Starting 2022 With a Big Holy Cow! š®š„
Wrapping up 2021, new investments, portfolio highlights, job opportunities and more.
Hey there!Ā
We couldnāt have imagined a better start for 2022! Our portfolio company, Remilk completed a $120M Series B round led by Hanaco Ventures in one of the largest funding rounds in the FoodTech sector.Ā
We are honored to have led the company's Pre-seed & Series-A rounds - from pre-seed to series B in 18 months! š
**They are hiring and itās a GREAT time to join
āIt is essential for the future of our planet that we liberate the food chain from dependency on animals. We do so by crafting real dairy that tastes and feels the same, minus the cow,āĀ Aviv Wolff, Co-Founder & CEO of Remilk
ā Wrapping up 2021Ā
The Israeli startup scene has had a record-breaking year in 2021 with over $25B raised and over $80B in M&As and IPOs!Ā
However, the data shows that most of this capital has been flowing into later-stage deals. According to the Israeli Innovation Authority, fewer startups are being founded every year, and although seed rounds have gotten bigger, the number of early-stage funding rounds has declined substantially.Ā
Today, more than ever, itās becoming clear that there is an early-stage funding gap. As we summarize 2021 and look to 2022, our mission at fresh.fund could not be more timely - to provide catalytic capital & support for early-stage founders.
ā” 2021 Highlights
Over the course of 2021, we reviewed just under 800 companiesĀ
We made 15 investments including new companies and follow-onsĀ Ā
Our portfolio companies raised over $150 million in venture funding
85% of our portfolio companies raised follow-on fundingĀ
Our combined portfolio valuation climbed to $750MM
Pitchbook listed fresh.fund as one of the most active VCs in Israel
š„³ Welcome to our Portfolio
Lexense - Co-Founded by Yedidya, Khen and Ilya, āāLexense democratizes legal access by allowing claimants to easily pursue small civil cases. There are more than $70 billion in small civil case value filed in US courts every year in an antiquated, opaque process. Launched in the US just three months ago, Lexense now handles a large case portfolio and is growing rapidly, with a contingency model of a 20% fee from an award or settlement.
Incredi - Co-Founded by Guy, Yaron, Eyal and Ariel, Incrediās vision is to democratize business lending and close the āCredit Gapā, using granular perspective and explainable AI. Incredi is building the first granular data-driven lending optimization platform for "drop-out debt", enabling millions of underserved creditworthy businesses to receive a second chance for a loan in fair terms. It provides both lender and borrower clarity, full transparency, and real opportunity to grow. *Incredi is hiring! Check out open positions
š Our Perspectives
In an Op-Ed published in CTech, Yoav Anaki from our team shares his perspective on why clever early-stage founders donāt necessarily optimize for the biggest check when raising money, but for gathering around their table the best and most valuable group of people.
In a deep-dive article, published in TheMarker, Oded Barel-Sabag from our team, shares fresh.fundās take the challenges and opportunities in transforming the academic ecosystem in Israel into a significant catalyst for entrepreneurship and innovation.
š« Portfolio Highlights
Diptera.ai got a grant from Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection together with Israel Innovation Authority as part of their mission to invest in environmental-climate innovative technologies invented by Israeli-based startups.
ITC is continuing to develop and grow its joint project with Netivei-Israel (Israelās biggest road operator). They recently presented their work to the Minister of Communications and their solution was featured in N12 news, Channel 13 News, and i24 news.Ā
Joyned (formerly Gamitee) secures $4M in seed funding. Theyāve also recently announced their new āTune-Inā Insights Product.Ā
MDI announced Richard L. Boals, former long-time CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield AZ is joining their team. Also, donāt miss Ariel Eferganās (Head of Growth) podcast interview, sharing MDIās story.Ā Ā
NAS Academy is growing its course pool with more than 50 leading global creators offering unique online learning experiences (Check out their NFT course!). Read NASās recent interview on CTech. And, they also announced the NAS Summit-Ā their first-ever Global Creator Summit in Dubai, itās like Davos for international content creators.
Payem was ranked as one of the leading startups in women representation in theĀ Israeli Women in Startups 2021 report. They also recently launched a One-Click Reconciliation feature. Oh, and donāt miss CEO Itamar Jobaniās interview in the Breaking Banks podcast covering how payment solutions have evolved for global businesses.Ā
Peech is continuing to onboard more content marketing teams for their automatic and scalable video creation platform. They are already working with companies such as SimilarWeb, Natural Intelligence, Bob, Circles and Google. If this sounds relevant for you- donāt hesitate to get in touch!!Ā
Visitt was selected by Deloitte as one of fastest growing proptech startups in their newly released āProptech 2022ā map
Wisio was mentioned in VC Cafe and Geektime as one of the top Israeli āCreator Economyā startups to watch.Ā
Zorba, got into Y Combinatorās recent batch (W22)! Also, donāt miss Omry Haizlerās (Zorbaās new VP Operations) post on why he left Compass, a real-estate leader, to join Zorba.
šŖ Job Opportunities
Diptera.ai is looking for a machine learning engineer. {EXPLORE HERE}
Incredi, our new portfolio company, is looking for full-stack engineers and a data scientist. {EXPLORE HERE}
Joyned is looking for a data analyst, CS manager and sales development representative. {EXPLORE HERE}
MDI is looking for a senior marketing manager, product manager, product designer, and more. {EXPLORE HERE}
NAS Academy has many (remote) open positions in product, design, creator partnerships, and more. {EXPLORE HERE}
Payem is continuing its rapid growth, they have many positions open in R&D, sales, CS, marketing, finance, and more. {EXPLORE HERE}
Remilk is looking to expand its R&D and operations team. {EXPLORE HERE}
Wisor is looking for Full-Stack developers. {EXPLORE HERE}
š fresh.links
Interesting content we recommend reading:
Tech questions for 2022 (By Benedict Evans)Ā
A Twitter Troll's Take on the Future of Investing (By Eric Newcomer)
The Disappearance of Riskā¦..? (By Alan Feld)
Starting from scratch: How to build customer success at a fast-growing start-up (By Yael Haloutz)
5 Biggest Mistakes of Early-Stage Startups (By Noah Eisner)
The End.
fresh.fundĀ is an Israeli Micro-VCĀ fundĀ investing in pre-seed stage startups across segments and verticals. We invest up to $300,000, often as the first institutional investors, and provide follow-on funding up until Round A.
To date we've invested in over 20 startups, 90% of which have gone on to raise follow-on funding from top-tier investors both in Israel and abroad, including Lightspeed, Pitango, NFX, LocalGlobe, Graph Ventures, Vertex, CPT Capital, YC, and others.Ā
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