The Triangle Tweener Fund (Tweener Fund) is excited to announce the results of the first quarter of 2023.
In partnership with DreamTen, a local design agency, we have launched a comprehensive new website at https://www.tweenerfund.com. The new site features an updated 2023 'Triangle Tweener Fund pitch' video, a complete searchable portfolio database, and more.
In addition to launching the new website, Tweener Fund made 12 new investments:
· 10 new portfolio companies (two investments were follow-on investments)
· $675k invested across the 12 investments
· 9 were Tweener investments (companies above $1M in revenue or 10+ employees)
· 3 were Pre-Tweener investments
· $56,250 average investment
· $2.6m average round size
· $19.4m average pre-money valuation
· Number of investments by instrument:
- SAFE: 7 (58%)
- Convert: 3 (25%)
- Priced Round: 2 (17%)
· 134 investors (LPs) - up from 128 in Q4 (+6)
“The first quarter was full of drama for startups due to the banking closures kicked off by Silicon Valley Bank. “, said Scot Wingo, Tweener Fund General Partner. “Because of the uncertainty in the market, in Q1 we saw founders raise money 63% of the time using a convertible note/SAFE which doesn’t require a lead and kicks the valuation can down the road. Also, we were pleased to see the number of LPs joining our fund continued to increase quarter-over-quarter validating our index approach is an attractive option even in volatile times.”
Welcoming the Triangle Tweener Fund Q1Portfolio
The Tweener Fund is excited to welcome 12 investments across 10 new companies into the portfolio, representing over $675,000 invested in the quarter.
“One of the strengths of the Triangle startup ecosystem is the diversity of types of startups,“ said Robbie Allen, Tweener Fund General Partner, “In Q1, while the previously hot SaaS category was under some pressure, DevTech, GreenTech,FinTech and especially HealthTech were quite active and the trend looks to continue into Q2.”
Here are the Q1 new portfolio companies (in order of investment):
Seal the Seasons (Tweener) – Founded by Patrick Mateer, Seal the Seasons is a sustainable food company that brings the farmer’s market to your freezer. Seal the Seasons innovation is leveraging a supply chain designed to bring locally grown and frozen produce direct to the your local grocery store. Founded in Patrick’s dorm-room at UNC, Seal the Seasons is now available in 30 states and over 4,000 retail locations.
Mesur.io (Tweener) – Mesur.io provides the Earthstream platform that ingests open source data and company data, marries it with ML/AI to provide decision makers with a detailed map of how that data will impact their business. Use cases include climate change, supply chain assurance, food security and disease management. Tom Rump is CEO and Mike Prorock is CTO/Founder.
VitalFlo Health (Pre-Tweener) – VitalFlow provides RapidPFT that focuses on improving patient outcomes for those with chronic respiratory diseases. RapidPFT allows clinicians to measure a patient’s respiratory metrics in under three minutes anywhere and anytime. The platform gives healthcare providers all the data needed to track patient health and track their status.
Windlift (Tweener) – What’s cooler than drones? Drones that can generate green/renewable energy anywhere within 30 minutes. Windlift provides an Airborne Power Generator that generates 10x of similar solar solutions. Rob Creighton is the Founder andCEO.
Arpio (Tweener) – When Doug Neumann was at Bandwidth, he architected and built a disaster recovery (DR) system that worked in concert with cloud platforms like AWS. That idea was spun out as Arpio in 2018 and has proven the theory that there is huge demand for automated DR on AWS.
Bionic Health (Pre-Tweener) – Robbie Allen is one of the Triangle’s top serial entrepreneurs and also co-GP at Tweener Fund. We are excited to support him and cofounder Dr. Jared Pelo with their new HealthTech + AI startup Bionic Health. Bionic Health will leverage modern AI technology with the latest in longevity medicine, frequent comprehensive diagnostics to deliver a highly personalized treatment plan for each patient.
Adwerx (Tweener) – Founded in 2014 by Jed Carlson, Adwerx recently announced a new CEO, Michael Collins. Adwerx helps SMBs create, manage and optimize online advertising with a vertical focus mostly in the real-estate space.
Levitate (Tweener) – Jesse Lipson’s contributions to the Triangle Startup Ecosystem are too numerous to detail and he’s a top serial entrepreneur in our area. We were excited by the opportunity to participate in Levitate’s latest round of funding.
BotBuilt (Tweener) – In this quarter, not only do we have cool drones, but we also have awesome robots. BotBuilt uses general purpose industrial robots and ML/AI applied to image/vision systems to automatically build panels for home builders. BotBuilt’s founders are Brent Wadas (CEO), Colin Devine and Barrett Ames.
DART Innovation (Tweener) – DART CEO, Kenny Olson, was at P+G for ~10yrs and decided to move to the Triangle and founded DART in 2015. DART puts interactive displays and sensors in retailer stores in the home improvement, sporting goods, drugstore and other verticals. With Apple’s moves in ATT/IDFA, one of the fastest growing areas of retail/e-commerce is called Retail Media Networks (RMN). Tweener fund how has three non-competitive investments in this area with Kevel, The Looma Project and now DART.
In Q1, Tweener Fund also made follow-in investments in these existing portfolio companies:
Belongly (Pre-Tweener) – Dr. Doug Kaufman is a serial entrepreneur and has started Belongly (aka Vertroos) to provide a LinkedIn-like professional network platform for mental health professionals. Tweener Fund directly participated in the round and led a SPV that was over-subscribed.
Muuk Test (Pre-Tweener) - Modern agile teams are moving so fast, Quality Assurance (QA) is frequently left by the side. Muuk Test has developed technology that automatically generates QA tests enabling teams to get to 95% coverage rapidly.