Sourcery (5/1-5/5)

Kaizen Mindset & "Failure" ~ Novidea, Duetti, Nomba, Liquido, Slash, OpenEnvoy, Range, Uwill, Kindbody, Inbox Health, Love, Thesis, Sourse, Lasso MD, Cohere, Joby Aviation, Simpplr, Pando, Pietra

Hola from sunny, warm, beautiful LA ☀️

To close out my mental health vacay (#MentalHealthMonth) . . . Mallorca was breathtaking, warm and delicious, and Copenhagen was delightful but arctic-freeze level cold - however, we were really able to see what a 25% sales tax and 50% income tax can get you (no, not like SF’s disastrous use of funds): a gorgeous city, clean & walkable streets, water you can drink straight from the sink, a spotless amusement park (Tivoli Gardens is lit), no homeless people, no feces anywhere, crime dedicated to only one small lawless area (not the entire city of SF, but funky Christiania), and really really good food (yes, Noma put CPH on the map - but the trip’s Michelin star experts Julie & Ken said it wasn’t even that great 😂).

Kaizen Mindset 

The other week Milwaukee Bucks NBA star, Giannis Antetokounmpo, powerfully responded to a journalist’s question about the seasons “failure” and instantly he had the internet rallying behind him. This had me thinking about mindsets and “failure”... something very top of mind for friends and acquaintances who’ve been caught in the mix of layoffs, company wind-downs, slow fundraising processes (funds & startups), and those exploring new opportunities and risks.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1651462437114376192?s=20

There are two primary schools of thought when it comes down to mindset, either you’re in a fixed mode or growth mode. A fixed mindset is the belief that one's abilities and intelligence are fixed traits and cannot be developed or improved upon. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is the belief that one's abilities and intelligence can be developed and improved through hard work, perseverance, and dedication.

However, in addition to that, there are also neutral mindsets. A neutral mindset involves being able to assess situations without emotional bias, detaching oneself from preconceived notions, biases, and negative thoughts, and focusing on the present moment to make rational decisions in high-pressure moments. This is advanced.

Today we’ll focus on growth mindsets. A couple years ago my dad fell in love with the concept of Kaizen (so much so that he got us a full set of merch with the Japanese symbol, yes I still have it - gotta love father/daughter merch). Kaizen is a Japanese term that refers to continuous improvement based on the idea that small, ongoing positive changes can reap significant outcomes, and applies both to personal and professional growth. As an entrepreneur, he knew the value of connection and development to win new customers, products, ideas, and to strive to be the best leader for his teams he could be. Despite the unpredictable challenges along the way, somehow he has always been extremely positive, uplifting, and admirable.

After my freshman year at NYU I started a company. I had the drive, creativity, and internet skills to lift it off the ground. But I needed help. I didn’t have the mental endurance or experience to know what bumps were in reality “big” and which were actually “small” (like creating an LLC… thanks to the 3min on legalzoom, or going to the bank to start a biz account - this process has really evolved into one click since then 😅). So I went straight to my dad, and it was the best decision I ever made. This became an unexpected opportunity to build our relationship into its next phase and create a bond much deeper than I’d imagine. Through mutuality, I began to take on a greater growth mindset and smile at any challenge that came my way - because I knew it was a chance for learning, not defeat. The ability to break through those moments ultimately strengthen the problem-solving muscle memory for any new bumps that may come. Kaizen at its core. 

As for failure, I personally believe failure begins when you stop believing in yourself and your willingness to grow (oof fixed mindsets). Sure, things could go south, a company could fail, a relationship could crash, but if you didn’t learn from that and apply it to the next company, partner (or previous), deal, or new challenge, then yes you are failing yourself. That being said, everyone has their own definition of failure and it varies per person. Just know at the end of the day if you’re working hard, learning, and are keeping yourself accountable, don’t be so hard on yourself. Life is a long, long journey.

