Portfolio Spotlight: Bluefish

We're thrilled to announce that we've invested in the seed round of Bluefish, a cutting-edge marketing platform that helps brands turn AI into a powerful new marketing channel. In this round we are proud to partner with Crane Venture Partners, Bloomberg Beta, and Firebolt Ventures.

The digital advertising industry, a colossal $1TN+ market in the US, is witnessing a seismic shift with AI's emergence, as consumers begin to shift their online behaviors based on AI. Innovations like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini are redefining how consumers interact with information and media online - and specifically how consumers find and purchase products. The resulting implications for online advertising are significant, and the Bluefish team is building the next generation of marketing technology to capture this massive opportunity.

The Bluefish technology will empower brands to reach consumers in new ways on AI media, leverage new forms of analytics to understand how their brands are interpreted by LLMs, and ultimately transform AI into the next major marketing channel to distribute products and services. 

We're particularly excited to back Bluefish because of the impressive team. Co-founder and CEO Alex Sherman is a proven entrepreneur, having previously led PromoteIQ (a Laconia Fund I portfolio company) to success and acquisition by Microsoft. At Microsoft, PromoteIQ continued to scale rapidly and remains one of the largest players in the retail media industry. Joining Alex in this venture are two exceptional co-founders: Andrei Dunca and Jing Feng. Andrei co-founded LiveRail (acquired by Facebook for $400M+). Jing brings an extensive operating background in martech, having served in COO and General Manager roles at PromoteIQ, LiveRail, BlackArrow, and more. The team’s track record, technical abilities, and domain expertise give us great confidence in their ability to build the market-leading AI marketing platform.

Currently, Bluefish is onboarding a select group of brands for its closed pilot program. If you're a brand interested in exploring how AI can enhance your marketing strategies, or if you know one who might be, we encourage you to reach out directly to Alex Sherman at alex@bluefishai.com.

We're excited to support Bluefish.ai on this journey. Stay tuned for more updates!

Thematically written with the gentle assistance of ChatGPT :)

Portfolio Spotlight: Auxa Health

We’re thrilled to share our newest investment in Auxa Health, which announced its $5.2 million seed financing round today. We are excited to co-invest alongside lead investor Zeal Capital, AlleyCorp, K50 Ventures (thank you, Adriel, for the connection!), and Chaac Ventures.

Auxa Health is an AI-powered health benefit navigation technology solution partnering with payers and providers to enable more efficient and effective care. Auxa supports value based care providers and enablement organizations and expects rapid growth in the provider and payer space this next year. With this new funding, Auxa can further develop its technology, expand benefit coverage, and grow the team. You can read Auxa’s announcement full announcement here.

As investors, we constantly harp on how important strong founders are to any company, particularly at the seed stage. This team is no exception. Auxa is co-founded by three experts with deep domain expertise and alignment with the mission of improvement health outcomes and the patient experience:

  • Monica Chopra, Co-founder and CEO, is a seasoned healthcare leader with 24+ years of experience at Oscar, athenahealth, Greater New York Hospital Association, and New York Presbyterian Hospital

  • Samantha Adelberg, Co-founder and SVP of Operations, brings over decade of operations expertise through Unite Us, NYC Opportunity, and others

  • Dr. Jeffrey De Flavio, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, is a physician an entrepreneur, with an intensive track record including as Co-Founder of Pearl Health, Groups Recover Together, Diana Health, and more

Benefit navigation is an acute problem, with nearly $100 billion in health and social care benefits remaining unused each year despite 70% of Americans reporting at least one unmet need. Auxa addresses this head-on by offering an end-to-end solution that demystifies benefit and drug coverage details, surfaces eligibility and prior authorization requirements, and efficiently enrolls patients into high-value public benefits. 

Our investment in Auxa is a continuation of our focus on sub-sectors of healthtech such as value-based care and the caretaker economy, with our existing investments including Yuvo Health and Tender. We understand the urgent need for solutions that increase accessibility to care in equitable ways, and we are excited to support the teams driving these developments forward.

For now, please join us in congratulating the Auxa team on this milestone, and visit www.auxahealth.com to explore opportunities to partner with Auxa and discover how you can join their dynamic and growing team.


SportsRecruits Partnered with All In Volleyball to Drive Student-Athlete Exposure at Events

Sports Recruits recently partnered with All In Volleyball to provide a connected recruiting experience for softball athletes, guardians, youth coaches, and college coaches.

According to Co-Founder at All In Volleyball, Kyle McCall, “SportsRecruits will provide additional resources for student athletes to encourage and assist them in their respective journeys playing in years three and four”.

Check out the full article here:

SKI (Senthil Kumar Iyyappan), Chief Information Security Officer at Ocrolus, Named in TradeFlock’s 40 Under 40 for 2024

SKI (Senthil Kumar Iyyappan), Chief Information Security Officer at Ocrolus, was recently named in TradeFlock’s 40 Under 40 for 2024!

Senthil Kumar Iyyappan (aka SKI) is a seasoned information security expert and Certified CISO who strongly advocates the transformative perspective of considering cybersecurity as an investment. He is a transformative force, challenging the conventional perception of security as a mere defensive shield.

Read the full profile here