The world rewards you if you open your heart (or platform)
Q3 Updates
The year continues to move fast and, for many, continues to be filled with hardship and challenges. But, all of us at Unshackled see our privilege and use our good fortune to work harder to support those we can. This past quarter a few things happened we want to share. Most importantly, we helped a portfolio company get their CTO, his wife, and their dog out of Ukraine. In addition, we’ve welcomed our first distribution to our LPs by extending our immigration platform to a husband and wife team on an H1-B, which resulted in them selling the Company for a life-changing outcome (more below). And finally, we saw 12 teams in our portfolio raise additional capital despite the macro challenges in front of us. It’s easy to talk about what impact you can make, but so much more fulfilling to walk it. We, as a firm, are dedicated to enabling and supporting immigrants, and today, we feel more compelled than ever to answer the responsibility in front of us.
With that, we want to extend our gratitude to our founders, investors, and community for allowing us to enter year 9 with a deep sense of purpose in our role in this ecosystem - to help immigrants start companies. We promise not to be limited by the typical ways of Venture Capital.
Q3 Portfolio Highlights
GrowthPlug, a growth and optimization SaaS focused on helping healthcare practices to accelerate new patient acquisition, manage online reputation, automate front desk operations, and elevate the patient experience, was acquired by PracticeTek, a leading provider of software and payments solutions to the retail healthcare market. The acquisition adds GrowthPlug to PracticeTek’s ecosystem of healthcare software companies, enabling GrowthPlug to turbocharge innovation and accelerate growth. GrowthPlug will continue to be led by husband-and-wife co-founders Sudhir Bhatti, who is the CEO, and Shavita Bhatti, the COO. This collaboration will expand support to healthcare practices in acquiring and serving patients with an all-in-one practice SaaS solution. Read more about this exciting new partnership here.
We want to thank Sudhir and Shavita, who welcomed us as their partners and supporters of their vision. Their humility and collaboration are hallmarks of what happens when we focus on helping people and not being constrained by circumstances. This outcome will continue to drive us forward, and we hope to share many more stories like these with you – where our high-value add services drive exceptional economic & social outcomes for all.
Inspirit, an online 3D & VR STEM learning platform, announced its collaboration with Meta Immersive Learning to launch the VR Lab Starter Kit Program in 2023 to provide over one hundred Title I schools across the US with Meta Quest 2 VR headsets, curriculum, & training in a joint effort to transform the future of learning. Since inception, Inspirit’s mission has evolved from simply creating powerful, high-quality 3D & VR STEM resources to also making them freely accessible to educators and students across the globe, regardless of socioeconomic status. Today, over 275k+ educators use Inspirit’s thousands of 3D models, simulations, and teaching tools to engage their students with visual learning.
Are you a school or district interested in free Meta Quest 2 VR headsets and thousands of curriculum-aligned immersive learning tools? Learn more here.
Lynk Global, Inc. (Lynk), the world’s leading satellite-direct-to-standard-phone telecoms company, will fly the world’s first 5G cellular base station in space in a first-of-its-kind demonstration. This test will demonstrate the ability to send a 5G signal from space to standard mobile devices on Earth. Lynk is the only company in the world to demonstrate satellite-direct-to-standard-mobile-phone technology. Earlier this month, Lynk received the world’s first satellite-direct-to-phone commercial license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Lynk has also patented the ability to connect to existing standard 5G devices on Earth, with no change to the 5G device, in 55 countries. The 5G payload will launch in December 2022 on Lynk’s second commercial satellite.
The team at Lynk has been revolutionizing the way we think about global connectivity for the past 5 years. With numerous LEO satellites launched, the tech *actually* tested and proven, to commercial service later this year, this interview with Charles Miller, highlights a key insight he knew well before Elon, SpaceX and T-Mobile made their announcement a few months ago.
Lily AI, a product attributes platform that injects an enriched, customer-centered product taxonomy across the existing retail stack, announced that it has closed its $25M Series B financing round with participation from Canaan Partners, Conductive Ventures, Sorenson Ventures and NEA, among others. Already serving enterprise clients such as Bloomingdale’s, The Gap, Macy’s, thredUP and others, Lily AI will use the new funding to further expand into mid-market retail e-commerce brands across home, beauty and fashion, allowing clients to supercharge their e-commerce applications by dramatically improving their on-site search conversion, personalized product discovery and demand forecasting. The company also plans to extend its solution to further applications within the retail stack. Read more here!
