Welcome friends! Big week here at C2V HQ as we took a monumental step toward a return to “the old normal” (or is this just, “the normal”?) with our first in-person LP meeting.
Despite the ill-timed bomb cyclone (is this actually different from a “nor'easter”, or just a rebrand?), we still managed to get tons of LPs and founders in the room, including an astonishing 7 founders we had never met in person (this is what launching your first two funds during a pandemic will do).
A couple of the many highlights from the evening include:
A few major height surprises (all to the upside) including founders Kyle Stoner (Abode) and Shilp Agrawal (Blutag), as well as LP Brandon Killion (measuring in at a crisp 6’6”!).
A completely unsurprising ‘86 Celtics-caliber lineup of great presentations from our incredible founders and insightful questions and myriad offers of assistance from our equally incredible group of LPs
Some great commentary from LPs and founders including:
“I stopped Chris and told him I was IN the minute he said ‘robotic bathroom cleaning’.”
(Sheepishly) “I stopped reading the updates once I realized you guys know exactly what you’re doing. I worry about our other managers, but not you two.”
(The New England version of the prior sentiment from one of our native Bostonian LPs) “You know what’s great about you guys? You just keep not f**king up. It’s amazing how few people can do that.” (Long-live the Commonwealth); and
(From two of our founders who had just met) “Do you guys start by telling every investor that no one else does what you do for your founders? We both have lots of investors and they’re great, but they’re not you and it’s not close.”
Granted that last one was several drinks deep at an after-party dinner, but we’re pretty sure they meant it.
Many thanks again to all who braved the weather and made the night incredible for us!
To the newsletter...
Our broader thesis around retail tech is still in the queue (hopefully for the November edition), but in the meantime, we’re pleased to introduce our latest investment, Rumby, a software company focused on… wait for it… retail tech.
Our Latest Investment
Rumby is a software platform that takes dry cleaners, laundromats and hospitality laundry services (hotels, gyms, full service buildings) online, providing white-labelled ecommerce storefronts, online ordering and marketing capabilities, and managing instant pickups and deliveries.
Dry cleaners and laundromats have been among the slowest industries to adopt ecommerce and pickup/delivery strategies to supplement their traditional brick and mortar businesses (even very large national franchises), with the main issues having been the capital investment required for building their own delivery fleets (nearly all of which end up being loss leaders), and a general lack of sophistication in driving web traffic which has led to lackluster results.
Rumby solves for each of these issues, providing its customers with:
An SEO-rich, customizable, white-label ecommerce site for online ordering and brand promotion
A suite of marketing tools, including optimization of each customer's "Google My Business" and other online listings, updated social media accounts, automated email and/or SMS marketing campaigns and paid advertising programs.
Instant pickups and deliveries via integrations with existing driver networks (Postmates and Doordash to start)
Rumby has also begun its planned move into the hospitality space with a pilot program launched in August at 7 hotels owned by a property management company with over a thousand locations in its portfolio, and is in discussions with several of the largest US hotel operators to integrate Rumby's product into their guest services apps.
Portfolio Company Job Openings
Paladin: Several Open Positions:
Full Stack Engineers
Product Manager (being posted on Monday)
Chief Experience Officer
Product Designer
Hank: Full Stack Engineers, Director of Marketing, and 2 Customer Support Associates
Magellan AI: Sales Development Representative, Sales Development Representative
Portfolio Companies in the News
Tarform: Lewis Hamilton, Star Formula 1 Driver, Plans to Revolutionize the Sport , It’s Electric: These 9 Electric Motorcycles Are The Coolest Ways To Get Around This Fall
Rens: Meet the Emerging Brand Making Sneakers From Coffee Grounds
Armilla: Yoshua Bengio Part of Investors Betting On Armilla AI to Root Out Biases In Machine Learning
Embrace: Embrace grabs a new funding round amid unveiling of new mobile data intelligence software