Theorems
Our lessons learned and stories from startups.
ORO: Supercharging Procurement and Supplier management
We’re honored to have been investors since its inception and we’re proud to continue this capital partnership as part of their $25M Series A funding round led by our good friends over at Norwest and B Capital.
Climate Club: People-Powered Carbon Reduction Platform
Carbon emissions is the new, essential business metric. In the not so distant future, banks will use GHG emissions data in their underwriting process, employees will choose to work for companies based on it, and shareholders will hold companies accountable to it.
Sardine: More Money, Less Problems – Faster Transactions with Next Generation Fraud Tools
We’re excited to be concentrating even more dollars into Sardine’s Series B financing alongside our dear friend, Alex Immerman, at Andreessen Horowitz Growth!
Back in the New York Groove
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
When I left New York in 2013 to join First Round in the SF office, the NY tech scene still felt intimate and nascent. Before my NYC departure, I was working at WIRED and I made it my job to get to know the companies that were defining Silicon Alley.
Auxilius: Money Shouldn’t Matter When Saving Lives
This isn’t just another “startup born from the pandemic post” – it is about the pandemic. Still, two years later, we saw powerful institutions fail to deliver care. Auxilius is helping biotechs step in.
Going Faster with Mars and JeanClaude
Today, we are thrilled to announce two exciting team updates at XYZ, JeanClaude Dorsainvil has been promoted to the role of Associate and Mars Garza will embark on her new role as an Entrepreneur in Residence.
The Market Doesn’t Correct Itself, Founders Do
We all have to re-learn how to live with the cost of capital — money isn’t free anymore.
LottieFiles: Motion Design That’s Accessible to All
Clearly, collaboration is our thing. Many of our investments center around enabling teams to get more quality work done together and faster. LottieFiles is no exception, democratizing access to best in class motion design and graphics animation.
Switchboard: The Cloud Collaboration Space
Over the past two years, we’ve needed more real-time collaboration, knowledge capture, and seamless room transitions. That’s why we’re excited to tell you about Switchboard.
Sardine: The New Standard for Fraud Prevention
We’re privileged to work with operators who have been knee deep in their industries for decades – Sardine’s team is no exception with years of executive experience at top fintech companies like Coinbase, Revolut, Google Pay, Bolt, and PayPal. This made it a no-brainer to partner with CEO Soups Ranjan and his team at the earliest stages of company building.
Ascend: Elevating Modern Insurance Payment Offerings
We’re passionate about the formation stage of company building. That’s why we’ve loved having a ringside seat to the work Andrew and Praveen have done building Ascend since they first conceived of modernizing insurance payments.
Refyne: Leading India into Financial Inclusion
We deeply believe in the Earned Wage Access mission and that’s why it has been such a joy to work so closely with the team over at Refyne, India’s first & largest EWA.
TurbineOne: Frontline Perception for our Public Sector Heroes
As always, here at XYZ we value insight and experience. It is not lost on us that the importance of these two qualities is nowhere more apparent than the frontlines. That is why we are proud to partner with TurbineOne, the frontline perception company.
Evergrow: The World's First Carbon Offtake Company
We began to see a brighter future when James and Luke came to us with their vision to streamline the carbon finance process and accelerate the transition to a carbon-neutral economy.
Elotl: Commoditizing the Public Cloud
Unique insight is a great benefit of deep lived experience. As operators, it was clear to us that the insight Madhuri had from more than two decades of experience at companies like Oracle, VMware, and ClusterHQ — that cloud compute for enterprises should and will also be commoditized — rang true.
Hex: Driving Impact from Data
There are two things we love working with here at XYZ: Palantir alumni founders and multiplayer applications. Combine those two and you get something pretty special. That’s what we encountered with Hex.
Scribe: Automating Enterprise Knowledge Everywhere
Every successful company has a differentiated, deep insight. With Scribe, teams can scale that insight with automated knowledge share and best practice transfer.
Highnote: The Power of Fintech for All
Building insights through lived experiences is something we deeply value. Over the course of the past year, the Highnote team has built this in spades and launched the world’s most modern card platform purpose-built for embedded card experiences.
Introducing Daffy: It’s Time to Give
Here at XYZ, we focus on fintech, enterprise, and tech-forgotten spaces. Most recently, we’ve bet on something so obvious and yet so tech-forgotten — charitable giving, the timeless idea that individuals should help those less fortunate than themselves.
Cocoon: Employee Leave, Simplified
When a unique insight is discovered by an execution-oriented team, an enduring company is sure to be found. CEO & Cofounder, Mahima Chawla left Square to start Cocoon after having spent months delving into the world of family and finance. Along with two other fintech veterans coming out of Stripe, Lauren Dai and Amber Feng, they’d discovered an unmet need in leave management.