Below are a couple of musings that put mindset into a greater perspective. Whether it’s breaking out of your own thoughts, understanding the world around you, how your behavior affects others/how others affect yours, taking on consistent daily personal development, or just simply being more open minded. Take a listen/read:

Supporting Musings

• It Takes What It Takes: How to Think Neutrally and Gain Control of Your Life, Trevor Moawad & Andy Staples

  • Foreword by Russell Wilson, Moawad offers battle-tested strategies for managing and overcoming negativity to achieve any goal, based on the mental conditioning coach's experience with elite athletes, business leaders, and military personnel.

• Science-Based Mental Training & Visualization for Improved Learning, Dr. Huberman Podcast

  • Discusses the science behind mental training and how visualization can improve learning. Also emphasizes the importance of practicing and cultivating a growth mindset to maximize the benefits of visualization and mental training.

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck PhD

  • Adopting a growth mindset, which involves embracing challenges, persevering through obstacles, and viewing failures as opportunities for growth, can lead to greater success and fulfillment in life.

• Reclaim Your Brain: How to Calm Your Thoughts, Heal Your Mind, and Bring Your Life Back Under Control, Joseph A. Annibali MD

  • With mindfulness, cognitive restructuring, and self-care, individuals can manage stress, anxiety, and negative thoughts, and improve their overall mental health and well-being.

• Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, Peter Attia MD

  • The combination of healthy lifestyle choices, social connections, purposeful living, and advances in medical technology can help individuals live longer, healthier lives.

Other Musings

• Blaspheming Against The Hype, Trickle Down Hype-onomics, Kyle Harrison

• Nobody Trusts the Banks Now, Matt Levine

• The Weeknd Hints at Retiring Stage Name After Next Album: ‘I Still Want to Kill The Weeknd’, Complex

• Met Gala 2023 Red Carpet: See Every Celebrity Look, Outfit, and Dress From Last Night, Vogue

  • Jared Leto, as Choupette, won the night in my book & the hearts of all the “furries” out there (new cult leader?) - also fun fact, after landing at LAX he joined me in the elevator (I run into him weirdly very frequently)

• The Greatest Profitability Turnaround in Software History, Tomasz Tunguz

• Tinkering with LLMs, Tomasz Tunguz

• This year’s Kentucky Derby was super suspicious with the amount of horse deaths… so instead I’ll re-share the incredible underdog story about Rich Strike from 2022 (wow that was an incredible piece of history to be apart of)

@MollySOShea

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Last Week (5/1-5/5):

Relevant deals include the 60+ deals across stages below. 

I've categorized the deals below into four categories, Fintech, Care, Enterprise & Consumer, and Sustainability, and ordered from later-stage rounds to early-stage rounds. Highlighted deals include Novidea, Duetti, Nomba, Liquido, Slash, OpenEnvoy, Range, Setscale, Uwill, Kindbody, Inbox Health, Love, Thesis, Sourse, Lasso MD, Cohere, Joby Aviation, Simpplr, Pando, Campus, ODAIA, Pietra, Aligned, Airspeed, Goodship, Openlayer, Tristero, Golioth, Instock, Consensus, Partanna, EcoSoul; Deliverr/Flexport, Kinly/Greenwood

Final numbers on Highest Paid Athletes in the World at the bottom.

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Deals 

Fintech:

- Novidea, a Netanya, Israel-based insurance software solution provider, raised $50 million in Series C funding. Battery Ventures led the round and was joined by Cross Creek, Israel Growth Partners, KT Squared, and JAL Ventures. 

- Duetti, a New York-based music financing platform, raised $32 million in funding. Viola Ventures, Viola Credit, Roc Nation, Untitled, and Presight Capital invested in the round. 

- Nomba, a Lagos, Nigeria-based payment service provider for African businesses, raised $30 million in pre-Series B funding. Base10 Partners led the round and was joined by Helios Digital Ventures, Shopify, Partech, and Khosla Ventures.

