Whether the future of work is in-office at a traditional office structure, hybrid, or fully remote is yet to be seen but one thing is for sure is that organizations will need IT support to meet the needs of a dynamic and evolving workforce. Companies that had the proper IT support infrastructure in place were able to respond quickly to address the pandemic without significant interruption to workflows. Electric, a pioneer in the tech-enabled managed service provider (MSP) space, supports the needs of the small and medium-sized businesses that need a dedicated IT team without incurring the cost and administrative burden of bringing these functions in-house. The company’s 100+ IT technicians are able to fully remotely manage things like a client’s networks, devices, security, applications, onboarding/offboarding, and data monitoring. Employees are able to reach an IT expert within 10 minutes to handle their inquiries using popular chat communication platforms like Slack or Teams. Electric now provides support for over 700 businesses that comprise 40,000+ employees. The company has more than doubled its ARR in the last year, acquired two businesses, and expanded the team to ~450 employees. AlleyWatch caught up with Electric CEO and Founder Ryan Denehy to learn more about the company’s growth, traction, strategic plans, latest funding round from investors that include GGV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, Greenspring Associates, 01 Advisors, Atreides Management, Vintage Investment Partners, and Slack.
Funded in New York
Clyde Raises Another $25M for its Extended Warranty Platform That Strengthens Relationships Between Merchants and Customers
COVID has changed online shopping forever as consumer preferences have shifted and the convenience of quick delivery without leaving home has surpassed the in-store experience altogether. Retailers have been forced to re-evaluate the framework of their offerings and deepen their relationships with customers through digital offerings. Clyde is a provider of extended warranties that integrates directly with the checkout processes of e-commerce merchants, giving consumers a seamless and convenient way to protect their purchases while retailers are able to add incremental revenue to their online sales. Clyde works with all the major e-commerce platforms through plug-and-play integration and also offers a flexible API option for custom integrations. On the backend, merchants can monitor the entire warranty program including performance, claim status, and customer information while Clyde handles the entire claims experience. Merchants using the platform are able to increase the warranty purchase rate to 18% from the industry average of 4%. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Brandon Gell to learn more about the AHA moment that led to the formation of Clyde, the importance of building customer loyalty in the digital commerce era, the company’s strategic plans, latest funding round from investors that include Headline, Vulcan, Spark Capital, and Crosslink.
Chapter Raises $17M to Allow Americans to Navigate the Endless Medicare Plan Options
The open enrollment period for Medicare started on Friday, October 15th and will continue through early December. For the 60M+ Americans, this is a critial period where they can make changes to and add/drop coverage. For most Americans, navigating the 24,000+ options available is a difficult and arduous process without help. Chapter is a Medicare advisory platform that uses a blend of technology and a trained team of advisors to decipher all plans at a microscopic level, ensuring that members are able to enroll in the plans that are best suited for their needs based on cost and coverage. Typically, Medicare advisors are incentivized by insurance companies to enroll members and naturally, these advisors steer members towards plans that offer the best compensation; often creating a misalignment. Chapter’s advisors are all full-time employees that are not compensated directly based on commissions. Combining this dynamic with plan data that Chapter’s technology generates, members are confident that are receiving unbiased and impartial recommendations. AlleyWatch caught up with Chapter CEO and Cofounder Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz to learn more about the inspiration for the business, the company’s future plans, and latest round of funding from Narya Capital, Susa Ventures, Maverick Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, Core Innovation Capital, and Health2047 Capital Partners.
Oshi Health Raises $23M for its Virtual Care Platform for Those with GI Conditions
The pandemic led to the rapid acceleration in the adoption of telehealth services. In February of this year, there were 38x more outpatient virtual visits compared to February of 2020. Now the landscape is poised to expand on the earliest iterations and specialized care is one of the primary avenues. Oshi Health is a virtual-first care platform targeted for those with gastrointestinal (GI) conditions. Users of the platform have access to a suite of professionals including licensed gastroenterologists, practitioners, mental health professionals, dieticians, and health coaches. Under the unified care plan, patients that require in-person services are connected with a network of pre-vetted providers. Those with newly diagnosed chronic conditions can work hand-in-hand with experts to understand the impact of triggering behaviors in real-time; something that’s just not possible when you need to schedule an appointment and see someone in person. Oshi works directly with employers and health plans to offer their services to employees and members, ultimately leading to long-term savings and improved patient outcomes. AlleyWatch caught up with Oshi Health CEO Sam Holliday to learn more about how Oshi is bringing much-needed care to those with GI conditions, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding from investors that include Flare Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Frist Cressey Ventures, CVS Health Ventures, Takeda Digital Ventures, Jonathan Bush, Nat Turner, Zach Weinberg, Eric M. Stone, and Russell Glass.
