raise details here!
Parfait, a direct-to-consumer platform leveraging AI to better customize wigs from head size to the tint of the lace front, has officially launched! Parfait, who recently announced their $5M seed led by Upfront Ventures and Serena Ventures, is the first company to use AI and facial recognition to address and serve the needs of wig wearers and combat AI biases in tech. Parfait is working toward having visualization capabilities on its site, similar to how, say, Warby Parker allows customers to virtually try on glasses. Ultimately, the four founders want to change the way women of color shop for wigs (and men too if they’re interested). They believe that by creating a standardized process infused with technology they can do just that. Hear more from Parfaits CEO, Isoken Igbinedion about how Parfait is using AI to upend the $13B custom wig industry here!
Lync Global, Inc., the world’s leading satellite-direct-to-phone telecoms company, announced earlier this month that it has won the first-prize award for the Mercedes-Benz car2space Challenge at INNOspace Masters. Lynk beat out applicants from around the globe for its innovative technology connecting cars to the company’s growing constellation of satellite cell towers in space. Lynk proved its patented technology through a series of demonstration missions, receiving regulatory approval for testing in 15 countries. Lynk Tower 1, Lynk’s first commercial-ready satellite, launched in April 2022. Additional satellites will launch later this year, enabling Lynk to provide a constellation of commercial “cell-towers-in-space” service. To date, Lynk has 12 contracts with Mobile Network Operators worldwide. Read more here!
Luminai, formerly DigitalBrain, announced their $16M Series A! The round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Moxxie Ventures, Underscore VC, Craft Ventures, and YC Continuity. Luminai is combining robotic process automation with traditional API-based integration, and as a result, is changing the game for automating internal workflows, taking any multi-click process and making it a one click solution. Read more about the founders’ vision and journey here!
Pod Foods, which aims to reinvent the grocery supply chain with the first full-service wholesale B2B marketplace featuring built-in logistics, announced their latest partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market! Under the deal, Pod Foods will provide about 130 Sprouts stores in the Southeast with immediate access to a virtual warehouse of emerging CPG brands, enabling the retailer to avoid supply chain delays and quickly stock the products that its customers want. Pod Foods’ unique “virtualized wholesale” model connects grocery retailers with emerging and local brands across the U.S. in real time, with minimal risk and accelerated speed to shelf. Read more about this exciting partnership here!
Strac announced their $3.5M seed round led by FUSE with participation from Liquid 2 Ventures, Wayfinder Ventures, Rogue Capital and Y Combinator! Strac helps companies in regulated industries — specifically financial and health care — safeguard against data issues by stripping out customer records. Stracs software platform, integrates directly into a user’s communication workflow – i.e. Slack, Outlook, Gmail, Intercom, Zendesk, etc. – and enables real time masking of any sensitive data requested/received from an internal or external party, including Social Security numbers and driver licenses. Learn more about Strac’s mission to secure customer's sensitive personal data here!
Faeth Therapuetics joins the Series A club, announcing the closing of their $47 million round led by S2G Ventures. Faeth Therapuetics is a cancer metabolism company developing clinically-tested nutrition control, therapeutics, and digital tools for the treatment of cancer. Faeth’s research, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, shows that tailoring the right diet to the cancer patient can significantly impact the efficacy of clinically tested therapeutics for cancer. The proceeds of the financing will be used to support early phase clinical trials focusing on the safety of Faeth’s approaches in cancer patients. Additionally, the funds will support development of their novel preclinical pipeline with their discovery platform, MetabOS™, which combines machine learning and functional genomics to uncover the precise nutrient vulnerabilities for a tumor based on the genotype, organ of origin, and therapy. Read more here!
Purva Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Lily AI was named one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 2022 Women of Influence. Read more about this exciting acknowledgement here!
Q2 New Investments
Bolsiyo is enabling traditional shops in Colombia to progressively digitize sales to help them grow. Using the Bolisyo smart calculator, shops start tallying their in-store sales and vicariously begin building their online store, basic inventory, and books. The team, composed of ex-Rappi, Equifax, and Lulo Bank alumni is based in Bogotá, Colombia and is rapidly gaining traction in the area. Learn more about Bolisyo’s solution here!
Project Plastic is developing the world's first device for removing microplastics from rivers. Project Plastic stemmed from the research of Yidian Liu and Nathaniel Banks while they were graduate students in Princeton University’s School of Architecture. The two wanted to explore how architectural systems could be used to remediate the plastic pollution in our waterways. The Princeton-based team recently announced that they will advance to a nationally recognized innovation program that helps transition university inventions into solutions that can benefit society. The team will receive a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps). To learn more about their vision for the future read more here!
Company Updates
Unshackled 2030 Manifesto
When our journey with Unshackled began eight years ago, we set out to create an environment for the brightest entrepreneurial group this country has ever attracted — immigrants. As we near our eight year milestone, we wanted to take a moment to step back, reflect on the journey thus far, and share our vision for the next eight years ahead. We are excited to present the Unshackled Ventures 2030 Manifesto – a collaborative piece that pulls back the curtain to shed light on our origin story, the lessons learned along the way, where we stand today, what it’s like to partner with us, and finally, where the world (and our firm) are headed.
This piece is not just for our current community of founders, partners, investors and collaborators — it’s for the folks who don’t know us at all. At Unshackled, our mission is to empower the next generation of immigrant founders. As part of that, we want to be as transparent as possible about what we look for in new ventures, how we think about investing and who we are as people. So, in addition to the manifesto, we decided to turn the interview on ourselves – Manan, Nitin, and Maria's Partner Profiles are personal outlines of the drivers that motivate each of them to do this work.
Pride Month
Last month we celebrated those within the LGTBQIA+ community, including our very own, Maria Salamanca. Pride Month goes beyond celebrating in the month of June, but taking action and making our community more inclusive year-round. Wishing our entire Unshackled Community a belated Happy Pride Month!
Michael Serrotte in Business Insider
Featured in Business Insider, our Partner, Michael Serotte explains the partnership between Serotte Law Firm and Unshackled Ventures and his determination to win cases for our founders.
Hiring
A comprehensive list of our portfolio's job pages can be found here!
I absolutely love your mission and this roundup. Lots of companies with ethical purposes on this list.