Note from Kevin
It has been one of our busiest quarters ever at AlleyCorp.
We have had the immense privilege of welcoming new leaders to our team across several different verticals; we incubated and invested in several new companies; and we purchased a landmark building that will become AlleyCorp’s headquarters and a hub for entrepreneurship in NYC.
It has also been a critical time to support our portfolio, which has performed remarkably well under difficult macro circumstances. A hallmark of this success is the deep and trusted relationships we maintain with our extraordinary portfolio company founders and leadership teams to support their missions.
I have been asked frequently of late what I think will happen over the next few quarters with startups and the broader economy. My answer is a version of what I have said many times over the past 15-20 years. Over the medium term, things are only going to get substantially bigger and better in NYC. This is going to be the largest and most compelling startup and technology city in the United States. We — the entrepreneurship and investing community — are at the epicenter of it.
If we look back at other recent challenging periods — the dotcom crash of 2001-2002, the GFC of 2008-2009, the global pandemic two years ago — one thing is constant. These were periods in which some of the most dynamic, innovative and transformative startups were founded. This period will be no different.
Much of that innovation is happening, and many of those companies are being formed right here in New York across myriad industries: enterprise, consumer, entertainment, advertising, finance, healthcare, crypto, and more. In the spirit of Churchill's adage to "never let a good crisis go to waste," AlleyCorp today is the most active it has ever been in identifying new founders and new investors.
AlleyCorp has the right team, in the right place, with the right partners, at the right time. I could not be more excited about our future.
Kevin
A New Home for AlleyCorp and NYC Tech
We are pleased to announce that AlleyCorp has purchased the landmark Singer building at 174 Mott Street (corner of Mott and Broome) in Nolita. Beginning in Summer 2024, our team and incubations, as well as some of our portfolio companies and others in the startup community will be based there. We are planning for a noteworthy restaurant and a coffee shop or retail on the ground floor. Most importantly, the building has a full-floor roof deck that will be the setting for many AlleyCorp parties to come!
It is our hope that not only will the AlleyCorp Building serve as a spectacular workspace for some of New York's most promising startups, but as importantly, will be a beacon of entrepreneurship and innovation in its immediate neighborhood.
Team Expansion
Jay Kao, Partner & General Counsel
We are overjoyed to welcome Jay as AlleyCorp’s newest Partner and General Counsel. Jay joins us from the D.E. Shaw group, where she was Vice President and Counsel and spent the last 10 years of her career. Jay is an avid angel investor and advisor to social entrepreneurs, and is an Executive Board Member at Birthright Africa and a Board Member at Air Train. Jay holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Michelle Garland, Partner and Founder & Managing Partner of Soul Search Partners
We are thrilled formally welcome Michelle to the AlleyCorp team as a Partner as she continues to build the best exec teams in healthtech via her new executive recruiting firm, Soul Search Partners (announcement here!) As an AlleyCorp Partner, Michelle will also incubate and invest in new companies in partnership with our Healthcare team.
Soul Search is a boutique firm of headhunters specializing in building the leadership teams for both early and later-stage healthcare technology companies. Michelle built her reputation as the leading headhunter for digital health companies at Daversa Partners where she spent 19 years growing the practice. Prior to Daversa Partners, Michelle spent a decade at Dow Jones for the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones International. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. More on Soul Search Partners below.
Grace Fish, Associate
We are so pleased to welcome back Grace as a full-time investor at AlleyCorp, where she works on incubation ideas and identifies new investment opportunities. Previously, Grace operated in high-growth marketplace businesses, running supply operations, business development, and revenue operations at HotelTonight and then Airbnb in San Francisco, London, and Berlin.
Grace graduated with an MBA from Stanford GSB, where she was and remains a founding board member of Galvanizer, a female founder incubator supporting more women to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Grace worked with AlleyCorp during both years of business school.
Wilson MacMillan, Technical Executive Recruiter
We are very happy to welcome Wilson to the team as an Executive Technical Recruiter. Wilson drives talent initiatives at AlleyCorp and helps with bringing on new executives for our portfolio companies. Prior to joining AlleyCorp, Wilson spent time at Kindred Partners, recruiting C-suite executives for venture-backed technology companies.
Nicole Colgrove, Senior Accountant
We are very excited to welcome Nicole to the AlleyCorp finance team as Senior Accountant, where she will lead and support myriad financial initiatives across the team. Nicole joins us from Inhibrx, where she was an Accountant, after spending the early part of her career in technology. Nicole holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a B.A. in Mathematics from California State University Long Beach.
New Partners: Susannah Shipton and Jorge Colindres
We are very pleased to share that Susannah and Jorge have been promoted to Partner after both joining AlleyCorp three years ago. Susannah spends her time investing and incubating across consumer and e-commerce, and Jorge focuses on incubations and investments in developer tools, tech infrastructure, and emerging markets (especially LatAm).
Expansion of AlleyCorp Talent: Announcing AlleySearch and Collaborative Foundership
Knowing that people are absolutely central to everything we do, we have spent significant time over the past year expanding AlleyCorp’s Talent focus. We are happy to share that we have since formalized two major teams and initiatives to further grow and cultivate the ecosystem of founders, entrepreneurs, and executive leaders in New York.