Humming Homes Raises $5.6M for its End-to-End Home Management Platform
A home typically represents the single largest asset that individuals or families have. Yet, there has not been much technology devoted to making the management of a home more seamless. Homeownership requires not only financial commitments but a significant investment in time. Humming Homes is on a mission to streamline the experience with technology. It’s an end-to-end home management platform that provides continual access to home service experts, a vetted marketplace of vendors for all home maintenance and renovation needs, as well as a console that provides data-driven insight to get a holistic understanding of your homeownership maintenance needs. The platform is currently servicing “mass-affluent” markets with single-family homes like the Hamptons, Westchester, and Greenwich, with imminent plans for expansion to South Florida, Los Angeles, Scottsdale, Austin, Houston. AlleyWatch caught up with Humming Homes CEO and Cofounder Adeel Mallick to learn more about the genesis for the business, the company’s strategic plans, and latest round of funding from investors that include Greycroft, AlleyCorp, Sound Ventures, Thrive Capital, New Valley Ventures (Vector Group LTD.), and Abby Levy.
Geopipe Raises $2.4M for its Platform That Provides 3D Models of Cities Powered by AI
3D geospatial models are superior to 2D models when it comes to planning purposes as 3D is able to effectively capture terrain, sites, buildings, vegetation, infrastructure, and landscape elements. These can also be layered with additional data sets for use in presentations, planning, exploration, analysis, and management applications in a dynamic format that can readily adapt to changing conditions. However, building these 3D models has traditionally been expensive and time-consuming. Geopipe is a deep learning-powered engine that creates what the company calls “digital twins” that are constructed from raw sensor data and then combined with data processed through a semantic engine to add further context to create the Metaverse, a “massively multi-use environment that replicates our real world”. The platform is versatile as it can be applied to a variety of use cases including training simulations, city planning, coastal resiliency planning, construction, and even gaming. Geopipe’s models can be integrated into existing workflows that use 3D software or gaming/VR engines and can be accessed for as low as $100/mo for commercial use. AlleyWatch caught up with Geopipe CEO and Cofounder Christopher Mitchell, Ph.D. to learn more about the genesis of the company, future plans, latest round of funding from investors that include Village Global, Matrix Partners, the Alexa Fund, and AME Cloud Ventures.
Stellar Health Raises $60M+ to Power Value-Based Care with Technology
There’s been a growing movement towards outcome-based healthcare payments as value-based care moves to the forefront of the discussion on how to contain ballooning healthcare costs. However, implementing true value-based healthcare is a challenge. In order for care teams to be incentivized to understand the full extent of a patient’s condition to provide comprehensive care plans, they need to track various records across disparate sources, introducing a logistical hurdle in terms of workflow. Stellar Health is a point-of-care platform that provides practitioners with an actionable checklist of recommended actions to improve patient outcomes and compliance based on clinical and behavioral data, broken into simple steps. The platform also includes an analytics suite and structured incentive payment program, both of which are designed to meet the needs of payors, providers, and healthcare systems by ensuring that providers are providing optimal care and being compensated for such while payors can rest assured that costs are contained and patient outcomes are optimized. Stellar currently has over 60+ collaborations, covering 300K patients across 20 states. AlleyWatch caught up with Stellar Health Cofounder and CEO Michael Meng to learn more about the future of value-based care, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding from investors that include General Atlantic, Point72 Ventures and Primary Venture Partners.
