AlleyCorp in Q2: Introducing Radical AI, our largest pre-seed check ever
Radical AI is the largest pre-seed check we have ever written at AlleyCorp. Here’s why.
Note from Kevin
Materials science touches almost every aspect of our lives –– from the buttons on your iPhone and color of your laptop to AI chips, space aircraft, and nuclear power plants.
And that’s just what exists today.
Novel materials are the building blocks to what comes next: Landing humans on Mars. Airplanes that get you from New York to London in half the time. Semiconductors that go beyond silicon.
Materials R&D is the engine that will take humanity into the future, but the way we discover materials today is far too expensive and takes decades too long. For a civilization that is advancing forward faster than ever, our process of researching materials feels stagnant.
Recent advancements in AI are transforming this landscape, offering new opportunities to radically reimagine the way materials are designed, developed, and discovered.
As a result, we’ll be able to shift the R&D paradigm –– from ten scientists working on a single problem, to one scientist working on ten.
Radical AI takes an interdisciplinary approach to the problem by building a proprietary, multi-modal foundation model for materials science and a self-driving (fully automated) lab for high-throughput, rapid experimentation.
The model simulates billions of possible materials combinations, weeding out likely failures before testing in the lab. By bringing their computational work into the lab, Radical’s flywheel is set in motion: capturing and feeding experimental data back into their model to create the world’s most advanced materials dataset and AI engine.
A mission of this magnitude requires incredible leadership, and we could not have a better founding team in Joseph Krause, Jorge Colindres, and Dr. Gerd Ceder, a pioneering researcher in computational materials design.
Joseph and Jorge were technical investors on our investment team at AlleyCorp who immediately recognized the opportunity for a company like Radical to not only address existing markets, but also create entirely new ones.
Joseph has been a materials scientist at the forefront of applied R&D, while Jorge has spent the last decade building software and tech teams from the ground up. Dr. Ceder brings 30+ years of materials science lab experience as the senior faculty scientist in the materials division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Distinguished Chair in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Berkeley. He also led the Materials Genome project with the Obama administration and, most importantly, has already built a fully autonomous lab.
In just a few months, five other PhDs have joined the team. Their mission is to create the most advanced commercial materials R&D facility in the world, right here in New York City.
In tech, we often talk about big ideas that will solve our most urgent problems, yet these problems can take generations to solve. Radical AI is building the engine to solve them in our lifetime.
NYC Tech’s New HQ
As construction on our new office building progresses, we’ve started having conversations with firms who would like to make 368 Broome Street their New York headquarters. Workspace options will be flexible, ranging from dedicated desk rentals to full floor leases.
Space is filling up quickly. If you’re interested in learning more, please reply or indicate your interest here and a member of our team will be in touch.
At the site, we recently began work on a spectacular shared rooftop (depicted in the rendering above). Once open, the roof will host small group meetings, 150-person happy hours, outdoor screenings and lectures, impromptu sunny lunches, and intimate dinners overlooking the city skyline. In addition to the rooftop, we’ll have an indoor event space and multiple private dining rooms in our ground-floor restaurant.
We anticipate an opening date in Spring 2025.
New Incubations
Braided Health, founded by Jeff De Flavio, Ella Schwartz, and Jeff Grahling, brings value-based care to home and community-based services (HCBS), through more effective person-centered service plans. We serve individuals dually enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, who represent our healthcare system’s most vulnerable patients, and ensure they receive home and community-based services that enable them to thrive and age at home.
Our analytics platform uniquely brings together HCBS and health data to power an evidence-based approach to caring and supporting for dually enrolled members. Our technology streamlines administrative work and allows care managers to focus on the holistic needs of the individuals, resulting in significantly better outcomes at lower costs.
New Investments
AlleyCorp led Eyebot’s $6 million Seed financing with Ubiquity Ventures, with participation from Humba Ventures, Village Global, Ravelin, and others. Eyebot utilizes AI-powered kiosks to provide consumers with 90-second vision tests without the involvement of an optometrist.