- Liquido, a Mountain View, Calif.-based payments company for Latin America, raised $26 million in funding. Index Ventures, Base Partners, Restive Ventures, Mantis VC, and UpHonest Capital invested in the round. 

-  Slash, an online banking platform aimed at solo entrepreneurs, raised $19m in seed and Series A funding from backers like NEA and Y Combinator. www.joinslash.com

- OpenEnvoy, an Oakland-based accounts payable automation platform, raised $15 million in Series A funding. RRE Ventures led the round and was joined by Coelius Capital, Hack VC, Riot Ventures, and Uncorrelated Ventures.             

- Range, a McLean, Va.-based online wealth management platform, raised $12 million in funding led by Gradient Ventures, with participation from Expa. 

- Setscale, a Miami-based purchase order financing platform, raised $9.5 million in seed funding. Fin Capital, Great Oaks, Mantis, WndrCo, Ethos, and Jaws invested in the round.

- Marble, a New York-based insurance platform, raised $4.2 million in seed plus funding. Distributed Ventures led the round and was joined by Blue Collective, Goodwater Capital, CE Innovation Capital, and others. 

. . .

Care:

- Healthy.io, a smartphone-based kidney and wound testing startup, raised $50m in Series D funding, per Axios Pro. Schusterman Family Investments led, and Aleph joined. https://axios.link/3HA2VuP

- Uwill, a Natick, Mass.-based mental health and wellness solution for colleges and students, raised $30 million in Series A funding from Education Growth Partners. 

- Kindbody, a New York-based fertility clinic network, raised $25 million from Morgan Health. 

- Inbox Health, a New Haven, Conn.-based patient billing communications platform, raised $22.5 million in Series B funding. Ten Coves Capital led the round and was joined by Commerce Ventures, CT Innovations, Vertical Venture Partners, Healthy Ventures, and Fairview Capital.

- Intrinsic, a New York-based women's health and wellness brand, raised $15m in equity and debt, per Axios Pro. FCA Venture Partners and MAP Investco co-led, and were joined by Define Ventures, Link Ventures and Redesign Health. https://axios.link/42bScPq

- Love, a Miami-based personal health and wellness brand, raised $15 million in SAFE funding. Streamlined Ventures, MaC Venture Capital, Human Capital, and others invested in the round.

- Thesis, a New York-based nootropics company, raised $8.4 million in Series A funding. Unilever Ventures, Redo Ventures, Alive VC, Break Trail, NBA athlete Kevin Love, and model Kate Bock invested in the round.

- Genemod, a Seattle-based shared lab inventory and project management startup, raised $4.5m in seed funding. Defy.vc and LDV Partners co-led, and were joined by Dolby Ventures and Cercano Management. https://axios.link/3HxP6xc

- Sourse, a San Francisco-based vitamin-infused chocolate company, raised $2.4 million in seed funding. New Theory Ventures, H Ventures, JAWS Ventures, Satori Capital, Short List Capital, Harlo Capital, and LDR Ventures.

- Lasso MD, a San Diego-based developer of marketing tools for dental and medical spa practices, raised $2m led by Trestle Partners. https://axios.link/3VooGU0

. . . 

Enterprise & Consumer: 

- Cohere, a Toronto-based generative AI startup, raised US$250m at around a $2b valuation, per the NYT. Backers include Salesforce, Nvidia, Inovia Capital and Index Ventures. https://axios.link/3LrRfLV

- Joby Aviation, a Santa Cruz, Calif.-based electric aircraft company, raised $180 million in funding from Baillie Gifford.

- Mavenir, a Richardson, Texas-based provider of cloud-native software apps for mobile networks, raised $100m led by insider Siris Capital Group. https://axios.link/3NwigQU

- Simpplr, a Redwood City, Calif.-based employee experience platform, raised $70 million in Series D funding. Sapphire Ventures led the round and was joined by Norwest Ventures, Tola Capital, and Salesforce Ventures. 

