Summer update from AlleyCorp
Announcing Impact and Robotics funds; AC team grows to 22; New incubations and investments.
This has been a year of rapid evolution for AlleyCorp, a theme that further accelerated in Q2. Our New York-based team grew to 22 as we have welcomed several incredible people into our midst over the past few months (some of them profiled below!) As many of you also know, we have formally expanded our fund structure to allow us to focus and double down in areas where we see particular opportunity, in addition to our traditional work across consumer and enterprise. This structure is as follows:
$450M Generalist fund, which includes a large range of focus areas across both consumer and enterprise
$100M Healthcare fund, which we announced earlier this year
$30 Robotics fund, launched in partnership with Eliot Horowitz
$25M Social Impact fund, which backs entrepreneurs building for social good
AlleyCorp Engineering, which is spread across two organizations (AlleyCorp Nord in Montreal and AlleyCorp Sur in Colombia), and which is approaching 50 people.
Partially by virtue of our expanded team (and our resulting excitement about a number of new areas), we are on our fastest incubation pace yet. We have launched 5 companies so far this year, and will likely be looking at 8-9 by the end of the year. We firmly believe that now is a fantastic time to build, not only because of the number of pain points and opportunities that are consistently surfaced to us, but also because of the vibrancy and maturity of NYC as the tech hub we always knew it would be. There are so many incredible people here and our greatest privilege is partnering with them to create new companies.
On the investing side, we are actively deploying capital and have seen a number of fantastic opportunities to support meaningful businesses even (and especially) during this market contraction. Like many of our peers, we have been spending a lot of time with our portfolio companies to support them during this tough economic period. While it is undoubtedly a more difficult moment for startups in many ways, we firmly believe that venture-backed technology companies continue to drive incredibly meaningful new value to consumers, even (and sometimes especially) when the macroeconomic climate is less favorable in the short to medium term.
On a logistical note, we will be moving offices as of August 1: our new address will be in Flatiron at 220 5th Ave (corner of 27th street). We are greatly expanding our office footprint with this move and hope to share the space with many of you over time.
NYC feels very alive this summer - we have loved seeing many of you and look forward to many more opportunities to get together in the fall.
Kevin
New team members!
AlleyCorp
We welcomed two new full-time teammates to AlleyCorp this quarter!
Sercan Ozcan joins us as AlleyCorp’s Financial Controller. Sercan leads finance and accounting operations, working closely with AlleyCorp’s CFO Jay Hass. Sercan holds an MBA from Wharton and
Joseph Krause is an Associate focused on Materials Science, where he focuses on sourcing, investing, and incubating future materials science companies with an emphasis on nanotechnology. He is also a PhD student at Rice University in Nanoengineering.
AlleyCorp Healthcare Fund
We are thrilled to welcome three incredible summer MD/MBAs to the healthcare team: Najib Jai, Khin-Kyemon Aung, and Jason Gomez. Each will be focused on value-based care delivery in partnership with our broader healthcare team.
AlleyCorp Nord (Montreal-based Engineering Team)
Lisa Di Jorio: We’re excited to welcome Lisa Di Jorio, PhD as VP of Technology and Research at AlleyCorp Nord where she will lead work on supporting ML and deeptech incubations. Previously, Lisa served as the director of AI Research & AI Engineering at Imagia, a clinical AI company. She has built research and engineering teams from scratch, delivered a variety of medical projects using AI, and co-authored numerous scientific publications and patents.
Formally announcing AlleyCorp Impact and Alley Robotics Ventures
We are proud to share that we have formally launched our Impact and Robotics Funds! These vehicles each made their first few investments this past quarter and we are ramping up our collaborations with other funds interested in similar topics. If you’d like to learn more about working with either fund, please let us know.
Alley Robotics Ventures is a joint venture between Kevin Ryan and Eliot Horowitz, led by Managing Partner Abe Murray. This initial $30M of capital will be deployed toward supporting entrepreneurs building the future of automation. The fund’s initial investments include MaplessAI, Aescape, Dexai, and CivRobotics (details below).
AlleyCorp Impact is a $25M fund seeded by AlleyCorp that will invest in and incubate early-stage ventures dedicated to making positive change in education, mental health, climate change, and social justice. The fund is led by Partner Tanya Beja, and the fund’s initial investments in include Upwage, Patch Caregiving, and Tough Leaf (details below).
Portfolio Fundraises
Nomad Health has raised $105M to support the continued transformation of healthcare staffing. Nomad, which is profitable, is on track to bring in ~$600M in revenue this year. 7 years in from founding, Nomad has grown to include 500+ employees supporting more than 250,000 clinicians and 4,000 healthcare facilities caring for millions of patients across the US.
The company will undoubtedly have a central role in the next phase of healthcare staffing transformation: “Staffing, labor, and headcounts are the number one issue in every boardroom of every healthcare system across the country,” says co-founder and CEO Alexi Nazem. “That is going to cause a lot of motion in the next couple of years and we're really excited to have a front-row seat and a solution.” Read more in Forbes.
New York-based college recruiting startup RippleMatch raised $45 million in Series B funding. The investment values Ripplematch at $205 million as it bulks up to take on traditional job search giants like LinkedIn and Indeed. The round was led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from G20 Ventures and Work–Bench. AlleyCorp initially led Ripplematch’s seed round. Read more in Forbes.
