One Way Venture's Q1-2022 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
We are devastated to share that Jen Riedel, our Head of Platform, passed away on Saturday, at the young age of 32, from an unexpected flare-up of a chronic health condition.
Jen was an incredible community builder who touched the lives of many people through her work at Techstars, the World Economic Forum, and over the last year with us at One Way Ventures. She was the driving force behind our efforts to build stronger connections between our investors and our portfolio founders - we will all miss her dearly.
We invite those fortunate enough to have met her to share their memories on this memorial page to make sure the warm words get to her family.
-The One Way Team
🔎 New Investments
✈️ Destinus is building the hyperplanes and infrastructure to power the world’s fastest transportation network ever. While the craft is far from completion, Kokorich and his team flew its small-scale prototype last year and expect to fly the larger Jungfrau later this year.
Destinus was founded by, serial entreprenuer and former CEO of Momentus, Mikhail Kokorich.
One Way Ventures led the $29M Seed round along with Quiet Ventures, Liquid2, and others.
💰 Debbie is a debt payoff platform that rewards borrowers for adopting healthy financial habits. As a team of folks who have personally struggled to get out of debt and achieve financial stability, Debbie has pledged 10% of the raise to reward borrowers and make the path from debt to wealth seamless and accessible for everyone.
Debbie was founded by Israeli immigrant, Frida Leibowitz and her two co-founders - Rachel Lauren, former Investor at BDMI, and Maxime Fourmault, former Engineering Manager at Earnest.
One Way Ventures participated in Debbie’s $1.2M Pre-Seed round along with TA Ventures, Liquid2, BDMI, and others.
👉 Request early access here and get paid to pay off your debt.
🗞 Portfolio News
🗞 NuvoCargo launches “QuickPay”, the first financial product for carriers moving between the US and Mexico. [Yahoo Finance]
🗞 Zero Systems raises a $12M Series A to bring automation to professional services like law firms. [TechCrunch]
🗞 KarmaCheck secures $15M Series A to bring equity and inclusion to the workplace through rapid and scalable background checks. [Yahoo]
🗞 Mana Interactive revealed the launch of their rewards debit card that has unmatched perks and rewards tailored to gamers. [VentureBeat]
💡 Founder Spotlight
Each quarater we select a founder in our portfolio who has made an incredible accomplishment or embodied our values of being exceptional, impactful, thoughtful, genuine, and borderless.
Ksenia Yudina, the Russian-American founder of UNest, a Calif.-based digital brokerage for parents to invest and save for their children’s education, put her business on hold to help evacuate employees who were trapped in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. Many of whom had been in denial and apprehensive to leave their homes, were no longer able to escape once the invasion ensued; including members of her own family.
For Ksenia and many others in our community, the egregious events which have unfolded over the past few weeks are devastating and deeply personal. We feel it's important, now more than ever, to continue backing what they do and help them through some of the difficult decisions that need to be made, in order for change to happen.
🌎 Global News + Resources
CashForRefugees: Since flying to Romania to help Ukrainian refugees, Semyon and his wife Natasha have founded a global non-profit called CashForRefugees, which has since scaled rapidly to include 100 active volunteers. Visit their website if you’re interested in donating or volunteering at the border.
US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS): Recently issued an immigration rule to expand premium processing.
Form I-130: The US Department of State has announced that a U.S. citizen who is physically present overseas with their Afghan, Ethiopian, or Ukrainian immediate family members and has not yet filed an immigrant visa petition with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), may request to locally file a Form I-130 petition at the nearest US embassy or consulate that processes immigrant visas.
U.S. Humanitarian Efforts: The Biden Administration Announced that the U.S. will accept up to 100,000 Ukrainians and Other Displaced People Fleeing the War in Ukraine
💼 Featured Jobs
Interested in working for a venture-backed startup? Explore some of our handpicked selections below:
💼 Britive, a modern cloud-native solutions platform, is seeking a member of their key executive team and is hiring a VP of Marketing.
💼 Preply is looking for an M&A Analyst to join their global language learning marketplace.
💼 Mana is building a rewards program for gamers. Join their team as a Senior Backed Java Engineer or Communications Manager, today!
Don’t see a fit? Try visiting our full job board which includes over 800 open positions from 50+ companies!
🚨 Borderless Disruption
Borderless Disruption is our monthly blog. Read here and subscribe if you’re interested in topics spanning immigration, tech, and their global impact.
Read our most recent publication, by Lex Zhao, on “How Inequality Presents Billion-Dollar Opportunities”.
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