Connecting Great SoCal Entrepreneurs to Venture Capital

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10, 2024 — The Alliance for SoCal Innovation (“The Alliance”) is pleased to announce that they have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with Riviera Partners (“Riviera”).  The partnership leverages  Riviera’s highly respected recruiting and talent management expertise to advance high impact Alliance programs.  As part of the partnership, Riviera will become the newest supporting sponsor of the SoCal Venture Pipeline program (SVP) which connects the most promising early stage startups with venture capital in order to improve access to institutional capital across the SoCal region. In Addition, Riviera will become a Corporate Supporting Partner with the Alliance, adding Eoin O’ Toole its Managing Partner and head of VC-backed practice to the Alliance’s high profile Advisory Council.

Entering its third year, the SVP program is completely free for the startups and investors who participate. The Alliance does not collect any fees or take equity thanks to lead underwriting from Banc of California as well as support from Wilson Sonsini, KPPB LLP, and HCVT. Increasing capital access for the most promising startups across the expansive SoCal region is core to the Alliance’s mission and this particular program is foundational to that effort.

Andy Wilson, Executive Director of the Alliance, said “We are so fortunate in SoCal to have so many amazing founders building great startups across this massive and diverse region. However, access to critical early stage capital is not equally available to all. We rely on great partners like Riviera Partners who share our commitment to supporting the most promising entrepreneurs in their effort to build high growth startups. I know their talent management expertise will be particularly valuable to these efforts.”

“We are very excited to partner with the Alliance on the important mission of the SoCal Venture Pipeline program,” said O’ Toole. “We are committed to supporting the venture community and entrepreneurs. The Alliance, with its deep SoCal network, has a proven track record of connecting venture-ready founders to relevant investors. As a firm, we are committed to community impact and believe the combination of improved access to capital and top talent  will propel the region’s most talented entrepreneurs to higher levels of success.”

Startups based in the SoCal region who apply to be in the SVP program undergo a rigorous screening process by a team of investment professionals before being accepted into the program. Once accepted they are further vetted before receiving highly targeted personal introductions to appropriate investors in the Alliance’s extensive and growing network of 215 active venture capital partners.

Since its formal launch in June 2021, the SoCal Venture Pipeline, which serves both Seed and Series A-ready companies, has attracted 778 total applicants with 87 accepted companies of which 24 startups were funded for a total of $112M raised, plus 3 additional companies that were acquired. Since launching in June 2024, the Alliance’s new SoCal Catalyst Fund has already co-invested in 4 SVP selected startups following leading investor City Rock Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, K Street Capital and GFT Ventures. 

For SoCal-based tech startups that are raising $1M+ of seed or $4M+ of Series A institutional capital and meet the guidelines outlined in the program FAQ, apply now to begin the process of getting connected to the right investors.

About The Alliance for Southern California Innovation

The Alliance for Southern California Innovation (the “Alliance”) is a not for profit formed in 2017 that has successfully brought together the heft of Southern California’s top research institutions, local business leaders, and world-class advisors to focus on bridging critical gaps in the SoCal innovation ecosystem. The goal of the Alliance is to engage and unify SoCal’s compelling diversity of talent, ideas, and perspectives in order to optimize the conditions for the region’s innovators to bring breakthroughs to the world.

About Riviera Partners

Riviera Partners is a global driver of innovation for today’s most influential companies – expertly placing executive talent in the crucial areas of IT, software engineering, product management, security, AI/ML/Data, and design. Riviera combines over two decades of recruiting expertise with a proprietary platform that uses machine learning to score and predict the best candidate for a company’s specific needs, driving successful outcomes. As a result, the company has become the go-to talent partner for leading private equity investors, venture capitalists, public companies and technology innovators. Learn more about Riviera Partners at www.rivierapartners.com, and follow us on  LinkedIn.