AlleySearch
The quarter we launched AlleySearch, which will focus on both internal incubation and portfolio talent searches as well as external searches. Born out of AlleyCorp’s decades-long expertise in building NYC startups, AlleySearch leverages AlleyCorp’s ecosystem and team to help seasoned and new startup operators find promising new opportunities in early stage companies. If you are interested in potentially working with AlleySearch, please email michael@alleycorp.com.
Collaborative Foundership
Collaborative Foundership is a newly formalized initiative that reflects AlleyCorp’s longstanding practice of cooperative company building. In our many daily conversations with leaders and founders across all verticals, we constantly hear fascinating pain points and opportunities that could lead to new companies. Collaborative Foundership is a means for leaders to pursue and explore new ideas with AlleyCorp without leaving their full-time roles.
As we push ideas forward through Collaborative Foundership, leaders regularly become Co-founders of the new company while we work together to bring on the full-time founding and operating team together. Collaborative co-founders remain closely involved with the company as core-stakeholders throughout the company’s growth.
We are of course especially excited about pursuing collaborative ideas with this group. If you are excited about Collaborative Foundership, please reach out to wendy@alleycorp.com.
Expansion of AlleyCorp Engineering
Our Montreal-based development team, AlleyCorp Nord, has grown to 45 engineers over the past two years under the fearless leadership of Florencia Herra-Vega. Building on this momentum, we are excited to share that we have hired the leadership team for our new engineering team AlleyCorp Sur, based in Bogotá.
AlleyCorp Sur, which currently has 10 engineers, will formally launch later this year. We will begin rapidly growing this engineering team to partner with AlleyCorp’s incubations and portfolio. Knowing that hiring superior technical talent continues to be one of the greatest challenges (and opportunities) for early stage companies, we are excited to further accelerate our ability to pair amazing engineers with new and growing teams.
Healthcare News
It was a banner quarter for the AlleyCorp healthcare team. In addition to a number of new investments (and a new incubation) outlined below, the team further expanded its platform with the formal launch of a new pre-eminent New York Healthcare conference (DHNY), and an embedded partnership with famed healthcare exec recruiter Michelle Garland’s new firm, Soul Search.
Digital Health New York (DHNY)
Over the past 5 years, more than $17 billion has been invested in New York start-ups - exponentially expanding the healthcare footprint. During this time, New York has become the epicenter of healthcare innovation, yet it lacked a signature conference for entrepreneurs, investors, health systems and payors. It is in recognition of this opportunity that in partnership with New York City Health Business Leaders, we launched Digital Health New York (DHNY). DHNY is a connected community that inspires, convenes, and connects digital health leaders and the ecosystem in New York.
DHNY held its first annual summit in September, bringing together a select group of 200 leaders across every facet of the healthcare industry. Across a sold-out launch party at Zero Bond and full-day conference at The Edge with speaker panels, networking, and keynotes, DHNY delivered on the promise of an entirely new precedent for healthcare gatherings in New York.
Announcing our Partnership with Soul Search
Last month, AlleyCorp Partner Michelle Garland announced her new executive recruiting firm, Soul Search Partners (announcement here), and, as mentioned above, she also joined the AlleyCorp team as a Partner earlier this year. We are very excited to share that Soul Search will be AlleyCorp's healthcare search partner, working closely with the healthcare team to bring together transformative new company ideas with seasoned healthcare and technology executives to bring them to life.
It takes great people to build great companies, but we know that in healthcare the stakes are often even higher and the demands more complex. The practice of taking care of human lives necessitates brilliance and dedication from a mind-bogglingly broad range of people and practitioners to bring daily services to our population. Healthcare is also an industry that is defined by purpose and contribution. In recognition of this, we could not be excited for this next chapter in partnership with Michelle and her team.
New Investments
Mural, a new crypto firm building a simple and secure way to issue loyalty rewards and create engaging experiences with brand communities, raised $5.6 million in seed funding. Digital Currency Group led the round, with participation from AlleyCorp Galaxy Ventures, Firstminute capital, and 1886 Ventures.
Erithmitic, which is reimagining the massive Commercial Real Estate (CRE) lending space, closed a $6 million seed round led by AlleyCorp and Tishman Speyer Ventures. Erithmetic offers borrowers and brokers reliable and competitive institutional financing by leveraging proprietary data and software.
Pace, which helps companies convert, retain, and grow their customer bases by prioritizing time and effort on the users who need it most, raised its seed round from Work-Bench with participation from AlleyCorp.
Elion, which is building the independent and authoritative digital health solutions marketplace, raised its seed round led by NEA and Max Ventures, with participation from AlleyCorp.
News
AlleyCorp portfolio company Yuvo Health, a leading technology-enabled administrative and managed care solution for community health centers, announced a major partnership with Fidelis Care, New York State’s largest medicaid managed care organization offering high quality, affordable coverage for children and adults. Read more here.
David Siegel, CEO of Meetup (in which AlleyCorp is the majority shareholder), has written Decide & Conquer, a fascinating first-hand account of what really happened at WeWork. Read the preview here.
Kevin spoke with Brad Svrluga at the NYC Summit hosted by Primary Venture Partners and Inspired Capital. The theme: why New York will win.