PJC

This we’re excited to feature the Co-Founders of Openly, Ty Harris and Matt Wielbut. This past week the team announced their Series C funding to expand their home insurance product to more states and agencies, and to continue enhancing its leading technology and insurance product offering. Investors included Advance Venture Partners, Clocktower Technology Ventures PJC, Obvious Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Techstars, and MTech Capital. ⁠
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Openly is a tech-forward premium homeowners insurance platform, offering comprehensive coverage to consumers through independent agents across America. Openly has grown in-force premium more than 500% year over year and has already achieved double digit new sales market share in the majority of its live states-often beating out the top 100+ year-old incumbents.⁠
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We’re thrilled to continue this journey with Openly which began in 2018, when we first met Ty and Matt while they were at TechStars. As Ty stated in our August 2020 interview with him: “I met PJC very early in 2018, in the first quarter while we were at TechStars. The relationship has been really great. As an early investor they betted on us from the start without seeing a lot of results at first, as it took time to get to the market. They continued to do so in their latest round, and their trust in us has made a huge difference. For example, even in these tough times (COVID-19) while we were seeking an external raise, they reached out to talk through the options and do what they could to support us, and their industry experience really helped with our confidence in the raise.” ⁠
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Glad to be part of this latest round and to continue to bet on first time founders, like Ty. Keep up the great work, team. Also- they are hiring! ⁠

Learn more on their latest funding in their press release: https://www.accesswire.com/705641/On-a-Mission-to-Empower-Independent-Insurance-Agents-Openly-Secures-75-Million-in-Series-C-Fundraising-Round

PJC Interview: https://www.pjc.vc/news/openly

Catch Ty on the first season of The Uncovered Podcast (our most downloaded episode of all): https://www.pjc.vc/podcast/season-1-episode-12 ⁠
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We're back with another and this time to celebrate founders (both ) Arun Saigal and WeiHua Li.⁠
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This past week Thunkable announced their $30M Series B financing that will help continue funding the future of no code mobile app development.⁠
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Founded six years ago, Thunkable was launched with the mission of empowering creators to get hands-on with digital innovation. Since that time, they have grown their capabilities, community, and team. There are now more than 3 million users from 184 different countries using Thunkable to get hands-on with no code mobile app development. We can't wait to see what's next for the community and this team and to continue our partnership.

🔗 Read full TC feature here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/05/thunkable-raises-30m-after-its-no-code-mobile-app-development-platform-hits-3m-users-and-6m-apps/
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Fun fact: Entrepreneurship runs in the Saigal family! Amrita Saigal, Arun's sister, is the founder of Kudos, a PJC portfolio company, that is helping save the planet and baby's bums by creating the first and only disposable diaper where baby's bum touches 100% cotton lined diaper. ⁠
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New blog post by PJC Analyst, Kathleen Keegan. Learn more on the fundamentals of a model — what actually goes on behind the scenes when evaluating the model as a whole, what investors look for, and some tips on common mistakes. Link: https://medium.com/inside-pjc/early-stage-modeling-32ace9e970b0⁠
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PJC updated their address.

🎙 New this week! Guest Virginie Raphael, Founder and Managing Partner of FullCircle, joins us for this season on The Entrepreneurial side of VC. Listen here: https://www.pjc.vc/podcast/season3-episode5
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FullCircle is a pre-seed fund focused on the structural changes required to create a better workforce and closing the incentive alignment gap. Matt Hayes and Marissa Milbury talk with Virginie about her path to venture, her motivation for starting FullCircle (first launched in June of 2021) and her passion for helping companies at the earliest stages with FullCircle’s perpetual fund structure. ⁠
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More on what what is : ⁠
🔍 Virginie’s unexpected journey to venture ⁠
🔍 FullCircle’s perpetual fund structure ⁠
🔍 The strategies and challenges with fundraising for a perpetual fund ⁠
🔍 What her first LP commitment was like ⁠
🔍 The parallels between fundraising for a startup and a venture fund⁠
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PJC VP Gaurav Bhogale will be a featured investor at the VC Connect North America Edition on March 8th - an event that connects startup founders with early-stage investors.⁠
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If you are a startup founder interested in the event and would like to book a 15 minute call with Gaurav you can sign up by clicking on the link in our bio. ⁠
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🎙️ ICYMI: This week we launched Season 3 of The Uncovered Podcast! This season is all about The Entrepreneurial Side of VC. LInk here to listen: https://www.pjc.vc/podcast
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Within these 8 episodes you'll hear from VC founders across the U.S. at varying stages of development – from those who have just closed their first fund, to others coming off their eighth fund. In each episode we’ll dive into the founder’s background, what motivated them to get into venture capital, and some of the challenges experienced and lessons learned along the way.⁠
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📅 Tune in every Tuesday over the next 8 weeks to uncover a new founder’s story. ⁠Thank you again to all of our guests for a great season!