Media Contacts:
Eric Eide,
The Alliance for SoCal Innovation, 
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Alliance for SoCal Innovation

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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 10, 2024 — Numeric has raised a $28 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from new investors IVP and Socii Capital, and existing investors Founders Fund, 8VC, Long Journey, Access Industries, and Friends & Family Capital, and others. This investment will accelerate engineering hiring and product development, supporting Numeric’s aim to enable real-time decision-making from financial data.

In the past year, Numeric has experienced explosive growth, 4xing revenue and attracting high-profile customers including OpenAI, Brex, and Plaid. The new round comes on the heels of a $10M Seed Round announced just five months prior— bringing the total amount raised to $38M.

“We have looked at dozens of companies trying to help automate accounting workflows and have never seen the level of product love that world-class finance teams have for Numeric”, said Croom Beatty, Partner at Menlo Ventures.

Accounting teams have long been stuck between error-prone spreadsheets or disconnected point solutions, each addressing only a fraction of their needs.

Numeric is pioneering a new approach. “By sitting at the nexus of the close process, Numeric is building the financial data fabric to unify point solutions and workflows into a single platform. It’s clear that Numeric is quickly becoming the key pillar of the modern CFO stack”, Beatty expands.

“Today, most accounting teams spend 120 days per year on repetitive processes— and companies are forced to make decisions based on weeks-old to months-old data”, Parker Gilbert, CEO and Co-Founder of Numeric, explains. “Our team is building the first real-time accounting system. Where AI will review every single financial transaction; validate against standards and documentation; actively monitor for accuracy, and generate key review tasks for human accountants in the loop.”

This development comes at a critical time for the accounting industry, which faces a shortage of 340,000 professionals and a nearly 50% decline in CPA exam participants since 1990. Teams are short-staffed and overworked, creating a vicious cycle of accountants exiting the profession. Numeric’s platform automates manual work involved in the month-end close, such as balance sheet reconciliations and auto-drafted variance explanations.

“By leveraging GenAI, Numeric enables our team to close books faster, gain deeper insights, and boost productivity. Plaid is undergoing rapid growth, and we need partners that can respond to our needs at scale as we continue to grow. What truly sets Numeric apart is their ‘move fast’ mantra—whenever we need something, their team responds immediately, often delivering a fix or new feature within days. It’s a fantastic partnership, and we’re excited to see how Numeric continues to drive innovation in the accounting space”, shared current customer Sandy Yang, Head of Accounting at Plaid.

Founded four years ago, Numeric draws upon co-founder Parker Gilbert’s firsthand experience with the limitations of traditional accounting systems while scaling a finance team at a VC-backed startup. Their goal is to create a new genre of financial software that transforms financial operations from a retrospective process into a real-time strategic asset.

About Numeric

Numeric is an AI accounting automation platform, built to take manual work off accountants’ plates so they can focus on what’s impactful. Founded in 2020 by co-founders Anthony Alvernaz, Parker Gilbert, and Andrew Bihl, Numeric is headquartered in San Francisco and New York.

For more information, visit Numeric

SOURCE Numeric

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MIAMI, Oct. 10, 2024 — FlexFactor, a cutting-edge provider of decline recovery solutions for eCommerce brands, announced the completion of its $16.8 Series A funding round. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with additional participation from seed investors.

Global eCommerce sales exceed $5 trillion annually, yet a persistent challenge continues to impact merchant success: failed payments at checkout. This translates into lost revenue, missed opportunities to engage with new customers, and lower customer lifetime value (LTV). In the US, more than $500 billion is lost annually due to failed payments and cart abandonment. With the average merchant having a 10-15% decline rate, FlexFactor’s mission is to equip brands globally with the means to turn payment declines into successful orders and lasting customer relationships.

FlexFactor’s proprietary AI-powered platform sets a new standard in recovering false payment declines. The platform instantly evaluates and rescues failed transactions across all decline reasons, including Insufficient Funds. FlexFactor’s approach allows merchants to recover up to 30% of failed payments, significantly outperforming traditional eCommerce norms. FlexFactor offers a comprehensive solution for both eCommerce and subscription orders. On average, brands using FlexFactor convert 5% more customers at checkout, translating into a direct 5% increase in revenue. Brands also see an added 3-5% revenue uplift over time built on lasting consumer relationships.

