In just a few days we will turn the calendar on 2019. Heading into not only a new year but a new decade we took a moment to reflect on the journey of the 1776 Seed Fund.
At the beginning of this decade, I was traveling the world meeting smart entrepreneurial thinkers and doers in places not traditionally thought of as hot beds of innovations. In each new country and within each city, I was met with incredible, wide-ranging, transformative and unexpected ideas. Thousands of founders stood on stages, sat in meeting rooms or found me in the hallway to not only pitch their ideas but to share their visions for making the world a better place. Their passion was clear, but most of them faced the same major challenge: access to capital. So many fantastic ideas were being overlooked because of the cities where they emerged or because the markets they were disrupting were not on the radar of most venture investors. In this shared need, we saw an opportunity.
In 2014, we set out to start a venture fund that would democratize seed funding for entrepreneurs around the globe who were solving problems in complex, highly regulated markets. Since then, we invested in dozens of companies in eight countries, helping teams to
- better diagnose and treat cancer
- boost educational access and outcomes from elementary school through post-graduate
- secure safe transportation options for thousands of children in foster care
- implement transformational energy solutions on oil rigs, in apartment buildings, and on corporate campuses
- change the way cities approach and manage public transportation
- rethink agricultural supply chains and farming practices
- improve the care and health of expectant mothers and their babies
All the while, bringing thousands of jobs to cities around the world. For many of these companies, 1776 was one of the earliest sources of funding, allowing the founding teams to continue their work tackling some of the world’s most challenging problems.
For example, we were one of the earliest investors in Twiga Foods. Twiga had a small team and a big vision to change agricultural supply chains in Africa where citizens spend approximately 73% of their earnings on food and more than 30% of produce is disposed of due to poor harvesting practices. Now Twiga is closing out 2019 having secured a $30M Series B led by Goldman Sachs, the largest amount of money ever raised by a Nairobi-based company, and is entering a period of growth and expansion led by former Coca-Cola executive Peter Njonjo.
Similarly, in 2015 we invested in an early round for Guild Education whose founder, Rachel Carlson, saw the enormous potential to expand education opportunities to millions of working adults by offering education as a corporate benefit. In November, Guild became the first company in our portfolio to reach a $1 billion post-money valuation. Guild closed a $157M Series D, more than double the total amount of money it had raised to date and became one of the few female-led startups to reach unicorn valuation status this year. They are now powering critical workforce training programs for companies like Walmart and Disney.
HopSkipDrive was another company where we were a very early investor. In January, HopSkipDrive will debut in its 13th city, Las Vegas. In addition to the consumer-facing service, the company has secured a contract with one of Las Vegas’ largest school districts for transportation of homeless and foster youth. HopSkipDrive’s impact on the success of foster youth who have access to stable transportation recently was highlighted in The Chronicle for Social Change. The Chronicle tracked the LA County Schools’ pilot program using HopSkipDrive and highlighted the more than $4,000 per student savings when using the company’s services as well as its flexibility and scalability. LA County intends to pass its learnings on to other counties.
We celebrate the successes of these, and many other, companies in our portfolio that are continuing the march toward growth. We also celebrate the handful of portfolio companies that reached the end of their runway earlier than hoped. The work of building and scaling a new company is incredibly difficult in any circumstances and perhaps even more so in regulated, emerging or complex markets. These founders and teams took on enormous challenges with creativity and drive, and I know they will continue to do amazing work in other ways.
We also celebrate the investors and partners that joined with us in the 1776 Seed Fund. In 2014, they saw what we saw — enormous markets crying for innovation yet under-targeted by entrepreneurs and overlooked by venture investors — a frontier ripe for entrepreneurial ideas and financial returns. Not impact investing. Smart investing.
As we stand near the beginning of a new year and a fresh decade, I am even more convinced of the potential financial returns and powerful impact entrepreneurship can have when it is aimed at solving problems that matter to our families, our communities, and our future. In coffee shops, coworking spaces, basements and home offices, the next wave of ideas that will transform the world are being talked about, sketched out, and experimented with right now. I look forward to continuing to uncover those ideas and backing the teams who are working to bring them to life.