Guest lineup below:
🔹Ian Rountree of Cantos - Available Now
🔹David Fialkow of - Available Feb 22nd
🔹Abby Miller Levy of Primetime Partners - Available Mar 1st
🔹Vishal Vasishth of Obvious Ventures - Available Mar 8th
🔹Virginie Raphael of FullCircle - Available Mar 15th
🔹David Martirano of PJC - Available Mar 22nd
🔹Lee Hower of NextView Ventures- - Available Mar 29th
🔹Phil Bronner of Ardent Ventures - Available April 5th

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New on the Inside PJC blog ➡️ An easy-to-follow overview of and the most promising areas for investment, written by Gaurav Bhogale. ⁠

Link here: https://medium.com/inside-pjc/a-vcs-guide-to-the-web3-crypto-galaxy-633e2af3f5f9
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Whether you're a VC, non-crypto native, looking to start something in the space, or just curiously browsing, we hope you find something useful in this memo.⁠
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In this guide, Gaurav covers: ⁠
1) a mental model to think about the internet vs. the blockchain⁠
2) what is web3 and why it is important now⁠
3) where we are in the life cycle⁠
4) three investment areas in the core web3 building blocks: DeFi, NFTs, DAOs⁠
5) three predictions for 2022⁠
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We would love to hear from you and get your thoughts! Leave a comment below or on medium and be sure to give the article a 👏 if it resonates with you! ⁠

Image source: Sparkline
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Happy Founder Friday! This Friday we are spotlighting founders Sam Zimmerman and Jeff Wright, who announced this past week the completion of their $5.25M seed round to create "the banking our parents deserve." PJC is excited to be part of this round, co-led by 25Madison and Primetime Partners along with SixThirty, TTV, Clocktower, Crossbeam, and Gaingels. ⁠
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Jeff and Sam both bring a unique understanding of the challenges facing seniors and the experience to truly implement change. Sam served as CTO of PathCheck Foundation, the world's largest nonprofit open-sourced project for COVID-19 contact tracing and vaccine passport solutions. It has become the official app in five U.S. states and territories and is supported by over 3,000 volunteers around the world. Previously, Zimmerman co-founded and was the CTO of Freebird, a unique consumer travel insurance startup acquired by Capital One in August 2020.⁠
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Co-founder and COO Jeff Wright has spent nearly two decades developing financial products with Liberty Mutual Insurance and Plymouth Rock Assurance.⁠
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Read more on Sagewell's new financial products built for seniors in their recent press release - link in bio! 🔗⁠
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Great article by Anna Heim highlighting first-time founder success. 67% of PJC portfolio companies are founded by first-time founders, which have had tremendous success, including , and Openly to name a few. Our unique approach allows us to identify potential in founders regardless of their entrepreneurial track record. We're proud to partner with both repeat and first-time founders. Read full article here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/20/dont-underestimate-first-time-founders/
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We're flashing back to November (as December flies by) to recognize the amazing work and achievements from our portfolio. November was a huge month for the PJC portfolio with making its debut on under the ticker EXFY, new partnerships, growth, and top awards to several portfolio companies for their innovative work & leadership in their respective industries. As always, below are just a few of the highlights. Read more in our roundup below for the full articles that share the amazing work these founders and teams are doing. https://www.pjc.vc/news/november-21-portfolio-roundup
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🔹 Anno Ai featured in Yahoo News for their work in the national security space using their AI software and creating a “multi-modal sensor fusion” which is a development of machine learning programs that can collect and interpret data across a wide range of platforms.⁠
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🔹 BlockFi is named to Inc. Magazine's Best-Led Companies of 2021⁠
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🔹 TechCrunch covered Expensify's IPO and interviews David Barrett on Expensify going public and why expense management is a $1T opportunity⁠
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🔹 Kudos won the 2021 Hygienix Innovation Award, the first time a diaper company has received this honor. ⁠
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🔹 Neurable is listed in BostonInno's 2021 Inno on Fire which includes the 50 startups and individuals setting Boston's innovation ecosystem ablaze as well as Fast Company ’s inaugural Next Big Things in Tech list.⁠
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🔹 SparkCharge CEO Joshua Aviv is honored as one of the 100 People Transforming Business by Business Insider.
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Along with other great news from Openly, Lively, Inc., Eden Health, Synthesis AI, Thunkable, SplitSpot and Vee24.
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Big news this week as , a PJC portfolio company, went public and is listed under the ticker EXFY on . 🎉 We couldn’t be more excited for David Barrett and the team. Learn more on why PJC invested in 2014 in our latest blog post written by Managing Partner, David Martirano. Link is in bio. And congratulations again to the entire Expensify team!

