SMBs have traditionally lacked the resources to build out robust benefits department forcing them to outsource benefit decisions to traditional brokers and bear an increasingly disproportionate burden in rising healthcare costs. Nava, an employee benefits brokerage founded by the founders of Hightower and Kareem Zaki of Thrive Capital, brings affordable healthcare to the 160M Americans who rely on employers for health insurance. With Nava, small-to-midsized businesses are equipped with the resources, tools, and expertise to deliver valuable yet accessible benefits to their employees, while driving down overall plan costs for the employer. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO, Cofounder, and repeat entrepreneur Brandon Weber to learn more about the genesis for Nava, the company’s mission to make healthcare more transparent, and the company’s recent funding round led by Thrive Capital.
Where We Are Investing Now: Neuroscience
Neuroscience has always been a focus area for Social Starts and Joyance Partners and should continue to be due to the large and clear unmet need. Stress, anxiety, mental illness, and their associated impacts are at all-time highs. People seem desperate for solutions. Science points toward many potential new approaches. We also recognize that there […]
5 Factors Which Define the Scope of Your Competition
In 1979, Michael E. Porter proposed his Five Forces framework for analyzing the competitive environment which I think makes even more sense today. Every existing business, as well as every startup, needs to reassess their product or service in the context of these five forces.
#NYCtech Week in Review: 10/18/20-10/24/20
The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 10/26/20
The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report takes us on a trip across various ecosystems in the US, highlighting some of the notable funding activity in the various markets that we track. The notable startup fundings for the week ending 10/24/20 featuring funding details for Intellimize, Pulley, FinLocker, and fifteen more rounds you must know about.
Pillar Raises $7M for its Platform for Families to Stay Organized While Caring For Aging Loved Ones
For the 50M+ Americans who act as informal caregivers to an older loved one, the caregiver is often overwhelmed with keeping track of a loved one’s healthcare, finances, and more. Pillar is the digital platform that makes it easier for families to protect and care for their loved ones by organizing and store important information such as medical records, legal documents, and financial accounts – all online. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Michael Bloch to learn more about how COVID-19 forced a pivot, how his own personal experience caring for his mother served as the foundation for the idea, and the company’s recent funding round from investors that include Kleiner Perkins, Zach Weinberg, Nat Turner (cofounders of Flatiron Health), Adam Nash, Zach Perret, and Will Hockey.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 10/23/2020
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 10/23/2020 featuring funding details for Cobble, Here, and much more.
Oula Raises $3.2M to Modernize Maternity Care for Expectant Mothers
Expectant mothers are so often presented with binary options for childbirth – a heavily medicalized approach in a hospital with an obstetrician or a “natural birth” at home with a midwife, neither of which provides the multidimensional and convenient care that women want. Oula, a modern maternity center, blends the best of both options so women don’t have to choose and weaves technology into the experience to provide safe, convenient, and personalized care. AlleyWatch caught up with Cofounders Adrianne Nickerson and Elaine Purcell to learn more about the company’s experience of building a brick and mortar business in the middle of the pandemic and the company’s oversubscribed seed round from investors that include Collaborative Fund. Female Founders Fund, 8VC, and Rock Health.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 10/22/2020
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 10/22/2020 featuring funding details for Lili, ROKT, and much more.
What New Brands Need to Know
Many emerging entrepreneurs understand one thing: they need to build a brand. A business is much more than the goods and/or services you provide. Your business is your relationship with your customers, your reputation in the marketplace, and what people think of when they think of your company. All of this equals brand. The problem is, while many people understand what a brand is, they don’t understand how to build one themselves. Keep reading to find out what I think most new brands need to know.
Sonrai Security Raises $20M to Uncover and Map Cloud Platform Security Risks
Brendan Hannigan and Sandy Bird are repeat entrepreneurs. They founded Q1 Labs, a company they started, scaled, and sold to IBM for ~$600M. The duo is now building Sonrai Security, an enterprise identity and data governance platform for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Kubernetes. Hannigan joined AlleyWatch to share more about the company, the process of fundraising, and the company’s recent funding round from investors that include Menlo Ventures, Polaris Partners, and Ten Eleven Ventures.