Maximus, a consumer telemedicine company for men’s health and hormone optimization announced their $15M Series A. Led by Keith Rabois at Founders Fund, other investors include 8VC, Abstract Ventures, 10X Capital, OneVC, Gaingels, Correlation Ventures, Chamaeleon VC, Rational Ventures, WhatIf Ventures, Shrug Capital, Electric Ant, as well as, operators/angel investors. Maximus is revolutionizing the performance enhancement space by democratizing doctor-prescribed protocols developed by some of the world’s leading experts in men’s health. Currently, Maximus is available in 15 states across the U.S. and new funds from this round will be used to expand access, grow brand awareness, and invest in product development. Read more about the company’s exciting progress here!
WithOthers is the platform for the next generation of live creators worldwide, making impact events more accessible and more relevant for everyone. Unlike traditional events platforms, their unique combination of fundraising, enhanced event support, and token-based ticket technology gives event creators shows that are simpler, more meaningful, profitable, and engaging for their fans than ever before. The WithOthers team recently wrapped up Season 2 where they partnered with organizations like Planned Parenthood, NAACP, March for Our Lives, Trevor Project, and many more. Learn more about how WithOthers is driving change through music here!
Faeth’s precision nutrition cancer treatment is designed to deprive tumors of the nutrients they need to grow, while providing optimal nutritional support to healthy tissues. The Faeth Program includes meals, therapeutics, and on-demand support from Faeth nutritionists for those participating in their clinical trials. Faeth Therapeutics is currently focusing on four cancers: pancreatic, ovarian, endometrial, and colorectal. Read more about Faeth in the recent The Times piece here!
Masa is on a mission to on-ramp the next billion users to web3, providing a simple user experience through which people can link, manage, and track traditional and cryptocurrency accounts to create a non-fungible credit report - allowing access to credit through fully on-chain services. In August, team Masa launched Masa’s Soulbound Identity, web3’s first Soulbound Token (“SBT”) identity protocol. With over 20,000 Soulbound Identity testnet mints, over 800 developers who have applied to build on Masa and over 800 community members who have applied to be a Masa ambassador, Masa continues to grow as the web3, SBT industry standard. Read more here.
Aavia, the first-to-market hormone health app and platform helping people with ovaries turn their hormones into their superpower, announced their partnership with Alexis Ohanian, Katelin Holloway, and Seven Seven Six. Seven Seven Six led the team's latest round of funding with participation from many existing investors, totaling $7.5M raised to date. Read more about this exciting partnership here.
The Aavia team is hiring a Senior Product Manager and Senior iOS Engineer! https://lnkd.in/e_TuByN
Landing’s mobile waitlist is here! Landing is a community for visual inspiration, curation, and design. Creators can make shareable, shoppable, remixable moodboards to help with any form of creative planning or playing. Ahead of the mobile launch, the Landing team held their first pop-up in New York City last month, elevating female-founded businesses and creators. Join the waitlist to get early access to Landing's mobile app ahead of public launch later this year!
Q3 New Investments
Cache Energy is developing ultra–long duration energy storage technology that is based on low cost, non-toxic, abundant material which can be stored under ambient conditions without special containment. Once charged, the material can store energy for several months with near zero loss and can be easily transported where energy is required - making it as dispatchable as fossil fuels but more safe. Founder, Arpit Dwivedi began his research at the University of Illinois, centering his PhD thesis on developing compact thermal energy storage systems. We welcomed co-investors Climate Capital to the team as well. Learn more about the solution and vision for the future here!
Stealth - Stealth tech co with founders who attend Wharton, and are former execs from Microsoft, Bain & Co, Apna, and Lightspeed.
Unshackled Updates
Our team enjoyed an incredible week in San Francisco where we had the opportunity to spend in person time to brainstorm and strategize our thinking through the next year. We remain incredibly excited about the road ahead and in our commitment to continuing to earn the ability to invest in immigrants at day zero. We are excited to have Sarah and Ale take on more responsibility in the deal flow process, giving them the space to spend more time with founders - We’ve updated our How We Run Our Process article to reflect those changes.
Criminalizing abortion violates human rights and is anti-innovation. We are proud to be part of VCs For Repro - a coalition of VCs united to support access to abortion.
Join us and learn more: https://www.vcsforrepro.com/
Thank you to the founders, funders, and friends who joined Nitin, Sarah, and Ale at our NYC Fall get together! A great evening to re-connect in person and chat all things pre-seed and how to start a company on a visa. We are looking forward to our next get together in San Francisco early December - details to come!
HOW IT STARTED:
HOW IT’S GOING:
⚡️💭 Thinking about starting a company but have questions because of your immigration status? Unshackled's Founding Partner, Nitin Pachisia is offering 15 minute calls to those interested. *Please note these are not pitching conversations - If you would like to pitch please submit your deck here: https://lnkd.in/dkan-rM
Hiring
📽️ Gridraster
👚 Lily.Ai