- Foretellix, a Tel Aviv-based safety-driven verification and validation solutions provider for automated driving systems, raised $43 million in Series C funding. 83North led the round and was joined by Atrofin VC, NVIDIA, Woven Capital, MoreTech, Nationwide, Volvo, and Jump Capital.

- Pando, a San Jose-based supply chain and logistics SaaS company, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Iron Pillar led the round and was joined by Uncorrelated Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and Next47. 

- Campus, a New York-based collegiate education platform, raised $29 million in funding. Discord founder Jason Citron, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Figma founder Dylan Field, Lachy Groom, Bloomberg Beta, Founders Fund, Rethink Education, Reach Capital, and Precursor Ventures invested in the round.

- hackajob, a London- and New York-based technical hiring platform, raised $25 million in Series B funding. Volition Capital led the round and was joined by AXA Venture Partners and Foresight. 

- ODAIA, a Toronto-based commercial insights SaaS platform developer for pharmaceutical companies, raised $25 million in Series B funding. Threshold Ventures and Monograph Capital co-led the round and were joined by Wittington Ventures, Flint Capital, Women in Technology Venture Fund, StandUp Ventures, and Graphite Ventures.

- LMS365, an Aarhus, Denmark-based learning management system, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Blue Cloud Ventures led the round and was joined by Kamet Capital.

- Pietra, a New York-based e-commerce infrastructure startup, raised $16 million in Series A extension funding. M13 led the round and was joined by Founders Fund, TQ Ventures, and Abstract Ventures. 

- Aligned, a Tel Aviv-based B2B buyer-seller network developer, raised $5.8 million in seed funding co-led by Hetz Ventures and NFX. 

- Bloomfilter, a Cleveland-based process intelligence platform for software development, raised $5.5 million in funding. Magarac Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Sequoia, HPA, North Coast Ventures, Techstars, and others.

- Alison, an Israeli startup that analyzes creative work, raised $5.1m in pre-seed funding from a16z, Crescendo Venture Partners and Yellowhead. https://axios.link/40MJshq 

- NinjaTech AI, a Palo Alto-based A.I. virtual assistant, raised $5 million in seed funding. SRI Ventures led the round and was joined by Candou Ventures, DCVC, Lazlo Bock, and others.

- Airspeed, a San Francisco-based employee connection and celebration platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. Greylock Partners and Venrock co-led the round and were joined by Salesforce Ventures, Next Play Ventures, and others. 

- GoodShip, a Nashville-based collaborative cloud-based analytics and transportation procurement platform for shippers, raised $5 million in seed funding. Ironspring Ventures and Chicago Ventures co-led the round and were joined by FUSE VC and Cercano Management.

- Openlayer, a San Francisco-based A.I. testing platform, raised $4.8 million in seed funding. Quiet Capital led the round and was joined by YCombinator, Instagram cofounder Mike Krieger, Instacart cofounder Max Mullen, and others. 

- Tristero, a San Francisco-based dark pool technology company, raised $4.8 million in seed funding co-led by General Catalyst and Steel Perlot.

- Golioth, a San Francisco-based developer platform, raised $4.6 million in seed funding. Blackhorn Ventures and Differential Ventures co-led the round and were joined by Zetta Venture Partners, MongoDB Ventures, and Lorimer Ventures.

- Moonsense, an SF-based fraud prevention startup, raised $4.2m in seed funding. XYZ Ventures and Race Capital co-led, and were joined by TheGP and Foothill Ventures. https://axios.link/3VAUdCn

- Instock, a San Carlos, Calif.-based e-commerce fulfillment company, raised $4 million in seed funding. One Way Ventures and Lux Capital co-led the round and were joined by Commerce VC. 

- Consensus, a Boston-based AI search engine for scientific research, raised $3m in seed funding led by Draper Associates. https://axios.link/3nh5Ode

- Talentism, a Westport, Conn.-based organizational transformation and implementation platform, raised $1.5 million in funding from Decathlon Capital Partners.

. . .