October roundup is now up and featuring the following companies: , , , Neurable 🧠] ,Openly, , SplitSpot], , Feather], , , and SparkCharge]
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Here are a few highlights below from October but be sure to see the full roundup on our website, link in bio. ⁠
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🚀 BlockFi] launches new product suite with private firm Neuberger Berman⁠
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🤑 Lively] announced $80 million series C and is featured in as it continues to build the modern health savings account that puts consumers first. ⁠
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🧠 receives the AI Tech Award from AI Dev World for their unique AI optimization engine, Deeplite Neutrino™, being named as the best in Deep Learning Technology.⁠
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🛋️ Feather] is featured in NY Business Journal as they team up with to offer office furniture rentals ⁠
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🙌🏾 Neurable 🧠] , SparkCharge] and SplitSpot] are all recognized as honorees for the MassTLC Top Tech Top 50 Awards, with Neurable and SparkCharge honored with Tech to Watch and SplitSpot for Pivot to Meet the New World. ⁠
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🚗 featured in top 100 global Insurtech of 2021 recognizing Roadzen as the next-gen platform transforming insurance for mobility.

Marissa Milbury, VP at PJC, shares how she made the change from Product to VC. ⁠
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✨ She provides 3 ways to optimize your PM experience for a career in venture capital as well as 4 practical tips for a PM interested in VC! Read more here: https://medium.com/inside-pjc/from-product-to-venture-f8b663ed1d1d
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🤔 And if you’re thinking about a role in VC, want to learn more about raising early stage capital or just want to connect, be sure to reach out to Marissa. 😎 ⁠
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Happy Monday! We're excited to share our interview with CEO and Co-Founder of Riya Collective, Sarina Siddhanti, now live on our website here: https://www.pjc.vc/news/riya-collective

This Q&A is a perfect way to start your week and a great reminder that the most difficult times as a founder can often be a catalyst for positive change and growth. ⁠
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In this interview we talk about: ⁠
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🔹 How Riya Collective got started ⁠
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🔹 How to rent with Riya Collective and what makes them different than other companies in this space⁠
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🔹 How the company navigated the pandemic and the tough decisions, lessons and silver linings that came from it ⁠
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🔹 The importance of community and how their mission has evolved since starting⁠
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🔹 Bringing Indian clothing to main stream TV ⁠
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🔹 Culture Tech ⁠
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🔹 The first of it's kind fashion show presented by Riya Collective ⁠
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🔹 The future of Riya Collective ⁠
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Monday Motivation from our interview with Sarina Siddhanti of . ⁠
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We're excited to share more on Sarina and Arian's journey since founding Riya Collective in early 2019. Sarina speaks with us about the tough decisions that were made in the early days of the pandemic, how the Riya Collective community has come together since then, and how both the business and themselves as founders changed for the better. Be sure to read more from our interview set to go live soon! 🙌⁠
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We’re thrilled to welcome Gaurav Bhogale to the PJC team this week as a Vice President. Gaurav will be focusing on the firm’s consumer and enterprise technology investments. Prior to PJC, Gaurav worked at Google in their San Francisco and Sydney offices. He led Product and Growth strategies to increase adoption and retention of Google’s top mobile apps like Maps, Gmail and YouTube globally. He began his career in tech at Playstation, where he helped launch the Playstation 3 in Asia. Welcome again Gaurav, we’re excited to have you on board! https://www.pjc.vc/team/gaurav

Gaurav Bhogale — PJC Gaurav is a Vice President at PJC and focuses on the firm’s consumer and enterprise technology investments.