Betterment Raises $60M for its Digital Investment Platform for Employers, Customers, and Advisors
Robo-advisory investment firms nearly control just shy of a $500B as of 2020. With millennials and Gen Z building significant investable assets, the assets under management are expected to triple by 2025. Betterment is a digital investment adviser that offers its advisory and management services catered towards three segments – retail investors, businesses through 401Ks, and financial advisors. Using algorithms that match appropriate investments to a customer’s short-term and long-term financial needs, the platform is able to offer tax-advantaged investment management for a fraction of the fees charged by traditional investment advisors. The company, founded in 2008, now has $32B AUM across 700,000 clients. AlleyWatch caught up with Betterment CEO Sarah Levy to learn more about the company’s growth, expansion plans, latest round of funding from investors that include Treasury, Kinnevik, Bessemer Venture Partners, Francisco Partners, Menlo Ventures, Anthemis Group, Globespan Capital Partners, Citi Ventures, and The Private Shares Fund, Aflac Ventures, and ID8 Investments.
RecSpot Raises $200K for its Social Recommendation Platform
According to an analysis of Fakespot data, as much as 39% of online reviews and recommendations are fake. With an increasing number of bots, anonymous users, and incentivized reviews, would-be consumers are inundated with often inaccurate and unreliable information. RecSpot is a social recommendation platform that only displays recommendations from friends and trustworthy contacts. Users are able to curate their own personalized list in a centralized destination rather than sending individual messages and going through the disparate experience of visiting dozens of different channels. The company, which just launched, is focused on entertainment at launch, with recommendations focusing on television and film. The company will launch into new verticals including dining, hospitality, shopping, and more. The app is live and available for iOS and Android. AlleyWatch caught up with RecSpot Founder Ian O’Brien to learn more about the inspiration for the business, the company’s strategic roadmap, recent round of funding, and much, much more.
echo3D Raises $4M for its Cloud Platform That Makes Deploying 3D, VR, and AR Content Seamless
One of the key challenges preventing the widespread use of 3D, VR, and AR technologies is that achieving scale efficiently is difficult when development teams have to account for tailoring their projects for a growing ecosystem of specific devices and then maintaining these siloed experiences. echo3D is a content management system and content delivery network that gives developers the tool to confidently build using its back-end platform technology and ensure that the user experience will be fluid throughout. Similar to what headless architecture has done for commerce, echo3D decouples the back-end from the front with server-side infrastructure, providing the tools and a network platform. By essentially streamlining the creation of and offloading the maintenance of the back end for emerging technology development, like AWS has done for servers, echo3D allows developers to get to market faster and focus on building greater user experiences on the front end. The company, which just rebranded from echoAR, already has 12,000+ developers using the platform to build, maintain, and distribute their applications through a freemium model. AlleyWatch caught up with echo3D CEO Alon Grinshpoon to learn more about how a unified cloud infrastructure for 3D/AR/VR applications will foster widespread creation of tomorrow’s cutting edge applications, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding from investors that include Konvoy Ventures, Space Capital, and Remagine Ventures.
Height Raises $14M for its All-In-One Flexible Project Management Platform That’s Designed to Scale as Your Company Grows
Project management tools are supposed to make our professional lives more organized, efficient, and ultimately easier. However, organizations face challenges related to adoption, onboarding, and differing preferences across different teams that often create siloed and disparate systems that are not in the interest of collaboration in an organization. Height is an all-in-one flexible project management tool that’s designed to work for the entire company. The one solution, offers configurable building blocks, allowing teams to implement any type of workflow they prefer, whether it’s tasks for engineers or calendars for sales. The blocks serve as a powerful growth agent providing the organization with the confidence that they will be able to scale without having to worry about introducing a new project management solution down the road. Height is largely based on already familiar tools like spreadsheets and chat, resulting in a quick learning curve for organizations and employees to get set up. Key integrations with commonly-used platforms like GitHub, Figma, and Zendesk ensure that organizations are not adopting another disparate tool that employees need to pay attention to but rather able to leverage Height as a true organizational-wide collaboration tool. AlleyWatch caught up with Height CEO and Founder Michael Villar to learn more about how Height brings a fresh perspective into project management platforms, the company’s strategic plans, and latest round of funding led by Redpoint Ventures.