“Payment declines is perhaps the largest, yet most unresolved problem in payments,” said Charles Birnbaum, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “Elio and Ze’ev bring decades of experience in data science, credit risk, and underwriting, to address the well-known problem of failed customer transaction attempts across all decline types in real time. The team has already delivered tremendous impact for their early customers and we look forward to the company’s global expansion.”

“We’re excited to partner with Bessemer Venture Partners on the next phase of our journey. The new funding will further our R&D, while expanding global operations with sales and support,” said FlexFactor CEO and Co-Founder, Elio Vitucci. “We are poised to rapidly expand in our focus markets as we redefine the possibilities of decline recovery, addressing the unmet needs of merchants everywhere.”

FlexFactor CCO and Co-Founder Ze’ev Shoval added, “FlexFactor tackles an unsolved problem in the commerce landscape. Businesses engaged with us are driving 5% more top line revenue by saving legitimate customers who would otherwise be turned away at checkout. Lost customers have lower LTV and are less likely to return again.”

About FlexFactor

FlexFactor is advancing payment recovery, turning false declines into real sales using AI. Our platform analyzes hundreds of data points to reverse failed transactions in real-time, providing a 5% average lift in sales for ecommerce merchants. We cover all decline codes for both ecommerce and subscription transactions, at no risk to merchants and no cost to customers. Visit www.flexfactor.io.

About Bessemer Venture Partners

Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations to build and forge long-standing companies. With more than 145 IPOs and 300 portfolio companies in the enterprise, consumer and healthcare spaces, Bessemer supports founders and CEOs from their early days through every stage of growth. Bessemer’s global portfolio has included Pinterest, Shopify, Twilio, Yelp, LinkedIn, PagerDuty, DocuSign, Wix, Fiverr, and Toast and has more than $18 billion of assets under management. Bessemer has teams of investors and partners located in Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, London, Hong Kong, Boston, and Bangalore. Born from innovations in steel more than a century ago, Bessemer’s storied history has afforded its partners the opportunity to celebrate and scrutinize its best investment decisions (see Memos) and also learn from its mistakes (see Anti-Portfolio).

SOURCE FlexFactor

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Farther’s AUM Surges 5x Year-Over-Year, Surpassing $5B

NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2024 — Farther, the leading technology-centric financial advisory firm, closed a $72 million Series C funding round to expand its advisor network and enhance its wealth management platform. Co-led by CapitalG, the independent growth fund of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), and Viewpoint Ventures, this funding round elevates Farther’s post-money valuation to $542 million.

The funding comes as Farther surpasses $5 billion in assets under management (AUM), a milestone that reflects 5x year-over-year growth. This success underscores the power of Farther’s proprietary, custom-built technology – which drives operational efficiencies, boosts advisor productivity and payouts, and accelerates asset growth.

“We built Farther to enable advisors to focus on what truly matters: delivering value to their clients,” said Taylor Matthews, CEO and co-founder of Farther. “Removing operational and administrative hurdles creates growth opportunities for our advisors, and they can offer a superior experience to even more clients. This capital infusion signals strong market confidence in that vision. With this investment, we will continue enhancing Farther’s technology to set a new benchmark for wealth management advisors and clients alike.”

Seasoned advisors are drawn to Farther’s cutting-edge technology, white-glove support, and advisor-first culture. Farther’s technology enables advisors to dedicate 90% of their time to client interactions and prospecting – 4x more than is typical. That helps them simultaneously grow their books of business faster and deliver more for their clients. Free from mandatory minimums and non-compete agreements, advisors are empowered to build client bases that align with their personal goals, backed by a transparent payout structure and equity in the firm.

