Hi friends,
We kicked off 2024 by sharing a few lessons learned over the years. Semyon spoke to The Full Ratchet on why immigrant founders outperform and what itâs like to lead a professional Blackjack team. Eugene chatted with Crunchbase News on why VCs should set up an entrepreneur collective. Weâve taken these lessons to heart as weâve built One Way Ventures and our Pathfinder Collective.
We're excited to share our Q1 highlights below, including a new fintech investment tackling how companies collect invoices and get paid, the evolution of our Pathfinder network, and notable portfolio company achievements.
New Investments in Q1
Tabs | Fintech
Tabs is on a mission to re-imagine B2B accounts receivable processes by using AI. They are developing software that saves time administering contracts and invoicing, reduces errors, and drives faster cash collection. This is well-timed as companies continue to focus on profitability while the U.S. is short 340,000 accountants.
Tabs was co-founded by Ali Hussain, who was previously the COO of Latch. We invested in Tabsâ $7M seed round alongside Lightspeed Venture Partners and Primary VC.
Portfolio Highlights
đHelm.ai - Â Helm.ai, developer of autonomous driving and robotics solutions, announced the launch of neural network-based, high-fidelity virtual scenario generation models for perception simulation. The new technology can generate highly realistic images of virtual driving environments. [Business Wire]
đĄđČ Lynk Global - Lynk has signed a satellite-to-phones services contract with the US government, the Department of Defense, and other government entities. It also successfully tested a satellite-to-mobile phone call in Canada and is planning an $800 million SPAC merger led by former professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez. [Bloomberg]
đ€Buddy.ai - Buddy, the worldâs first conversational AI tutor for kids, is on a mission to give children worldwide access to 1:1 English language tutoring. Weâre proud to see Buddy featured in Forbes CentroamĂ©rica this quarter, while they continue to top the charts in kidsâ education category globally. [Forbes]
đ©ïžDestinus - Â Destinus, best known for designing hydrogen-powered suborbital aircraft, has opened up to the French magazine Challenges about its support of Ukraineâs military. Destinus had been working on military drones in parallel with its commercial work and is now supplying hundreds of low-cost long-range drones to Ukraine. [Challenges]
đ„Bite - Bite, the intelligent kiosk system for hospitality and retail, announced their $9M Series A led by Staley Capital. Bite CEO Brandon Barton said: âBiteâs self-service kiosk software gives restaurants the tools to succeed in this [high inflation] environment, by leveraging our technology for tasks that can be digitized and re-allocating labor to higher priority responsibilities...â [Verdict Food Service]
â Ribbon - Ribbonâs technology gives time back to the bereaved by enabling financial institutions to launch their own inheritance centers and by removing the logistical nightmare most people go through when losing a loved one. This quarter, Ribbon announced a $2.7M pre-seed round led by One Way Ventures. [Axios]
Pathfinder Collective Spotlight
The Pathfinder Collective is our advisory network of unicorn founders, dedicated to helping portfolio companies as they scale. Over two dozen unicorn founders have joined, including Cal Henderson (Slack), Saeju Jeong (Noom), Severin Hacker (Duolingo), Eric Ly (Linkedin), Kathryn Petralia (Kabbage), and other exceptional entrepreneurs.
This quarter, we welcomed a new Pathfinder to our network:
Dmitry Gurski, CEO and Co-founder of Flo Health. Flo Health supports women throughout their reproductive lives and is the most popular womenâs health app in the world, with over 350 million downloads.
One Way Ventures in the News
Why Immigrant Founders Outperform, Lessons from Professional Blackjack, and Why Worrying About Downstream Financing Is a Mental Trap, with Semyon Dukach (The Full Ratchet)
How One Way is Easing the Path for Immigrant Founders. (Venture Capital Journal)
The Network Effect: Why VCs Should Set Up an Entrepreneur Collective (Crunchbase News)
How Are Investors Planning Around Interest Rates? (The Wall Street Journal)
Featured Jobs
Interested in working for a venture-backed startup? Explore some of our handpicked selections below or visit our careers page to learn more:
Account Manager at Impilo (đ Philadelphia)
Robotics Software Engineer at Instock (đEuropean Union, Remote)
Content Marketing Manager (đMontreal, Canada)
Full-Stack Engineer at Axle (đRemote)
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