AlleyCorp made an investment in Ordo, a digital food service management company that provides fresh food to public and private schools made by local chefs, nationwide. Ordo designs fresh recipes, streamlines procurement, and drives up meal satisfaction –– all in an asset-lite manner.
AlleyCorp made a $1 million investment in Halo Braid, the winner of our Peerless Pitch Competition in June. Halo Braid is an automated hair braiding solution for stylists, applying AI and robotics to greatly reduce the time it takes to craft braids.
AlleyCorp led the $10.3 million Series A financing for Whoosh, which is building the modern tech stack for club and hospitality industry operations. 8VC, Alaris Capital, Bienville, Craft Ventures, Operator Partners, and others participated in the round.
Portfolio Fundraises in Q2
Blueground, a platform for move-in ready homes for longer-term stays, has reached unicorn status after announcing their $45 million Series D funding round.
Thyme Care, the leading value-based cancer care enabler, announced a strategic investment from Echo Health Ventures, which invests on behalf of multiple Blues plans, and CVS Health Ventures, the venture arm of CVS Health.
Positive Development, which is on a mission to deliver Developmental Care to as many neurodivergent children and families as possible, announced a strategic investment from Healthworx, the innovation and investment arm of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. This is the fund’s largest investment to date.
Special Initiatives & Events
New York Tech Town Hall with Mayor Eric Adams
Next week, AlleyCorp is hosting a Town Hall for the NYC tech industry with Mayor Eric Adams. With 200 portfolio founders, operators, and friends in the audience, Kevin Ryan will interview the Mayor on a range of topics, including the city’s investment in the tech ecosystem and other key initiatives across housing, safety, health, education, and more.
Peerless Pitch Winner Announced
This spring, AlleyCorp was proud to launch Peerless, a pitch competition in partnership with Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), designed to help Black, Latine, Native American, and female founders scale their vision with a $1 million investment from AlleyCorp.
Congratulations to our winner Yinka Ogunbiyi, Co-Founder and CEO of Halo Braid. Halo Braid is the only automated hair braider for Black hair.
Yinka’s technical robotics expertise, go-to-market acumen, and sheer drive is a rarity among early-stage robotics founders. What stood out to us most about Yinka and Halo Braid was their intense focus on customer needs and the creation of robust hardware that is designed to maximize performance where it matters most: to end users.
A huge congrats to our other 4 finalists (Antonio Depina, Vivian Graves Zeledón, Justin Kelly, and Dr. Pinkey Patel) who shared such creative thinking and innovation in the problems they are each aiming to solve.
Nonprofit ENG(INE) Applications Closing Soon
We believe that scaling impact requires best-in-class tech, and unfortunately, many nonprofits are falling behind because of a lack of technology resources.
Last month, we launched Nonprofit ENG(INE), a new $1 million philanthropic initiative at AlleyCorp that grants four organizations with $250,000 each in engineering support. Through this donation, a team of engineers across AlleyCorp Nord and AlleyCorp Sur will work with ENG(INE) winners over the course of 6 months to deliver major technological builds across product, AI/ML, cloud, and more.
If you’re a nonprofit that could benefit from ENG(INE), you still have a few weeks left to apply by the July 26th deadline at nonprofitengine.org. If you have any questions, you can review our FAQs and past webinars here.
Introducing DOC: The Next Frontier Conference in Longevity Sciences
Inspired by the early days of TED, from October 24–26th, we’ll be gathering a highly curated community of 150 leaders to participate in closed-door conversations that explore the future of longevity sciences and innovation.
From doctors and renowned scientists to venture capitalists, CEOs, founders, and tech leaders, DOC’s purpose is to deepen our understanding of actionable insights in long-term health, cutting through the snake oil and misinformation that has distracted from truth in medicine.
Attendance at DOC is by invitation only. If you’re interested in requesting an invite, you can learn more here.
