The RISE: A ROTR Portco Newsletter (October Edition)
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The RISE: A ROTR Portco Newsletter (October Edition)

A quick note.

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Q4 is here. 

We are kicking off the final quarter on #GOMode 🚀 . The highlight of the month is the launch of our new, exclusive portfolio engagement product: The ROTR Collective, in partnership with Orbiit.

The ROTR Collective will not only serve you, but your senior team as well.

The goal is to connect you and your senior executives with peers within the ROTR portfolio community to discuss topical issues and form a professional relationship through 1:1 matching.

This will allow you to discuss topics relevant to your respective roles and face opportunities/challenges with support. The ROTR Collective will run every month, rotating topics. The opt-in time is tight, so please take 60 seconds TODAY to sign up for this month’s round of matching using this link.

We strongly encourage everyone to opt-in. The ROTR Collective topics for this round of matching are: • Fundraising Best Practices • Building Engaged Remote Work Culture • Selling Into Enterprise Clients • Assembling a Foundational Product Team

If you have any feedback on Orbiit, portfolio engagement support, or just want to catch up, please feel free to put some time on the books.

Peace,Amira

COMING (real) SOON: The (new) Portfolio Portal

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Later this month, your portfolio support experience will upgrade. The team is more than excited to reboot our NEW Portfolio Portal. The categories and sub-categories you see in the image above, is not a stock image - it's the real deal!! We are rebooting with new resources, tips, tools, and more!

The Portfolio Portal will:

✅ Serve has a home base for all portfolio support resources.

✅ Be password-protected, only accessible to you, your senior executives, and the ROTR team.

✅ Easy to navigate

✅ Include a ton of value-add resources

Stay tuned!!

In case you missed it: PrinciplesYOU with Ray Dalio & Steve Case

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ROTR LP Ray Dalio – the Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Investor Officer of famed Bridgewater Associates joined us earlier this week to sit down with Steve to discuss his bookPrinciples, and the work he's doing to help people understand their strengths to help them grow.

In September, Ray recently teamed up with Wharton Psychology Professor and well-known author, Adam Grant, to develop PrinciplesYou, a powerful new self-assessment tool for leaders—available at no cost for those interested [https://principlesyou.com/]. Watch the recap here to listen to Ray breakdown his thoughts on leadership, current trends, and more! You'll even get to see Ray deep dive with Steve on Steve's personality type 😎.

[Access Passcode to watch the recap: ROTR2021!]

Say Hi! to our New Portfolio Companies

  • 💻 Wethos - $8M (Nashville, TN), a fintech platform for freelancers, raised a new round of funding led by Third Prime with participation from new investors Javelin, Full Circle, F7 Ventures, and Clocktower, and continued support from Laconia, Valuestream, and many others.
  • 🐶 Pet Friendly - $6M (Omaha, NE), a subscription pet care company delivering vet-quality flea and tick protection to customers' doorsteps, raised seed funding led by McCarthy Capital, alongside Emil Capital Partners and Invest Nebraska.
  • 👨‍💼 Arcade - $4.5M (Dallas, TX), a software provider that uses gamified micro-incentives to strategically motivate, engage and incentivize sales people, raised their Growth Seed round led by Stage 2 Capital with participation from Our Innovation Fund, and ATX Venture Partners.
  • 🚢 Vizion - $3.25M (Atlanta, GA), an API-based solution for ocean freight visibility, announced their round led by supply chain specialist Tech Square Ventures with participation from MS&AD Ventures, and Ashish Mistry. Existing investors Dynamo Ventures, 1984 Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, and SaaS Ventures also participated in this round.
  • 🍸 Speakeasy - $2M (San Diego, CA), a direct-to-consumer alcohol e-commerce platform, raised their seed round led by Trog Hawley Capital.
  • 🐝 SupplyHive - $2M (Chicago, IL), an innovative provider of Supplier Performance Management Technology, closed its seed round led by LOUD Capital with participation from Cleveland Avenue-CAST US.
  • 📚 Grifin - (Tampla,FL) a financial platform intended to spread financial literacy and responsibility through simplified investment strategies.
  • 💁🏻‍♀️ PrismPop - (Los Angelas, CA) an online beauty platform intended to create content to help people discover their own beauty.
  • 🚐 Medzoomer - (Tampa, FL) a delivery service intended to bring prescriptions directly to the door. The company's service allows ordering prescriptions from local pharmacies and getting them delivered, enabling users to purchase medicines conveniently.
  • 🤝 Harness Giving - (Tampa, FL) a fintech company helping non-profits grow their donations and donor base through recurring, passive donation products. Their initial product, Subscription Giving, provides non-profits with a suite of tools to maximize donor LTV through website optimization and recurring giving options.