“At CapitalG, we take a deep, thesis-driven approach to investments. We spent years looking for companies with the potential to transform the wealth management industry. We were drawn to Farther both for its strong leadership team and for its unique business model which pairs world-class, proprietary technology with human expertise. This creates an ideal environment in which both advisors and clients flourish, and a flywheel which will continue to attract best-in-class advisors to the Farther platform,” said Jesse Wedler, general partner at CapitalG. “We look forward to helping them further scale their innovative wealth management business.”

“We’ve been impressed with how fast Farther is growing organically, especially in an industry where growth has mostly come from M&A,” said Drew Aldrich, founder and managing partner of Viewpoint Ventures. “Viewpoint’s thesis-driven strategy was purpose-built to invest in firms, like Farther, that transform human-powered markets. In our experience, attracting the best advisors to a tech-enabled platform like Farther’s leads to accelerating advantage and, ultimately, industry dominance.”

With the latest investment, Farther has raised more than $118 million in total funding. The company’s existing investor base includes Bessemer Venture Partners, Context Ventures, Cota Capital,  Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, MassMutual Ventures, and Moneta Venture Capital.

About Farther
Farther is the nation’s leading technology-centric wealth management firm – empowering expert advisors with cutting-edge technology to deliver an efficient, comprehensive, and elite client experience. The fastest-growing RIA in the country, Farther manages over $5 billion in assets across 100+ wealth managers and 5,000 clients. For more information, visit https://farther.com/.

About CapitalG
CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, invests in remarkable companies transforming the fields of enterprise infrastructure, security, and data; fintech; and consumer services and marketplaces. CapitalG partners with growth stage companies in their transition from startup to scale up through hands-on assistance from its in-house growth team and connections to Google’s engineering, product, marketing, sales and people operations experts worldwide. More than 35,000 Googlers and Alphabet leaders have engaged with CapitalG portfolio companies, including Airbnb, CrowdStrike, Databricks, Duolingo, Freshworks, Gusto, Lyft, Stripe, UiPath and Zscaler, among others. Learn more at https://capitalg.com/.

About Viewpoint Ventures
Viewpoint Ventures is a thesis-driven, late-stage venture capital firm based in New York City. The firm focuses on businesses that empower human “producers” (such as advisors, agents, and brokers) with technology and services to unlock growth. Viewpoint targets industries where producers are central, including wealth management, real estate, and insurance. Learn more at https://www.viewpoint.vc/.

SOURCE Farther

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Forward-flow and back-book purchase commitment is led by Fortress Investment Group with Edge Focus

WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 10, 2024 — Best Egg today announced it has secured a $500 million purchase commitment to facilitate the growth of the company’s personal loan product. The purchase facility, led by funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group LLC (“Fortress”) alongside Edge Focus, includes a forward-flow purchase commitment and purchases of back-book loans facilitated by the Best Egg platform.

“The purchase commitment we’ve secured from Fortress and Edge Focus will allow us to serve more American borrowers who are seeking a cost-effective solution to manage their revolving debt or complete an important life event,” said Andrew Deringer, Chief Financial Officer of Best Egg. “We remain committed to providing flexible and accessible capital to borrowers, and this partnership expands our capacity.”

Best Egg is a leading fintech company that specializes in helping people with limited savings feel more confident about their everyday finances through a suite of products and resources.

Over the past 10 years, Best Egg has delivered more than $30 billion in personal loans. In its 2024 Best-of Awards, NerdWallet recognized Best Egg’s personal loan as the best option for borrowers with good credit. Additionally, for the second consecutive year, Best Egg earned a place in J.D. Power’s top 10 for overall customer satisfaction. Best Egg’s reputation is built on providing flexible and accessible loan products that can help people build financial confidence and a stronger credit profile.

Under the purchase facility – which is a joint venture between Fortress, a leading, highly diversified global investment manager, and Edge Focus, a fast-growing consumer credit-focused asset manager – each partner has committed to underwrite a fixed portion of loans facilitated through Best Egg’s personal loan program. The loans acquired in the back-book were facilitated by Best Egg starting in the fourth quarter of 2023.

