The Battle To Be Your Home Page
Plus Eleven Boston Tech Companies That Raised $250M+
Happy Monday,
The ship is finally un-stuck. What am I supposed to talk about all week now?
Everyone Wants to be Your Link in Bio
Not Boston-based, but I found this pretty interesting:
Linktree just raised a $45M Series B from Coatue and Index Ventures — after a $10.7M Series A less than five months ago.
Users on every major social app can only have one link in their bio at a time, and sometimes links intentionally can’t even be shared elsewhere on the app. Linktree basically created the new category of “Link in Bio” services — simple landing pages where users can display all their relevant social links in one spot. They want to be the “hub” to a creator’s many social media “spokes” — social apps, merch pages, new videos, etc. Here’s GaryVee’s as an example.
The race to be that hub has started to seriously heat up — dozens of startups are launching to become the “identity layer” for creators, in hopes that they can capitalize on their traffic through a commerce play, or by charging as a SaaS product for premium features.
One of the things I find most interesting about this growing space is the lack of aggressive competition from the biggest no-code website builders out there. Wix is on a tear, Squarespace just raised $300M at a $10B valuation, and Webflow just raised $140M at a $2.1B valuation. Squarespace has a competing product via Unfold that’s good, but pretty undifferentiated. When you search “Wix Bio Site,” all you find is a template they offer that still includes a Google Plus icon 🤮. Webflow has beautiful templates, but the next Charli D’Amelio doesn’t have time to search the Webflow discover page. It seems like any of them could build a better competing product during a weekend hackathon.
The answer to why they haven’t might come down to what Nathan Baschez calls “Complexity Convection" — they all tried to make simple products to start out. The problem is, “As the product grows more complex, it gets better for their long-time, most demanding customers, but it gets worse for new users with simpler needs.”
I’m curious what the evolution of each of these “Link in Bio” products will look like in the next two years. Initial customers (or their most lucrative customers) are bound to mature and seek more mature solutions. But do all of these startups want to become a CMS? I think the must-haves for the winners here will be a lightweight “business-in-a-box” approach that lets creators showcase and monetize themselves seamlessly without leaving the website. Merch creation, VIP access memberships, Cameos, etc. — all in one.
I’m also torn between thinking these products aren’t meant to be venture-backed businesses, while also recognizing that if I was an investor, I probably would have passed on companies like Stir, Substack, and Patreon because it’s hard to size all of these “Creator/Passion/Influencer Economy” opportunities. Either way, I’ll be making accounts on as many of these sites as I can in hopes of scoring the @nick handle to feed my ego.
PS: Marie Dollé has a seriously underrated post on this topic and an accompanying spreadsheet of all the main players in the space.
Stuff I’m Reading:
More women are leading Boston area startups. But still not nearly enough — Boston Globe
A Weird and Wacky Approach To Angel Investing — Dharmesh Shah
Boston Tech Financing Rounds:
Notarize ✍️
Online notarization startup Notarize just raised a $130M Series D led by Canapi Ventures, with participation from CapitalG, Citi Ventures, Wells Fargo, True Bridge Capital, and others. Last summer they raised a $35M Series C after seeing 400% growth from April to July. That growth continued to compound by another 200%, alongside the closing of a handful of impressive partnerships and the doubling of their workforce.
MedMinder 💊
Tech-enabled pill dispenser company MedMinder just raised $40M from AccelMed Partners. The dispenser employs a Hardware-as-a-Service model ($50/mo) and is designed to make taking medication more engaging, safe, and “fun.” It features a mini-display, speakers, cellular connectivity, and remotely-lockable pill holders. It’s basically like Facebook Portal had a baby with Pillpack.
Morphisec 🛡️
Boston and Israel-based cybersecurity company Morphisec raised a $31M round led by JVP, with additional support from Orange and Deutsche Telekom Partners. They provide endpoint security products for mid-sized companies by focusing on “moving target defense,” which involves regularly shifting the security parameters of a company’s systems to evade cyberattacks.
1910 Genetics 🧬
AI drug discovery startup 1910 Genetics just launched with a $26M Series A, following a $4.1M seed round led by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The new round is backed by M12 and Playground Global, among others.
Connected2Fiber 📶
Connected2Fiber just closed a $12M Series B led by Harbert Growth Partners, with participation from Ascent Venture Partners, Nauta Capital, and Osage Venture Partners. They offer a software solution that helps network providers map out fiber routes far more accurately than other solutions, enabling them to better understand pricing and addressable market size.
Pison Technology 👋
Pison Technology just raised a $7M Series A led by Lavrock Ventures, with participation from Bose Ventures, In-Q-Tel, and Decisive Point. The 2019 MassChallenge winner uses AI and neuromuscular sensors to make human-machine interfaces — ones that can be manipulated by thought. Their tech was originally developed for the ALS community and has since evolved to a handful of applications.
Esprezzo ⚡
Blockchain-based workflow automation company Esprezzo just raised $2M from investors including Mark Cuban, Michael Arrington, Rarestone Capital, CMS Holdings, TBD Angels, and others. They’re working on a no-code product called Dispatch that uses on-chain data to send automated notifications to crypto traders based on user-set parameters. It’s meant to give traders and developers the flexibility to create highly-customized notifications or workflows about events happening on-chain.
NBD Nano 🐞
A new filing shows nine-year-old NBD Nano just raised $1.4M for their liquid repellant coating, additive, and adhesion products. I last covered them when they raised $1M last May. Previous investors include BASF VC, Phoenix Venture Partners, Henkel Ventures, and Better Ventures.
Zip Run 🥦
Pre-launch cannabis delivery company Zip Run just raised $850K in a $2M round, according to a new filing. They’ll compete with Drizly’s on-demand cannabis delivery platform Lantern, which will remain independent of Uber post-acquisition.
VesprSolar ☀️
Greentown Labs solar technology startup VesprSolar just raised $505K, according to a new filing. The five-year-old company wants to make it easier and cheaper to install solar panels using a patented device called the V-Clamp. Total raised, inclusive of grant money, is now $730K.
ReElivate 🎉
Newton-based ReElivate just raised a $350K pre-seed round — though only confirmed on Crunchbase. The ~six-month-old company is trying to spice up the Zoom call by offering a platform of virtual experiences for businesses. Storied (prev. known as the Buzz) did an overview of them late last year. According to that overview, they already have 50+ companies in pilot.
Freelancers across the world have made some impressive conversions to fully-digital experiences. Virtual cooks, magicians, comedians, etc. have upped their game significantly to provide TV show-level production value. Now they have multiple DSLR cameras, stream decks, professional microphones…sometimes even a film crew. The only thing missing is a centralized place to discover them all.
This piece is quite digestible, even for those not familiar with the topic. Thank you for the blog. I would highly recommend you to plan it ahead: https://bordio.com/