Happy Founder Friday to co-founders Ciaran Gillen and Clement Cazalo of ! Last week the team announced their $4.5 million seed round. ⁠
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Machinery Partner aims to disrupt the $200 billion global heavy equipment industry by offering a unique, direct-to-customer model for financing and service. Ciaran founded Machinery in 2020 in Ireland and then moved the company to Boston to participate in the program. As part of that process, he met with Clement, who became so excited about the idea that he left to join Ciaran as co-founder and COO. Ciaran has 15 years of experience in the material processing & equipment sales industry and Clement is a 2x VC backed & successful founder as well as a reformed early-stage investor with Techstars. ⁠
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We are thrilled to have participated in this round, led by One Way Ventures and Euclid Ventures with participation from Techstars Ventures. To read more about their latest funding and their mission be sure to click on the link in our bio! ⁠
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Happy Founder Friday! This week we are spotlighting John Goscha, Founder & CEO of Native Voice. Native Voice announced this past week the conclusion of its seed funding round, raising $14 million. We’re excited to support John and the founding team as they expand and look to bring on more brands and manufacturers that will help simplify and transform the way we use voice assistants today. As he told to Venture Beat, “I have been interested in voice, frankly obsessed with it, for years. I saw a technology catalyst — voice technology had gotten a lot better and it was no longer only about simple use cases like ‘what’s the weather’ and ‘set a timer’ … I also saw a market catalyst where voice had become the fastest adopted technology in human history.” John's foresight and entrepreneurial spirit has led to the success of two prior companies - IdeaPaint and Lucidity Lights, raising nearly $125 million in venture capital. Now, John has returned to his home state, in Denver, Colorado, to build Native Voice and capitalize on the momentum of the local innovation scene. We're excited to be on this journey with him and the team. Learn more on John & Native Voice in the Denver Business Journal, link in bio. ⁠
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Big congrats to the Native Voice team and John Goscha on their $14M seed round. We're excited to be early investors and to support the team as they transform the way voice assistants are used today between consumers and brands!

“Voice assistants are great, but limited in what they can do. You have to wake up one assistant to open another and then take your phone out of your pocket to call a car or play a song. Native Voice unlocks multiple voice services, like Alexa and Siri, and the brands that are developing their own, like Spotify and Uber. Users can get more done, using only their voice,” said John Goscha, founder and CEO of Native Voice. “With this latest round, we look forward to expanding our capabilities and bringing on more brand and hardware partners to the Native Voice platform.”

Full Press Release: https://lnkd.in/dtdn6GJ

Native Voice Secures $14 Million Seed Funding Round And Expands Leadership Team /PRNewswire/ -- Native Voice, an on-demand voice services ecosystem that enables users to communicate directly by voice with their favorite brands, today...

Happy Friday! Our June news roundup is now live and ready to view. There is a lot to celebrate (highlights below ↓) and even more exciting news to come. Be sure to check it out - link in bio! And wishing you all a wonderful long weekend 😎⁠
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Highlights below: ⁠
🗞️ BlockFi launches institutional investor platform & included in Forbes Fintech 50 list for 2021 ⁠
🗞️ CodeStream recognized as one of The 2021 SD Times 100: 'Best in Show' in Software Development⁠
🗞️ Deeplite named in the list of Top Information Technology Startups and Companies in Montréal⁠
🗞️ Feather expands into Texas⁠
🗞️ Kudos raises $2.4 Million in funding and launches their eco-friendly, cotton-based diaper⁠⁠
🗞️ Lively, Inc. surpasses half a billion in HSA assets and partners with BMO Harris Bank ⁠
🗞️ Ramses Alcaide of Neurable_ included in Forbes Next 1000⁠
🗞️ SparkCharge introduces ChargeUp mobile app and announces partnership with Urgently Partners to bring on-demand EV charging to smart mobility assistance ⁠
🗞️ Synthesis AI achieves Largest Synthetic Data Set in the Industry with 40,000 Unique Identities⁠

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Happy Founder Friday and congrats to Alex Cyriac and Shobin Uralil on what has been an exciting two weeks of announcements from the Lively team. Recently, Lively, Inc. shared it had exceeded $500 million in HSA assets making Lively the fastest-growing HSA provider. Lively has continued to successfully challenge the legacy HSA experience with its relentless focus on constantly improving the customer experience and providing top-tier support in both its individual HSA offering and to its employer customers. Following this news, Lively announced this week its partnership with BMO Harris Bank, a top 20 HSA provider with nearly 100,000 accounts. Congrats again, we look forward to the many more milestones to be reached by this talented and dedicated team. ⁠⁠

We loved catching up with CEO and Founder, Emily Rasmussen for our latest PJC interview series. To learn more on Emily’s journey to starting Grapevine and their powerful platform for giving check out our full Q&A on our website. 😀