“We are excited to back Best Egg’s continued growth. In today’s economic climate, we know that partnering with prudent originators of consumer credit who care about the utility and benefit of the credit extended to their borrowers is of the utmost importance,” said Bart Stankiewicz, Managing Director at Fortress Investment Group. “The strong alignment between Fortress, Edge Focus, and Best Egg on this transaction has created a tailored, private forward flow program that we believe offers our investors a compelling investment opportunity with steady cash flow.”

“We are fortunate to have two great partners in Fortress and Best Egg,” said Jeff Andrews, Chief Revenue Officer of Edge Focus. “Our expertise in modeling borrower behavior, trove of consumer credit data, and longstanding relationship with Best Egg helped ensure this is a transaction where everyone wins, especially the borrowers who will have expanded access to credit.”

About Best Egg
Best Egg is a leading fintech that drives financial confidence, providing flexible solutions to help people with limited savings adapt to their changing needs. Best Egg supports customers through a growing suite of personal loan, flexible rent, and financial health tools. Leveraging real-time customer insights and data engineering, Best Egg gives more people access to the resources they need to be money confident. For more information, visit www.bestegg.com.

About Fortress Investment Group
Fortress Investment Group LLC is a leading, highly diversified global investment manager. Founded in 1998, Fortress manages $48 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2024, on behalf of approximately 2,000 institutional clients and private investors worldwide across a range of credit and real estate, private equity and permanent capital investment strategies.

The Fortress Asset-Based Credit business provides capital solutions to specialty finance companies, lending against and investing in a broad spectrum of consumer receivables, small commercial receivables and other contractual cash flow streams. With over two decades of experience as an active investor in the space, the team focuses primarily on originating businesses in the US and Europe with an asset class agnostic approach.

About Edge Focus
Led by co-founder and CEO Elliott Lorenz, Edge Focus is a fast-growing technology-driven investment management company with a proprietary credit engine powered by machine learning to underwrite, value, and purchase consumer loans. Edge Focus runs funds, special purpose vehicles, and separately managed accounts for its partners. For more information, visit www.edgefocuspartners.com.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Lisa Albiston, Head of Corporate Affairs
Best Egg
[email protected]  
[email protected] 

Sam McCormack, Account Manager
Vault Communications
[email protected]

SOURCE Best Egg

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• RadiantGraph empowers payors and health service organizations with AI platforms that deliver high-quality, tailored campaigns that impact member engagement and activation
• The company has seen more than 1,400% growth in one year since its launch, and is currently processing personalization models for more than 3.5 million people
• The funding will support expansion of the company’s AI platform capabilities, driving scalable growth and savings within health plans and health service organizations

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 10, 2024 — RadiantGraph, a platform using artificial intelligence to drive consumer engagement for healthcare, today announced that it has raised an $11 million Series A funding round, led by M13, with meaningful participation from XYZ Ventures and True Ventures. The investment will be used to continue the expansion of the company’s platform capabilities, and drive scalable growth and savings within health plans and health service organizations. The company’s seed round included Glen Tullman (CEO, Transcarent), Lee Shapiro (CFO, Livongo), Mohsin Hussien (CTO, Liveramp), Yusuf Sherwani (CEO, Pelago Health), and Chethan Bachireddy (Chief Health Officer, Harris Health).

Payors and health services organizations play a vital role in the healthcare outcomes of their members, but the traditional approach to member engagement is broken. Members face an increasingly difficult to navigate healthcare system and have come to expect more personalized communication, delivered on the platforms they use.

Despite this, companies have been unable to deliver this level of personalization to their members at scale. They are largely held back by cobbled together platforms and data point solutions that require significant technical investment before they can have a real-world impact. Healthcare needs a singular consumer engagement platform that makes it possible to understand all aspects of a person’s health needs, models how to best engage them, and delivers communications across multiple channels, from direct mail to voice AI.

