Robbie Paul’s Post

Wealthtech Plenty Raises $5 Million Seed Round Plenty was co-founded by Emily Luk, CPA, CFA (formerly of Stripe) and Channing Allen (formerly of Homebase) out of personal need. Luk and Allen met while working together at the on-demand payment platform Even, which was acquired by Walmart-owned One. The duo eventually married, and the idea for Plenty emerged. Plenty has just announced a $5 million seed round led by led by Inovia Capital, with participation from Garage Capital, Otherwise Fund, and Interplay. The seed round investors join pre-seed investors: Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman’s 35 Ventures, Charge Ventures, Phenomenal Ventures, Xtripe Angels, and strategic angels Adam Nash (formerly Wealthfront), and Mark Goines (formerly Intuit, early in Mint and Personal Capital [acq. Empower]). Plenty is a Wealthtech that seeks to assist couples in investing and planning for the future. Plenty’s multiplayer money management seeks to allow a flexible approach to wealth-building, from cash flow management to goal planning and long-term investing. Luk, CEO of Plenty, says when they got married they could not find a product or service that worked well for them on making financial decisions so they built one. “The landscape of traditional financial planning or single-player fintech just doesn’t work for couples like us. Today’s couples expect easy collaboration, affordable prices, and are savvy enough to know that there are better investment products out there. We’re excited to bring that all into one platform and introduce Plenty to the world.” Plenty initiated an invite-only program in May 2023. Couples who have turned to Plenty to reach their unique financial goals have invested an average of $70,000 through the platform. Plenty is available for couples and individuals at $100 per person per year. Subscribe for more insights https://lnkd.in/d94JgWBU Source Crowd Fund Insider #fintech #wealthtech #funding

I’m excited to announce “Venture Wishlist,” a newsletter where early stage investors share the ideas and themes they want to fund. As a founder and investor, I’ve found that the most successful fundraising pitches happen when a founder is building a company that nails a thesis investors already have. For founders, we want to give them a better sense of the patterns and opportunities early stage investors see — so they can be better prepared in engaging with investors and the themes they are  excited to fund. Our first interview is with Daniel Kimerling, of Deciens Capital, someone I’ve invested with personally and is one of the most knowledgeable early fintech investors I know. https://lnkd.in/eTU8eRtZ #startup #vc #venture

The proptech world has gained a fintech partner now that Maybern has emerged from stealth mode with a $14 million Series A round. Primary Venture Partners, Camber Creek, HUMAN CAPITAL and MetaProp participated in the round for the Manhattan-based startup that seeks to unify financial and operational data on a single platform for private equity firms, including those focused on real estate. Read more: https://lnkd.in/euXNWwsp Pictured: Ross Mechanic, Co-founder & CEO of Maybern

It's been 15 months since Josh Resnick and I started OpenSky Ventures. Now, having been on both sides of the table, here are the top 5 attributes I'd look for in an investor if I were raising today: For those new here, OpenSky is a $10m early-stage VC fund formed by myself and Josh Resnick–the founder of Sugarfina USA LLC. We got started in early 2023 and since then we've invested in over 15 pre-seed and seed stage companies focusing on our two areas of expertise: • 70% - B2B ecommerce software (commerce infrastructure as we call it) • 30% - B2C consumer brands (DTC / CPG) Now onto what I'd look for in an investor today. There are 5 traits: 1. Experience - Did they actually operate in your area of focus? If not, they may have good "pattern recognition" but I prefer someone who's been there & done that so they can truly empathize with your position and speak from a place of experience.   2. Connectivity - What is their network like? Are they a "superconnector" that can get you in front of your ideal customer profile? Are they a thought leader on social? 3. Active - How active of an investor are they? If they only do a handful of deals per year, it's hard to say how engaged they will be. I want someone who's "all-in" on me and my biz. 4. Syndicate - Do they have a strong syndicate of other investors that they can not only refer, but "influence" to invest? I bucket this differently than customer connectivity given how valuable it is. 5. Empathy - My best investors became close personal "advisors" through my decade-long journey. I could call them day or night - weekday or weekend. They understood what I was going through and I had their cell on speed dial. You want someone who is available! The journey as an investor so far has been incredibly rewarding and I want to do more. If I can be helpful, comment below and I'll do my best to make a connection for you. PS: Anything else you'd add to the list of 5 here? Let me know.

Startup Central | Blox makes a bold move in the digital real estate space, acquiring 11% stake in advisory firm Guardians for $12M. Tune in to ET NOW as CEO Aditya Jhaveri shares the strategy behind this acquisition and the synergies they aim to unlock Avanne Dubash Blox.xyz   Watch the interview here👇

At Unify Ventures we love micro-VCs. By love, I mean that through our Fund of Funds model, we specialise in Australian micro-VCs, so we are constantly interacting with managers- some of whom are cautious about labelling themselves as "micro-VCs". My advice to them: own it! Doing so opens the door to driving the narrative of fund size as a strategy, supported by examples such as this and published information showing micro-VCs' dominance amongst top-quartile VC funds. And to the concern of predictability, oftentimes there are early indications and track record 😉

Liquidation preferences can make or break a deal in the startup world. 💼 Learn how the 4X liquidation preference, championed by industry leaders like Dale W. Wood, protects early investors in high-risk ventures. Read more: https://bit.ly/3zMxXit #StartupFinancing #VentureCapital #InvestorTips #DaleVentures #DaleWWood

🏘️ We've led Fractional's $15 million Series A funding. Fractional enables a group to co-buy investment properties for as little as $5,000 per person, helping connect investors to opportunities and handling the paperwork associated with co-buying a property and forming an LLC. The original vision for the company was to allow friends to buy properties together, but since its founding a lot of the users have been groups of strangers investing as a group. While Fractional itself doesn't own properties, today the platform is responsible for about 3,000 group-owned properties. We're looking to partnering with the Fractional team in their next chapter of growth. Read more in Axios. #venturecapital #proptech #funding

Monark Markets, co-founded by Ben Haber and Paul Davis, raised $2.2M in seed funding to embed private market investments into traditional brokerage platforms. Backed by Garuda Ventures, K50 Ventures, Grit Capital Partners, and Niche Capital Partners, this fintech startup is set to revolutionize trading solutions. Read more in the news section on colaeb.com

Lucky to have the founder of Venmo with us at Antler last week, pictured below. Our talk reminded me of the humility and focus of great founders vs. the status games so many others are playing. I wrote about that reflection in this week's MMM, The Rise of the Residency: https://lnkd.in/eahnDgyb You can also read the summary and hear the full talk on the Jelly here: http://jly.co/to2MTY Antler #vc #founders #investing