Seed Stories hosted By Jon Dishotsky: Recent Episodes
Jon Dishotsky
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders of startups on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
The show is hosted by Jon Dishotsky, who is an early-stage investor and mentor focusing on pre-seed and seed. He's a Venture Partner at Giant Ventures and an active angel investor. He was previous the founder of Starcity, a global coliving company.
On today's episode of Seed Stories, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Sanjay Mandava, CEO of Landeed.
Landeed is a proptech startup building India's fastest and most comprehensive property title search engine. With more than 84% of Indian household wealth stored in real estate, property, and land, having accessible public records is crucial for protecting against litigation and facilitating transactions. Two-thirds of all court cases in India deal with land-related disputes, making Landeed's work even more critical.
The company recently raised $8.3 million in a funding round led by Draper Associates, Y Combinator, and Bayhouse Capital. Sanjay Mandava, a second-time YC founder, is at the helm of this ambitious venture.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't, and what their plan is going forward.
Closed Captions available
https://anchor.fm/startup-seed-stories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky
On today's episode of Seed Stories, I had a chance to sit down with Manish Maryada, CEO and co-founder of Fello https://fello.in/
Fello is a game-based savings and investment application that teaches the Gen-Z of India to save, play, and earn returns greater than a traditional savings bank account.
The company recently raised $4 million in a round led by Courtside Ventures and with participation from Entrepreneur First, Y Combinator, Kube Venture, Upsparks, and angel investors such as Kunal Shah, Lalit Keshre, Charlie Songhurst, Dafeng, and Alan Rutledge.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't, and what their plan is going forward. #startups #venturecapital #entrepreneurship
Closed Captions available
https://anchor.fm/startup-seed-stories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky
On today’s episode of Seed Stories, I had a chance to sit down with Nicolas le Jeune, Co-Founder and CEO of Courtyard https://courtyard.io
Courtyard stores physical collectibles (trading cards, sneakers, watches, etc.) in secured vaults, creates a 3D representation of the asset and mints it as an NFT on the blockchain. We’ve partnered with one of the largest security companies in the world to store collectibles.
Courtyard recently raised $7 million in seed funding by global venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from Y Combinator, OpenSea Ventures, VaynerFund, Brink's, Cherry Ventures, and a select group of angel investors.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Also available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/dIoS6SYNzbM
Closed Captions available
https://anchor.fm/startup-seed-stories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky
On today’s episode of Seed Stories, I had a chance to sit down with Mahyad Ghassemibouyaghchi co-founder and CEO of SigmaOS https://sigmaos.com/
SigmaOS is the first browser made for work, designed to make YOU faster and better. 🗂️ Workspaces to organize your pages and web-apps 💤 Snooze pages to keep your mind clear ✂️ Split screen to multitask like a pro.
SigmaOS recently raised $4 million in seed funding led by LocalGlobe and participation from Y Combinator, 7percent Ventures, Moonfire Ventures, Shine VC, TrueSight Ventures, Pioneer Fund and Venture Together. Angel investors like Cocoa Ventures partner Carmen Alfonso Rico and EightSleep founder Matteo Franceschetti joined the round as well.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Closed Captions available
Also avaialble on Youtube: https://youtu.be/7jkfUfpO7fk
https://anchor.fm/startup-seed-stories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky
On today’s episode of Seed Stories, I had a chance to sit down with Emmanuel Turlay founder and CEO of Sematic https://www.sematic.dev
By using Sematic, developers can build and run end-to-end ML pipelines effortlessly to retrain and improve their models continuously.
Sematic recently landed a $3M seed funding round led by Race Capital, and accompanied by Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Leonis Capital, Fundament, and Pioneer Fund.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Available on Youtube as well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRhsVJ-r7UE&feature=youtu.be
https://anchor.fm/startup-seed-stories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky
On today’s episode of Seed Stories, I had a chance to sit down with Zach Bell, founder of MyPlace https://myplace.co On Myplace, homes are truly shared in an exchange, the original intention of home sharing. From text, to Facebook, to building an app, Myplace has grown organically into the “Raya of Homesharing” and now on the cover of the travel section of NYT during a global pandemic.