Since its launch in September 2023, RadiantGraph has shown an almost immediate impact, empowering healthcare organizations to deploy AI models that deliver high-quality, tailored communications, as well as consumer enrollment and engagement campaigns. RadiantGraph does this by solving the entire lifecycle – starting with a built-in health data engine to digest disorganized healthcare data, developing AI and ML models for their member population, automating content generation and orchestration, and more recently, creating voice AI interactions. Without RadiantGraph, healthcare companies spend years and millions of dollars on manual processes and point solutions that lack this cohesion and functionality.

In the past year alone, RadiantGraph has seen growth of more than 1,400%, processing personalization models for more than 3.5 million people, helping its customers deliver major improvements on the status quo. For one client, the company’s predictive models have demonstrated a more than 12x improvement in identifying members likely to enroll in a program, while another saw almost 3x improvement in identifying individuals that could avoid costly surgery with proactive early intervention.

“Healthcare needs its own consumer engagement platform. AI capabilities have become exceptionally powerful, and can help us pin-point how to engage each consumer, based on their unique needs. But, without a platform that solves healthcare problems on day one, companies are spending tens of millions cobbling together point data solutions and systems that just haven’t worked,” said Anmol Madan, Founder and CEO of RadiantGraph. “This funding will accelerate our ability to help payors and healthcare organizations see the positive impact of consumer engagement on their KPIs and bottom line.”

Healthcare has traditionally struggled to connect with members and encourage participation in programs. The adoption of AI and digital health tools has had little business impact, with health plans averaging an NPS of just 6 for new members. In fact, most members who need digital health solutions aren’t discovering them.

Though AI solutions are making inroads, many companies still rely on paper communication and one-size-fits-all approaches that end up being discarded or ignored. In a economic climate where profitability is an important concern for many payors, RadiantGraph has proven itself to be a valuable partner. The platform brings AI consumer engagement to companies, replacing legacy solutions to increase retention and acquisition, with the goal of improving enrollment in programs, as well as net promoter score with members and star ratings.

“Engaging consumers is a major bottleneck across healthcare and is a crucial problem to solve. While startups are raising large rounds to build healthcare specific AI capabilities, Anmol and the RadiantGraph team understand the limitation is not the AI technology itself but rather the real world impact from its adoption. This team has the AI and healthcare expertise to pull off personalized engagement at scale and we couldn’t be more excited to back them,” said Latif Peracha, Partner at M13 who led the deal.

RadiantGraph accelerates the program adoption curve by drawing actionable member insights and launching AI-led campaigns in weeks, versus the years it would take a company to build a less efficient platform from the ground up. This results in faster and more impactful member engagement, and the ability for companies to save millions in development and staffing costs to build their own system from the ground up.

RadiantGraph has also expanded its platform with new capabilities, Intelligent Personalization and Integrations, which offer an expanded approach to data management and targeted member communication. Intelligent Personalization is designed to identify member segments, use AI to train tailored approaches for members, and provide a recommended approach for each member with the goal of treating each member as an individual. The Integrations capabilities allows organizations using leading cloud platforms AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Snowflake and Databricks to integrate their data with AI-driven personalization within hours – a significant improvement over the current timeframe of months or years.

About RadiantGraph
RadiantGraph is on a mission to help healthcare organizations leverage AI and machine learning to better understand and engage with consumers. Personalization drives higher consumer adoption and engagement with health benefits, and improves clinical engagement, and long-term healthcare costs. Eight out of ten employees say they would use their health benefits more if they were offered an experience tailored to their individual needs.

RadiantGraph’s platform today supports leading health plans and healthcare organizations in substance abuse, mental health, chronic conditions, MSK, and other complex healthcare. RadiantGraph is led by Anmol Madan (ex-CDS Livongo, Teladoc, and co-founder/CEO Ginger); joined by an experienced team of healthcare leaders formerly from Livongo, Teladoc, Ginger, Wheel, and more. Funded by True Ventures, M13, XYZ Ventures, Remus, and other notable investors, RadiantGraph was recently listed as one of Business Insiders “25 Healthcare Startups Set to Take Off in 2024.” Learn more at radiantgraph.com.