As we close out another week in June, we want to take a moment to highlight the exciting news and milestones met by our portfolio in May. Be sure to read the full roundup on our website & we look forward to bringing more exiting updates and news in the months ahead! ⁠
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A few highlights below: ⁠
🗞️ Breach Insurance raises $2.5 million in seed funding ⁠
🗞️ Deeplite recognized as one of Canada's most exciting businesses & accelerates time-to-market for AI applications to run on edge devices ⁠
🗞️ Eden Health is named as one of Inc.’s Best Workplaces of 2021 ⁠
🗞️ Feather featured in Fortune and Forbes as the furniture rental space continues to grow ⁠
🗞️ Neurable headphones featured in Forbes⁠
🎙️Great podcast episodes featuring the founders of Openly, Riya Collective, Thunkable and Synthesis AI!⁠
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Happy Founder Friday! This week we are featuring CEO and Founder of Kudos, Amrita Saigal. As seen in TechCrunch this past week, Amrita and the team announced the launch of their eco-friendly disposable diapers and $2.4 million in seed funding (link to article in bio). Kudos is the first and only disposable baby diaper to earn the cotton natural seal from Cotton Inc. for having 100% cotton touching the baby’s skin instead of plastic. They’re also made with 4x more plant-based materials than the top disposable diaper out there! As early investors in Kudos, we have seen Amrita and the team build this company from the ground-up and it’s been amazing to see the product come to life. We’re excited for the future of Kudos and the plant-based baby goods to come from this talented team. To learn more on Kudos and how to purchase their diapers visit their website at https://mykudos.com. The team is also for the month of June donating 5% of all diaper sales to support the work of FamilyEquality.org in advocating for equal rights for LGBTQ families. 🏳️‍🌈 ⁠⁠
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And in case you missed it, we spoke with Amrita back in early 2020 on Episode #7 of Season 1 of The Uncovered Podcast. You can tune in to learn more about her journey to starting Kudos here: https://www.pjc.vc/podcast/season-1-episode-7! 🎧
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Kudos to the team, we're excited to be on this journey with you! ⁠⁠
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Looking for a new opportunity or know someone who is? Be sure to check out the PJC job board to view the latest opportunities within our growing portfolio (link in bio). You can easily search by company, position or location. Below are just a few of the many companies hiring, including Eden Health which was recently named as one of Inc. Magazine's best places to work in 2021. ⁠
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🔹Deeplite - Deep Learning Software Engineer (Montreal) ⁠
🔹Eden Health - Program Manager - Operations (Remote)⁠
🔹SplitSpot - Tech Lead (Remote) ⁠
🔹Feather - Director of Growth Marketing (Remote)⁠
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When you're building a company you are often bombarded with advice. Practicing to be open and receptive to what you can learn from each interaction is a great way to be & grow. Keep finding those gems. 💎 ⁠Quote by CEO and Co-Founder of , a company helping you focus on what matters most with BCI products. 🧠 ⁠
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Happy Founder Friday! This week we are featuring Emily Rasmussen, Founder & CEO of . Grapevine is your go-to platform for joining or creating your own giving circle. Easily connect with others on causes you care about and pool funds to give back on a recurring basis. Recently, Grapevine & announced the first-ever Global Giving Circle Directory which allows anyone to easily search and find groups to join or become inspired to start their own. Link in bio for their feature in Forbes, plus, more to come in the next month on Emily and Grapevine in our PJC interview! ⁠
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This ⭐️ Founder Friday ⭐️we are featuring the Co-Founders of Neurable, Ramses Alcaide and Adam Molnar. ⁠⁠
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Neurable’s vision is to create a world where people live without limitations. They are doing this through their cutting-edge, easy-to-use devices that measure brain activity to generate simple, real-time insights. This week the team introduced their latest development, Enten, which are BCI-enabled headphones to help people improve their concentration and focus. ⁠⁠
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Over time, the team has combined their IP to hit a market opportunity they see rising for the first cognitive wearable! Just like Fitbit and the Apple watch blazed the trail for fitness trackers—Neurable’s goal is to build parallel success, but with insights rooted in brain activity.🧠 We’re super excited about their latest development and the potential it can bring. To read more on Neurable and Enten check out their feature in Fast Company here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90629192/brainwave-headphones-focus-distraction

You can also pre-order their headphones and learn more by visiting their website at https://neurable.com/headphones
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Happy Founder Friday! This week we're featuring the founders of : Ernesto Gaxha and David Mazza. SplitSpot announced this week their $2M round in financing that will help the team expand beyond Boston, build its team and enhance tech. We're excited to have been early investors in SplitSpot, the largest rental platform in Boston, and look forward to their future! Congrats again Ernesto, David and team! 🎉⁠ Link in bio for full press release. ⁠
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