Tweener Q4/2023 Recap, Revealing...Opine and Three Big Upcoming Startup Events.
Greetings Triangle Tweener List subscriber! Today, we’re leading with a big funding announcement from Opine, three awesome Triangle startup events to get on your calendars, then our Q4 portfolio and 2023 wrap-up.
Introducing Opine…
You may have noticed in our Q3 update, we had a 'stealth' startup on there - today they revealed that three early employees of local unicorn, JupiterOne - we've known the founders for a long time and were excited to be the first check in. Today, Opine announced their brand, what they are building and their $2m pre-seed round. Details here.
Upcoming Triangle Startup Events.
Founders Live, February 20 5:30pm at Raleigh Founded - Part pitch event, part founder support event, part startup conversations. Opportunities to both pitch and attend, details here.
NC Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) VentureConnect - March 20-21, VentureConnect is our regional pitch event put on by one of the oldest entrepreneurial groups in the country. Details here.
Raleigh/Durham Startup Week (RDSW) - April 9-12 -> learn more here. We'll be working on some Tweener List/Fund events - stay tuned.
Tweener Fund Q4 Results
The Triangle Tweener Fund (Tweener Fund) is excited to announce the results of the fourth quarter of 2023.
Tweener Fund made 10 new investments:
6 new portfolio companies (four investments were follow-on investments)
$500k invested across the 10 investments.
6 were Tweener investments and 4 were Pre-Tweener investments
$300k (60%) invested in Tweeners, $200k (40%) invested in Pre-Tweeners
$50,000 average investment
$2.3m average round size (lowest in 2yr history)
$11.6m average pre-money valuation (lowest in 2yr history)
Number of investments by instrument:
o SAFE: 4 (40%)
o Convert: 3 (30%)
o Priced Round: 3 (30%)
Introducing the Q4 Tweener Fund Portfolio…
Here's a brief description of each company:
TrackX (Tweener) – TrackX is a Triangle biotech startup with ties to Duke that has a fluoroscopy (orthopedic/heart/intestine x-rays) tool that provides a real-time view of x-ray procedures that improves accuracy and decreasing number of x-rays needed by 75%. TrackX is led by a serial entrepreneur. trackx.tech
Shipal (Pre-Tweener) – Shipal has built a comprehensive multi-lingual platform for global shipping with a focus on intra-South America (e.g. Colombia to Venezuela) and extra South America (shipping from South America to North America, commonly called Cross Border Trade in e-commerce). www.shipal.co
SiteBridge Research (Tweener) – SiteBridge has created A marketplace for clinical trials that connects doctors/patients with critical clinical-trials. They have a big focus on getting information on these often lifesaving clinical-trials out to rural areas where the healthcare systems often aren’t attached to universities which makes them less likely to know about the various clinical-trials. sitebridgeresarch.com
Pluto Health (Tweener) – Pluto Health was founded by Joy Bhosai, MD MPH based on a personal bad experience with the healthcare system. Pluto powers a modern patient portal, distributed through partners, that allows consumers to get a holistic, or 360-degree, view of all their health-related data, including current prescriptions, cross-system electronic health records, insurance details and more. trypluto.com
Altis Biosystems (Tweener) – Altis is a Triangle biotech firm that provides a critical gut testing platform for drug discovery companies. This platform allows them to validate that drugs in development do not negatively impact the increasingly critical gut-health. altisbiosystems.com
Coprata (Pre-Tweener) – Coprata is developing a smart toilet that provides health feedback on liquid/solid waste such as key digestive health indicators. While their first version is focused executing a patented gut-health test, they are working on future features that included early detection of colon cancer, Crohn’s disease, and colitis. coprata.com
The four existing companies we supported with follow-on investments were:
Adwerx (Tweener) – Long-time Triangle startup, Adwerx was founded in 2013 as a spinout of Reverb Nation. Adwerx helps real-estate and mortgage professionals create personalized and targeted digital experiences that helps them build new audiences and nurture existing relationships. adwerx.com
Impact Karma (Tweener) – Founded by serial founder Jayant Khadikar, Impact Karma’s first product is Karma Wallet – a sustainable awareness and affiliate solution that lets consumers connect and see how sustainable their online purchases are and earn cash back from sustainable merchants. Now they are on the cusp of releasing a reloadable pre-paid visa debit card that has cash back with over 1000 sustainable vendors. Tweener fund participated in a $5.5m round. karmawallet.com
Blue Co (Pre-Tweener) – Blue Co. is bringing the concept of co-working to warehousing. The existing co-working and commercial real estate industry structure do not fit modern rapidly growing service or e-commerce businesses. Blue Co. is providing fractional warehouse on a shorter-term basis for a wide variety of companies. bluecowarehousing.com
Belongly (Pre-Tweener) – We have a mental health crisis in the US. Belongly was founded by serial entrepreneur, Dr. Doug Kaufman, to address this problem. Belongly provides mental health professionals a professional network/community solution, on-line referrals and much more. belongly.com
2023 Recap
To recap our activity in 2023, here's the highlights:
59 investments
$3m invested
$50k average check size
Average round size: $3.6m
Average valuation: $22.8m (pre-money)
Here are all the companies we added to the portfolio list in 2023, by quarter:
Tweener Fund Lifetime Update
As of the end of Q4 2023 Tweener Fund is celebrating 2 years since our first investment. The Tweener Fund has made 114 investments across 84 companies and invested over $6m into Research Triangle Park headquartered companies.
More information can be found at www.tweenerfund.com - we’re always adding accredited LPs, the ‘pitch video’ is on the home page - look for the embedded video and hit ‘play’.