SOURCE RadiantGraph, Inc

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FAIRFIELD, Conn., Oct. 10, 2024 — RotoUnderworld, a technology company that analyzes statistical data for fantasy sports, announced today that it has raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed funding round to build the next-generation fantasy gaming platform. The round was led by iGaming mavens and technology investors recognizing the company’s hyperactive user base and mobile development capabilities.

RotoUnderworld’s new FastDraft app is revolutionizing the iGaming sector with high-engagement fantasy contests that appeal to both low and high-volume customers. By reducing draft times, simplifying the user experience, and providing more actionable in-game data, FastDraft is accessible to a wider audience of sports fans and fantasy enthusiasts.

“RotoUnderworld is on a mission to bring knowledge and joy to sports,” said Matthew Kelley, founder of RotoUnderworld and gameplay architect of FastDraft. “Soon after our sports data business ramped up, we were inundated by fantasy sports consumers eager for more mobile fantasy gaming options, especially in the rapidly growing best ball vertical. We listened and delivered.”

“Our drafts finish in under 5 minutes, which is 10 times faster than traditional best ball formats,” said Kelley. “By simplifying the scoring and reducing the time to draft, FastDraft appeals to over 50 million fantasy gamers worldwide who love drafting but often feel overwhelmed by the complexity, competition and time commitment. FastDraft’s streamlined format makes it easy to engage with the app and significantly increases user spend per session.”

After acquiring more than 1,000 new FastDraft users in the first month, the company is preparing a seed funding round to scale the platform, introduce new contest formats and promote the brand to the millions of fantasy gamers worldwide eager to start drafting faster.

FastDraft’s initial launch demonstrated the market’s appetite for a new generation of mobile fantasy sports products. RotoUnderworld will continue disrupting the fantasy sports industry with its groundbreaking technology, becoming a leader in the fast-growing iGaming sector by bringing knowledge, joy, and speed to sports fans.

About RotoUnderworld:

RotoUnderworld’s PlayerProfiler.com reimagined how sports fans access advanced sports data and statistics. The company is a prominent fantasy sports information service provider, and its new venture, FastDraft, is the fastest-growing fantasy sports product in the iGaming sector.

Contact:
Billy Muzio
[email protected]

SOURCE RotoUnderworld

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EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., Oct. 10, 2024 — Fission announced today its $1.6M pre-seed funding round led by SALT Fund and Kraynos Capital, with participation from Anthony Scaramucci (Skybridge).

Fission, the first DeFi application built to bring venture capital on chain, launched its testnet today on Ethereum. The platform opens a new venue where crypto natives as well as traditional finance participants can invest in and trade private equity backed tokens, beginning with Fission’s VC secondaries token, TECH.

Fission is a global investment platform that simplifies the process of buying and trading private ventures to just a few clicks. Fission offers an end-to-end integrated technology stack that is optimized for bringing private equities on-chain—through tokenization, decentralized exchange, decentralized lending, and automated liquidity provider infrastructure. Investors can easily purchase and trade tokens, backed by top tier VC-funded companies.

Jonathan Shaffer, CEO and Co-founder of Fission Labs, commented on today’s news, “Fission’s testnet launch is the first step into a future where private equity and venture capital products converge with web3. Investors everywhere in the world deserve access to American private companies and the ability to sell their stakes when they want. DeFi will revolutionize liquidity for private funds and enable an entirely new class of global market participants to own America’s most innovative companies. Fission combines the best of institutional grade compliance with a DeFi native experience to offer compelling products for both financial institutions and retail users alike.”

Central to Fission’s mission is its robust global community. This is a hands-on opportunity for the community to build Fission’s protocol. To learn more about Fission, or to request access to our testnet, please go to:

Fission.xyz

About Fission
Fission is the first DeFi application built for VC products on Ethereum that integrates tokenization, trading, lending, and automated liquidity provisioning into a simple, intuitive, end-to-end solution. The founders are seasoned CeFi and DeFi experts from Point72, MakerDAO, and Compound and our partners are market leaders in the space. Our mission is to simplify private equity investing for a global community, offering users liquidity and boosted returns.