MyPlace landed a $5.8 million seed round with participation from Haystack, Oceans and OnDeck, as well as angel investors from Tesla, Facebook, SpaceX and PayPal. Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories, I'm excited to welcome my friend Alex Budak who recently released a fantastic book "Becoming a Changemaker" https://www.changemakerbook.com The book is "an Actionable, Inclusive Guide to Leading Positive Change at Any Level."
Alex is a social entrepreneur, faculty member at Berkeley Haas, and the author of Becoming a Changemaker. At UC Berkeley, Alex created and teaches the transformative course, “Becoming a Changemaker.”
He also serves as Executive Director of the Berkeley Haas Global Access Program and as a Lecturer and Faculty Director for Berkeley Executive Education programs. As a social entrepreneur, he co‐founded StartSomeGood.com, ran Sweden’s most prominent social innovation incubator, Reach for Change and helped Change.org raise $30 million.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from the Lyndsey Harper, MC CEO and Cofounder of Rosy - https://meetrosy.com Developed by doctors and psychologists, Rosy is the first-of-its-kind platform for the 43% of us who experience sexual concerns. Our app meets you right where you are so you can take your sexual health into your own hands.
“In private practice, I noticed a common trend among my patients. Women, at all ages, were experiencing a decrease in sexual desire, and they were turning to me for help,” Harper said. “So, I decided to do something about it. In 2018, I left my private practice to champion women’s sexual health and education and started working on Rosy.” Rosy landed a $1 million seed round led by Social Starts and Joyance Partners. Harper is using that and her background to help women during the pandemic, offering some premium services for free. And as more people turn to tech for their health care needs, Harper sees the conversation about women’s sexual health growing, and Rosy along with it.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward. #startups #founders #venturecapital
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from the James Edward Murray, CEO and Cofounder of Therify - https://therify.co
Finding the right therapist is never an easy task, but it gets even harder when, as a person of color or someone with disabilities, there are few or no people sharing your experience available. Therify hopes to change that with a network of providers from and catering to marginalized populations.
“It just makes a ton of sense,” co-founder James Edward Murray told TechCrunch. The problem is super simple: Not everyone can find therapists they feel comfortable with, since the process of finding one isn’t particularly convenient to begin with, and when you add in some important personal preferences, it can be nigh impossible.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/07/therify-hopes-to-build-a-more-diverse-and-inclusive-therapist-network-with-1-3m-seed-round/
Therify recently raised $1.3M from SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund, Looking Glass Capital, Y Combinator of course, Flexport, True Culture Fund and K5 Global, plus a raft of individual investors including former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao, Jack Altman from Lattice and others.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from the Lulu Ge, CEO and founder of Elix https://elixhealing.com
Lulu’s grandfather ran a hospital in Southern China, so she grew up knowing the power of superfruit tonics and medicinal mushroom soups. But it wasn’t until Lulu went off birth control—and experienced the worst cramps, bloating, headaches, and sleepless nights—that she found her way back to herbal medicine. Passionate about helping all women reach their highest potential, Lulu recruited a team of medical experts, beginning with her college friend, Dr. Nicole Glathe, to offer greater access to personalized herbal medicine for menstrual wellness.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
startups #founders #venturecapital
Closed Captions available
FOLLOW ME: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky Site: https://daftcapital.com/
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from the Raad Ahmed, CEO and founder of LawTrades https://www.lawtrades.com.
