Sandro Roco, self-financed Sanzo, an Asian-inspired sparkling water brand, for a few years, which meant (pre-pandemic) taking subways with a hand truck, Ubers at 6AM to beat traffic (and surge pricing) and meeting 1:1 with customers, retail partners, and suppliers. Today, the product is found in Whole Foods throughout the Northeast, available direct-to-consumer, and the business is profitable. Roco shares some insight into how the recent popularity of Asian culture in America inspired the launch of Sanzo, self-funding the company, operating as a solo founder, and the experience of raising capital primarily through angel investors rather than funds.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 8/6/2020
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 8/6/2020 featuring funding details for Sanzo, Orum.io, and much more.
The 15 Largest Global Startup Funding Rounds of July 2020
Smalls Raises Another $9M for its Direct-to-Consumer Cat Food Brand
Despite cats as pets outnumbering the number of dogs, cats have been overlooked with most of the focus on our canine friends, and much of the products for cats are really just repurposed from dog-centric offerings. Smalls is the direct-to-consumer human-grade cat food brand designed specifically for cats and their loyal owners. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Matt Michaelson to learn more about building a cat-centric brand in a dog-centric world, the company’s biology-based approach, and recent funding round from investors that include Left Lane Capital, Founder Collective, and Companion Fund.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 8/5/2020
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 8/5/2020 featuring funding details for ROOM, Smalls, and much more.
The AlleyWatch July 2020 New York Venture Capital Funding Report
NYC startup funding exceeds $1.1B for July; up a healthy 12.24% from June and 12.63% from July of 2019. Find out where it went… Aggregate statistics for all NYC funding deals by stage of funding (Early, Series A, Series B, and Late) including mention of notable rounds for July 2020.
KUDO Raises $6M to Make Multilingual Web Meetings Seamless
In 2017, KUDO launched its Language-as-a-Service platform to support multilingual web conferences and events. The pandemic has exacerbated the need for these services and the company has gone from interpreting 200 thousand minutes to roughly 30 million minutes per month. CEO and Cofounder Fardad Zabetian shares some more about the impressive traction, expansion plans, and recent round of funding from investors that include Felicis, Global Founders Capital, ID8 Investments, and Advancit Capital.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 8/4/2020
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 8/4/2020 featuring funding details for Radish, Yotpo, and much more.
The 14 Largest US Tech Startup Funding Rounds of July 2020
Why Our Founder Reputation Matters
How does my reputation as a Founder (not my startup) affect me over the long term? If my reputation is tarnished, where will it hurt me? Where does that reputation really come from anyway and what can I do to develop it?
7 Success Factors When Your People are the Solution
The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement.