AlleyCorp in Q2
The latest news from AlleyCorp's team and companies
Note from Kevin
Over the last quarter, much has changed and much has stayed the same. While macro conditions remain uncertain and the funding environment has gotten predictably tighter for many, AI has ushered in a new tech cycle (and a new early-stage hype cycle) and the economy has proven resilient.
We are still seeing great companies get funded –– we had several major fundraises in our portfolio, and AlleyCorp made 12 investments this quarter –– but it is much tougher across the board. As I’ve said, this is a healthier environment for early-stage investors than one in which companies are over-hyped and over-inflated.
At AlleyCorp, we are continuing to deeply investigate areas where truly new opportunities exist. There is still too much activity in spaces that are too mature for early-stage venture capital. In consumer e-commerce, for instance, nearly every problem has already been solved. I can buy almost any product in the world with two clicks and have it delivered to my doorstep very quickly. I don’t think we are going to see many transformational companies in saturated spaces in the next decade, but there is plenty of capital that can be directed to new areas.
We’re excited to be building in spaces that are still underserved by technology, like the maritime sector, where business is still done using landlines and fax machines. We will soon be launching a new company in the women’s fertility space, an area where there continues to be a tremendous amount of unmet demand, lack of access, and financial burden. Advancements in developer tools are far from reaching their peak. And with the rapid adoption of AI tools, we know that semiconductors and hardware (only 1% of VC investing right now) companies are going to be essential to powering that progress and will be big winners.
As we build in these new areas, we’re always searching for incredible talent to help us create category-defining companies. Across all domains, we firmly believe that people and execution build great companies, not ideas. If you know exceptional leaders ready to take the entrepreneurial leap with AlleyCorp’s resources, mentorship, and team alongside them, don’t hesitate to reach out.
We hope that everyone has a great summer and look forward to seeing you in the fall.
New Promotions: Omar Njie
We’re thrilled to announce that Omar Njie has been promoted to Principal on our Healthcare team. Omar, who has been with AlleyCorp since August 2021, also just completed his medical degree from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in May. We congratulate him on that tremendous accomplishment and are so excited to add another physician-investor to our team. Omar will continue to focus on incubation, identifying new investment opportunities, and supporting portfolio companies across our Healthcare vertical.
Portfolio Fundraises
Memora Health, the leading intelligent care enablement platform, announced a strategic investment of $30 million led by General Catalyst with participation from Northwell Holdings, Andreessen Horowitz, Frist Cressey Ventures, and others.
Yuvo Health, a leading technology-enabled administrative and managed-care solution for community health centers, announced a $20.2 million Series A round led by Mastry Ventures with participation from AlleyCorp, AV8 Ventures, New York Ventures, Vamos Ventures, and others.
Upwage, an integrated marketplace that leverages AI and big data to deliver the thing workers care most about (better wages), announced a $7.2 million Seed round led by AlleyCorp, with participation from BBG Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Precursor Ventures, and others.
Recent Investments
BoxHub, the largest online marketplace for shipping containers in the United States, announced $12.4 million in Series A funding led by AlleyCorp with participation from Solasta Ventures, Interplay VC, and FJ Labs.
AlleyCorp led a Seed investment round in For Wellness, a fast-growing functional nutrition brand co-founded by professional golfer Phil Mickelson and Dave Phillips, co-founder of Titleist Performance Institute and coach of current Masters champion Jon Rahm.
AvoMD, a no-code platform enabling clinicians and hospitals to easily make their own apps for use at the point-of-care, announced $5 million in Seed funding led by AlleyCorp, with participation from Epsilon Health, MedMountain Ventures, Dr. Kavita Patel, and others.
Cascade Health, an intelligent platform for healthcare transparency, announced the launch of its first two products and $1.7 million in funding led by AlleyCorp.
AlleyCorp made an investment in Glacier, which is building the future of recycling technology with proprietary robotic design that picks and sorts with high precision and cutting-edge AI that accurately identifies anything a human can.
AlleyCorp Impact and AlleyCorp Nord Team Up
AlleyCorp Impact and AlleyCorp Nord have launched a new collaboration whereby selected non-profits will be given free engineering support to build their products or services.
In May, we welcomed our first participant, Podsie, a startup within Teaching Lab. Podsie is a personalized and automated learning tool built by teachers that integrates proven research on how to improve student learning using personalized review, spacing and interleaving, and repetition. Our 6 month engagement with Podsie brings AlleyCorp Nord’s combined product design, software development, natural language processing, and generative AI expertise to help build Podsie’s math content. We expect The Math Suite will launch in pilot classrooms in time for this upcoming school year and scale to reach 30,000 students already affiliated with Teaching Lab by the end of the year. Building on the success of this new collaboration, we will be launching with our second grantee in the coming months.
AlleyCorp Team in the News
“We believe there should be 10x more robotics startups than there are today. There are gaps and opportunities everywhere. … With companies like Viam making hardware innovation accessible to software engineers, more builders have the tools to get started. Even in logistics, the most saturated space in robotics, fewer than 10% of warehouses are automated.”
Abe Murray, Robotics General Partner, spoke with TechCrunch about where the robotics sector is and what the future looks like.
“The healthcare industry’s shift to value won’t happen because of wishful thinking or hopeful platitudes. To continue driving this kind of massive change in strategy, economics, and workflow processes, we still need to overcome some fundamental challenges and barriers. But first, we have to recognize and face them.”
Healthcare Partner Bill Georges authored a piece for Pearl Health on the current limitations in value-based care and how to overcome existing barriers.
DHNY Summit: September 21st
The DHNY Summit is back on September 21st. The conference brings together an impactful group of entrepreneurs, investors, payers, providers, and executives for a day of learning and networking. Carefully curated to assemble a diverse group of perspectives, DHNY is by invitation only, but you can request an invite here.
News
AlleyCorp Impact General Partner Tanya Beja spoke at SXSW Edu about why dollars are going to data literacy and shared insights with The Learning Agency about how AlleyCorp Impact is supporting startups that are making a difference in the world.
Abe Murray joined the Robot Revolution podcast to talk about growth and opportunities in robotics and automation, what we look for when investing in the space, and why he’s a techno-optimist.
Martha Stewart announced a partnership with Silvertree, the wearable safety device designed for active older adults.
Ana-Maria Constantin, Co-Founder & CEO of Cascade Health, spoke at TEDxBoston on How AI Can Transform Decision-Making in Healthcare and took home the award for GeekWire’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
Cesar Herrera, Founder & CEO of Yuvo Health, spoke at the Columbia University HITLAB Innovator’s Summit about why startups should stop being afraid to innovate in the Medicaid space.
Diana Health, a network of modern women’s health practices, opened their newest practice in Springfield, TN, their third in the state.
Nosis Bio was one of the 21 startups selected from over 1,300 entrants for the AWS Gen AI Accelerator.
OMNY Health launched a partnership with Datavant to accelerate the delivery of real-world data to clinical researchers and drug developers.
Thyme Care, a value-based oncology platform, announced new capabilities in its oncology care management platform.