SOURCE Fission Labs

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COSTA MESA, Calif., Oct. 10, 2024 — TOCA Football, Inc. (TOCA), the world’s leading soccer experience company, today announced that it has raised approximately $100 million in private offerings to accelerate its global growth by investing in new technologies, upgrading its TOCA Soccer training centers, and opening additional soccer-themed TOCA Social entertainment venues.

TOCA raised its Series F round from both existing shareholders and new investors. Notably, Jim Kavanaugh, founder and CEO of World Wide Technology (WWT) and co-owner of the professional soccer team St. Louis CITY SC, and members of his leadership team; Bill Anderson, former chairman and CEO of Anderson Holdings, founder of First Beverage Group, and founder of June Street Capital; Jared Smith, co-founder of Qualtrics; and chess grandmaster and soccer enthusiast Magnus Carlsen all participated in the round, as did existing investor and England Men’s National Team captain Harry Kane. Kane recently renewed his collaboration agreement with TOCA and will continue to serve as a key brand ambassador.

TOCA raised additional funds for the construction of its first U.S. TOCA Social entertainment venue. TOCA, in partnership with Major League Soccer (MLS), recently announced plans to open their Texas-based venue at The Colony’s Grandscape, in advance of the 2026 World Cup. TOCA Social currently operates at London’s The O2 and Birmingham’s Bullring & Grand Central. Earlier this year, TOCA also announced a partnership with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield to open TOCA Social venues in Continental Europe and its first franchise deal in Mexico with Ventura Entertainment. These venues are planned to open in London, Paris, and Monterrey in 2025.

New investor Jim Kavanaugh shared his enthusiasm for TOCA’s future, stating, “TOCA’s unique approach—combining personalized, data-driven training with engaging, soccer-themed entertainment—has captivated a global audience, from elite athletes to young players discovering the game for the first time. With a presence in key markets, TOCA is poised to redefine the future of soccer on a global scale.”

TOCA co-chairman and WestRiver Group founder and CEO, Erik Anderson stated, “I am excited to welcome our new shareholders and to work with WWT as a key technology partner. Their exceptional experience in propelling the world’s largest and most innovative organizations will be vital in driving TOCA’s growth.”

“Soccer is the world’s most popular sport with massive tailwinds for growth in the U.S.,” said Yoshi Maruyama, CEO of TOCA. “This new capital infusion empowers us to scale our brand and to bring our cutting-edge training methods and immersive experiences to millions of guests around the world. We are incredibly grateful for the trust and confidence of our investors, both old and new, as we unlock our strategic vision with our partner MLS, who share our passion for advancing the beautiful game.”

About TOCA Football, Inc.
TOCA Football, Inc. is the world’s leading soccer experience company, transforming the sport and building communities that inspire everybody to play the beautiful game. TOCA operates two primary businesses: TOCA Soccer, the largest operator of tech-enabled soccer training centers in North America with 39 locations, and TOCA Social, the world’s first soccer-themed entertainment and dining venues, currently operating in London and Birmingham.

Founded in 2016 by two-time U.S. World Cup and former MLS and English Premier League midfielder Eddie Lewis, TOCA is led by CEO Yoshi Maruyama, a seasoned leader in the leisure industry. TOCA’s Board of Directors includes influential figures in sports and business such as Erik Anderson, former Executive Chairman and CEO of Topgolf; Abby Wambach, U.S. Women’s National Champion; Celeste Burgoyne, President, Americas and Global Guest Innovation at lululemon; and Julie Haddon, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer of the National Women’s Soccer League. The company is also backed by MLS and Harry Kane, captain of the Men’s England National Team. For more information, visit TOCAfootball.com or follow @tocafootball on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. To learn more about TOCA Social, visit toca.social or follow @tocasocial on Instagram.

Media Contact:
Jack Buttacavoli
[email protected]

SOURCE TOCA Football, Inc.

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