Sustainability:

- Partanna, a Bahamas-based concrete decarbonization startup, raised $12m in pre-seed funding at a $190m post-money valuation from Cherubic Ventures. https://axios.link/3LQLclk

- EcoSoul, an Edison, N.H.-based maker of eco-friendly home products, raised $10m in Series A funding. Accel led, and was joined by Singh Capital Partners. www.ecosoulhome.com

- Origin by Ocean, a Finnish developer of algae-based fuel alternatives, raised €7.5m in seed funding from Voima Ventures, Lifeline Ventures, Batofin and Security Trading. www.originbyocean.com

- Frontline Wildfire Defense, a San Francisco-based wildfire defense company, raised $6.4 million in seed funding led by Echelon. 

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Acquisitions & PE: 

- Raisely acquired Aplos, a Fresno, Calif.-based nonprofit and church software platform, from ASG. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Anaconda acquired EduBlocks, a Preston, U.K.-based coding platform for K-12 students and beginner professionals. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

- Flexport agreed to acquire Deliverr, the San Francisco-based logistics business arm of Shopify. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Greenwood, an VC-backed neobank focused on Black and Latino customers, acquired Kinly, an Overland Park, Kan.-based rival that raised around $20m from Forerunner Ventures, Point 72 Ventures, Anthemis, Kapor Capital and Maple VC. https://axios.link/44lYqxO

. . .

IPOs:

- Kenvue, the Skillman, N.J.-based consumer health business of Johnson & Johnson, raised $3.8 billion in an initial public offering of 172.8 million shares priced at $22. The company originally planned to raise up to $3.48 billion through the sale of 151.2 million shares priced between $20-23.

. . . 

SPACs:

- Hyphen Group, a Hong Kong-based personal finance fintech, is in talks to go public via Bridgetown Holdings (Nasdaq: BTWN), a SPAC backed by Richard Li and Peter Thiel, per Bloomberg. Hyphen backers include Li's Pacific Century, Alibaba, Goldman Sachs, Experian and IFC. https://axios.link/40Y4z0q

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Funds:

- Sound Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, raised $243 million for a fund focused on A.I. investments.

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Moneyballers

Forbes has released its annual list of the highest-paid athletes in the world, with Cristiano Ronaldo taking the top spot thanks to an enormous $136 million haul for the soccer star from May '22 to May '23.

Ronaldo’s enormous social media following — which totals more than 850m — helped him secure some of the most lucrative endorsement deals of any athlete, including a lifetime partnership with Nike. It also didn’t hurt that he signed a $75m-a-year contract with Saudi Arabia's deep-pocketed club Al Nassr.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s influence is felt across this list, with golfers Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson both making the top 10 after leaving the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, earning tens of millions of dollars in guarantees. Elsewhere, LeBron James led the American contingent, out-earning his NBA competitors Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, while French soccer star Kylian Mbappé made his debut in the top 10 and Lionel Messi cashed $130m after leading Argentina to World Cup glory.

Overall, no female athlete broke through the ~$90m barrier required to make the top 10. Last year, Naomi Osaka topped Forbes’ list of highest-paid female athletes with a haul of $51m — a list often dominated by tennis players.

Retirement fun(d)

Roger Federer, who might not be eligible for this list next year after hanging up his rackets in September, remains a marketer’s dream. Thanks to a long list of sponsorships — including LVMH, Rolex, Mercedes-Benz and Uniqlo — as well as a significant stake in the fast-growing Swiss shoe company On, the Swiss maestro brought in $95m… all in off-field earnings.

. . .

The material presented on Molly O’Shea’s website are my opinions only and are provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. It is not a recommendation of, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy, any particular security, strategy, or investment product. Any analysis or discussion of investments, sectors or the market generally are based on current information, including from public sources, that I consider reliable, but I do not represent that any research or the information provided is accurate or complete, and it should not be relied on as such. My views and opinions expressed in any website content are current at the time of publication and are subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results.