3 years ago, Lawtrades was about to go bankrupt. They failed to raise a Series A. Nobody wanted to invest. This year, they closed $6M in funding ($80M valuation) from 100+ customers and investors using a link and no meetings. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-we-just-raised-6m-80m-valuation-from-100-investors-raad-ahmed/?trackingId=Bj9IjHy%2FTd%2BAuDhiUcdHCQ%3D%3D
We'll hear all about his early projects as a tinkerer, how he came up with the idea of Lawtrades, how he got into 500Startups after applying multiple times, what it was like to pivot a few times after raising top tier funding, what it was like to watch Justin Kan launch Atrium and fail making investors concerned about the market, and the LawTrades comeback story.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from the Co-Founder & CEO of Sequin, Vrinda Gupta - Sequin is The Debit Card that Builds Credit for Women. https://www.sequincard.com
She recently just raised a $5.7M Seed Round from YC, Scribble Ventures, Thomvest, Matrix Partners, Liquid2, IDEO and a massive list of top female execs including Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, Kim Polese, Holly Liu, Larissa Roesch and more. https://www.forbes.com/sites/geristen...
We'll hear about her amazing journey from working at Visa for years, and launching popular credit cards there. When she applied for a credit card she helped develop, she was rejected. All her years of smart budgeting and app payments didn’t show up in her credit history. To big banks, she was invisible. If you’ve ever been rejected or hit your credit limit, you know the feeling. We'll hear about the nitty gritty on getting from idea, to launch, closing Seed and the 12-month / 10 year plan./
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
FOLLOW ME: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky Site: https://daftcapital.com/
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from the founding team of Blair, who recently just raised a $6.3M seed round from one of the top financial institutions in the world Tiger Global https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/07/blair-tiger-global-seed. We'll hear about their upbringing in Berlin, their move to the US, their tricks to remain ramen-profitable while building the early versions of Blair and how the closed this epic round of financing.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
startups #founders #education
FOLLOW ME: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky Site: https://daftcapital.com/
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from Haseeb Awan CEO & Founder of Efani https://www.efani.com/. They recently raised $1.3M from 77 different investors—many of them customers—using an RUV - https://www.angellist.com/blog/how-efani-raised-1m-from-customers-using-a-ruv
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from Peter Fishman, CEO & C-founder of Mozart Data https://www.mozartdata.com. They recently raised a $4M Seed round from an all-star cast of investors including Craft Ventures and Array Ventures with participation from Coelius Capital, Jigsaw VC, Signia VC, and Taurus VC. The company graduated from the Y Combinator Summer 2020 cohort.
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
startups #founders #data
FOLLOW ME: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky Site: https://daftcapital.com/
Seed Stories are short conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from Zuleyka Strasner, CEO & Founder of Zero Grocery https://zerogrocery.com/. They recently raised $4.7M in a Seed Round as announced here: https://zuleykastrasner.medium.com/zero-grocery-has-raised-4-7m-brick-by-brick-5cb9d2111141
startups #founders #sustainability
FOLLOW ME: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky Site: https://daftcapital.com/
Seed Stories are 15-20 minute conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from Alison Greenberg , CEO & Co-Founder of Ruth Health https://www.ruthhealth.com/. Ruth Health is creating the first digital + at home clinic for pregnant people.
startups #founders #sustainability #shorts
FOLLOW ME: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jondishotsky LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondishotsky Site: https://www.giant.vc/ Site: https://daftcapital.com/
Seed Stories are 15-20 minute conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from Jeff, CEO & Co-Founder of Jupe https://jupe.com/. They recently announce a Seed round of $9.5M led by Initialized. https://startuparound.com/read/1638941897.920313/Y-Combinator-backed-Jupe-raises-$9.5mn-seed-funding-led-by-Initialized-Capital
Seed Stories are 15-20 minute conversations with founders on the heels of a raising a recent Seed round. We'll learn about their company, their fundraising process, what worked, what didn't and what their plan is going forward.
Today on Seed Stories we're going to hear from Jose, CEO & Co-Founder of Waterplan https://www.waterplan.com/. They recently announce a Seed round of $2.6M led by Giant Ventures. https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/03/waterplan-tracks-water-risks-and-sustainable-solutions-for-climate-conscious-companies/
startups #founders #sustainability
Jose Galindo, Nicolas Wertheimer and their colleagues Matias Comercio and Olivia Cesio founded Waterplan after both working in and around the environmental sector for years. They realized that although there was a lot of action, data and planning around carbon emissions, comparatively little was being done around water risk, since it has yet to become as visible of a threat. They started the company and took it through Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 cohort.