Want to connect any of these companies? Shoot me (amira.ouji@revolution.com) an email!

Portco Classifieds

Have you ever been featured in the Portco  Classifieds section? This section allows you to promote your business to your fellow ROTR companies - you never know who could be a potential customer.

As an entrepreneur, you should exploit this section, unashamedly. To be featured, shoot Amira a note here!

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(Seattle, WA) Need to get SOC2 compliance? Strike Graph is your solution. Strike Graph is a compliance SAAS solution simplifying security certifications like SOC 2 Type I/II, ISO 27001 and FedRamp. Want to get connected? Shoot me (amira.ouji@revolution.com) an email.

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(Baltimore, MD) Building out your engineer team? Let Catalyte support you! Catalyte is a software firm specializing in identifying workers with a tech aptitude and training them for new careers as developers.

Want to get connected? Shoot me (amira.ouji@revolution.com) an email.

Relevant Reads & Shoutouts!

Congrats to our portfolio companies with funding announcements from the last few months. Are you raising a new round and looking for advice from another founder in the portfolio who has ‘been there, done that’ recently? Contact me (Amira) and I will help match you with a company.

  • 🎒 Class - $105M (Washington, DC), makers of Class for Zoom, raised their Series B led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The financing will be used to accelerate the company's growth and expand globally into new markets and brings total funding to over $160 million in under a year.
  • 🚚 Stord - $90M (Atlanta, GA), makers of a cloud supply chain enabling companies to compete and grow with world-class logistics, raised their Series D led by Kleiner Perkins, six months after leading the company's $65M Series C.
  • ⛰️ Cotopaxi - $45M (Salt Lake City, UT), a sustainable outdoor gear and apparel brand (and certified B Corporation), raised growth equity funding led by Bain Capital Double Impact.
  • 🏢 75F - $28M (Minneapolis, MN), maker of IoT-based building automation technologies to optimize indoor air quality and energy efficiency, raised their Series A led by Next47, Wind Ventures and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with participation from Clean Energy Trust, Building Ventures, and others.
  • 👵🏾 Cariloop - $15M (Dallas, TX), a caregiver support platform, raised their Series B, led by Noro-Moseley Partners, with participation from KCRise Fund, 1843 Capital, GrowCo Capital, Mark Kendall, MPK Equity Partners and Patterson Thoma Family Office.
  • 💳 Rize -$11.4M (Arlington, VA), a fintech-as-a-service company, announced their Series A led by Alpha Edison and Morpheus Ventures.
  • 🌽 Smartwyre - $10.5M (Denver, CO), a secure digital platform that connects agricultural input manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, raised their Series A led by High Alpha Capital with participation from Rise of the Rest, Anterra Capital, Fall Line Capital, and Cavallo Ventures.
  • 💻 Strike Graph - $8M (Seattle, WA), a compliance SaaS solution simplifying security certifications such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA, raised a Series A led by Information Venture Partners, alongside Madrona Venture Group, Amplify.LA, and Green D Ventures.
  • Gig Wage - $3.25M (Dallas, TX), a FinTech payroll platform for the 1099 workforce, raised venture debt from Silicon Valley Bank.

Got Deals?

Have a deal you think we'd be a good fit for? Send us a note!

As a reminder, our typical first checks range from $250K–$500K in seed rounds, with follow-on check writing from $500K - $5M. The range in round size is $1.5M - $5M at a $5M - $15M pre-money valuation. We do not lead, we are industry generalists (but no: biotech, life science, CPG, cannabis or hardware).

(Just remember: the startup has to be headquartered outside of Silicon Valley, NYC, and Boston!)