Healthcare infrastructure company Capable Health (an AlleyCorp incubation) raised $6 million in seed funding led by M13, with participation from AlleyCorp and Able Partners. The rapidly growing company’s industry-first software platform enables providers to launch and scale their own fully HIPAA-compliant digital clinics with 80 percent less cost and time than it currently takes.
New Investments
AlleyCorp led the seed round in Tertulia, which was recently featured by the New York Times as a new way to buy your next book. Tertulia serves up book recommendations and book talk from across social media, podcasts, and the web — all in one app which incorporates seamless book purchasing. If a book has moved someone enough to get them talking, you can find it, buy it, and share it on Tertulia. Tertulia was founded by Artsy co-Founder Sebastian Cwilich.
Vibe Bio announced $12M in funding to advance its community-driven approach to identifying and developing treatments for rare diseases. By leveraging a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Vibe Bio builds a global community of patients, scientists, and partners around a shared mission. Initialized led the round, with participation from AlleyCorp, Lerer Hippeau, and a strong cohort of angels.
Exavir Therapeutics, a company dedicated to transforming the lives of people living with or at risk of acquiring HIV and other viral infections, announced $4M in seed funding led by AlleyCorp with participation from Gilead Sciences. “We are thrilled to have the support of AlleyCorp and Gilead Sciences, a pioneer and leader in antiviral drug development” said Alborz Yazdi, co-founder and President of Exavir. “With this financing, we are one step closer to our goal of bringing Exavir's broad portfolio of long-acting antivirals to communities around the world affected by some of the most challenging viruses.”
Resolve is a solution for the 50% of Americans who are currently in medical debt. Resolve reviews, negotiates, and lowers medical bills behalf of patients. AlleyCorp led Resolve's $3.3M funding round in conjunction with the founders of category defining companies like Compass, Seamless, Groups Recover Together, Collective Health, Nomi Health, and Funding Circle UK. Resolve is also hiring for a Head of Product, a Chief of Staff, and more. Read more in Forbes.
Patch Caregiving, a company that delivers emergency childcare to hourly-working parents, closed a $1M pre-seed round led by AlleyCorp. Childcare disruptions are the number one driver of unpredicted work absences, causing disruptions to the 73.3M working parents in the US and raising costs for employers. Patch’s backup childcare service is provided as an employee benefit, creating a reimagined solution that benefits both parents and employers. This investment was made via our newly launched impact fund. This investment was made via AlleyCorp Impact.
Upwage exists to connect the 44% of Americans making less than $16/hr directly with the 60% of employers raising wages. By using AI & big data to deliver the thing workers care most about (better wages), Upwage's mission is to create $1 trillion in new wealth over the next decade for those who need it most. Upwage has raised a ~$2m preseed round with Bloomberg Beta, AlleyCorp, Precursor Ventures, Moai Capital, J4 Ventures, and exceptional operator-angels: Ellen Levy, Christie Pitts, Gale Wilkinson, Ceci Stallsmith, Cara Meverden, Scott Saunders, Josh Resnick, David Olk. This investment was made via AlleyCorp Impact.
Tough Leaf is a SaaS-enabled marketplace for DEI compliance in the construction industry.Tough Leaf makes it easy for hiring entities to identify, vet, and ultimately hire minority owned businesses (~30% of public project budgets must be allocated to minority owned businesses), starting in the construction space ($1.7T market). AlleyCorp invested $1.5M as the lead investor and team is currently completing its $3M seed round. This investment was made via AlleyCorp Impact
Overview: Mapless AI is enabling the future of mobility, initially focusing on Dispatch as a Service. Their initial offering builds on their deep expertise in autonomous vehicles and safety systems. This investment was made via Alley Robotics Ventures.
Civ Robotics provides an unparalleled solution to one of the greatest challenges in the construction industry. Thanks to their autonomous surveying systems, construction professionals gain higher outputs and greater precision than with traditional survey methods. CivDot is reliable, fast, and smart; creating a seamless experience for layout on any project. This investment was made via Alley Robotics Ventures.
Dexai, an autonomous robotic sous-chef, safeguards access to prepared food and enables more affordable and sanitary meals through cutting edge robotics and artificial intelligence. This investment was made via Alley Robotics Ventures.
aescape - (pronounced "escape") is a robotics company building intelligent, highly personalized wellness experiences designed to help people have better relationships with their bodies. This investment was made via Alley Robotics Ventures.
AlleyCorp incubations
EnSage Health powers accessible geriatric psychiatry and behavioral care management services for patients, caregivers, and clinicians. Our mission is to significantly improve the quality of life for older adults with combined psychiatric and medical conditions — empowering seniors and their caregivers to maintain control over their day-to-day health for as long as possible.
Ensage was founded by Doug Elwood, MD, MBA (Co-Founder and CEO), Amber Hampton Greene (Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer), Jeffrey De Flavio, MD, MBA (Co-founder and Executive Chairman) and Richard Goldberg, MD, MS (Senior Clinical Advisor). This leadership team includes seasoned clinicians, operators, and founders with deep expertise in behavioral health, psychiatry, value-based care, and scaling high-quality telehealth experiences.
Ensage is hiring across business development, clinical, ops, and product!