DHNY Summit 2024 Applications Open
On Wednesday, September 18th, DHNY Summit will bring together an elite group of healthcare leaders for a day of content and connection in New York. As an exclusive, invitation-only event, speakers and attendees are carefully curated to inspire new ideas, share knowledge, and drive opportunity. View the 2024 speaker lineup and request an invitation here.
Team Expansion
We’re excited to welcome Josh Kipnis as AlleyCorp’s Director of Communications. Josh leads marketing and media relations for AlleyCorp and supports brand strategy across our portfolio.
Prior to joining AlleyCorp, Josh was an advisor and publicist for a number of reputable founders and entrepreneurs including Marc Lore, Kevin Systrom, Andy Dunn, and Maria Sharapova. With 10+ years of experience working across brand agencies, Josh has worked extensively with early-stage startups and Fortune 500 companies to build communication plans and brand strategies. Josh is a graduate of Vanderbilt University.
Alex Martin has worked with AlleyCorp since 2021 while an undergraduate at Yale University, and we’re excited to welcome him now as a full-time investor focused on incubating and investing in consumer and enterprise technology companies.
Previously, Alex worked at the Yale Investments Office, a leading institutional investor managing a $40 billion portfolio. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale with a B.A. in Economics.
We are also delighted to welcome Thomas Mallak, the newest member of AlleyCorp’s finance team, as our Senior Financial Analyst. Prior to joining AlleyCorp, Thomas worked as an analyst at Harlan Capital.
Thomas holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from Southern Methodist University, Cox School of Business, where he was a member of the University Honors Program and the football team.
AlleyCorp Team in the News
“Before you had to be in healthcare to play in healthcare. New York has a diversified talent pool where you can pull in people from outside healthcare.”
Modern Healthcare published a feature story on AlleyCorp’s push to turn New York into a health innovation hub, highlighting the 33 healthcare companies we have backed or incubated.
Firms are still betting the [creator] category will grow into a meaningful part of the marketing industry in just a few years. And things are beginning to look up again for creator startups.
General Partner Marshall Porter and Partner Susannah Shipton were named to Insider’s list of top investors in the creator economy.
“Our mission is to invest in the 80% of American families who are low or moderate-income, who are really the families that power the economy.”
General Partner Tanya Beja joined Kate Adams on the Startup Success podcast, where she talked about AlleyCorp’s approach to investing and incubating, and why we back startups deliberately building for working families.
“My personal view is that healthcare is just broken. It’s our passion to fix things, to make things better for the [healthcare] ecosystem.”
Partner Bill Georges joined the Digital Health Heavyweights podcast, where he talked about his experience in healthcare investing and operations and ways to bring substantial change to the industry.
Partner with AlleyCorp Engineering
Our AlleyCorp Engineering organizations are welcoming new startups for the fall. AlleyCorp Nord and Sur have worked with 15+ companies outside of the AlleyCorp portfolio over the past year, and have built products for more than twice as many AlleyCorp startups. We are open for new business in Q3 and Q4 within specific focus areas:
AlleyCorp Nord (Montreal)
AI strategy, prototyping, and solution development (with LLMs and more), in healthcare and other business domains
Fractional CTO/CIO services for healthcare startups
Product development, with an emphasis on clinical operations and interoperability
AlleyCorp Sur (Bogota)
Software engineering staff augmentation
Product development (MVPs and beyond) for early stage startups
Staff augmentation in additional domains (technical support, marketing and growth, and more)
Reach out to hello@alleycorp.engineering if you are interested in learning more.
News
Michael Kopko, Co-Founder and CEO of Pearl Health, was named as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2024 New York award winner.
Memora Health was recognized by TechCrunch as one of the 10 most exciting digital health startups of 2024, according to VCs.
Yuvo Health and Fidelis Care announced that they have achieved shared savings for several Federally Qualified Health Centers, setting a new standard for healthcare delivery in the Medicaid landscape.