Delivering a pre-seed market update so drones don't have to
Necessary Nuggets
Happy Tech Tuesday! If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets. We deliver exciting updates from Necessary Ventures and some helpful tidbits on the tech world to you bimonthly. Every edition is also on our blog.
Jobortunities 🚨
Taro: Taro increases access to healthcare while reducing costs and physician burnout via direct primary care based health insurance.
🚨✨FEATURED✨🚨 Taro has a full-time, remote or hybrid opening for an experienced individual to lead aspects of its network. This is a tremendous opportunity for an eager professional to grow in healthtech and drive operations at an early stage company.
| Network |
Arc Boats: Electrify watercraft. Build the Tesla of boats. Arc’s aim is both sustainability and high performance.
| Test Engineer |
Forage: Create a unified API that helps low-income Americans buy online groceries. It’s Stripe, but for Electronic Benefits Transfer.
| Security Software Engineer |
Reach out with any questions! All 139 open job postings are listed here.
The New Batch 🐔
The saying goes that “people make the place,” but where are the right people?
At Necessary Ventures, we know that talent is distributed across the globe, but opportunity is not. We're excited to share our preferred partnership with Assembly Industries, which provides access to management consulting level talent, vetted for strong critical thinking and communication skills, at exclusive discounted pricing. While originally only for Necessary portfolio companies, we have seen strong enough results to share with you as well.
Companies are using Assembly across sales, marketing, project management, account management, customer success, operations, and finance. See talent here that you can hire today. Extending this preferred pricing is one way we're saying thank you for being a part of our community, just be sure to mention Necessary in your onboarding.
Market Stirrings 🚩
AngelList published its report “The Stage of U.S. Early-Stage Venture & Startups” for 3Q23. The report revealed a few interesting findings, but the graphic below made us curious and adds some additional color to the deal count graphic from Pitchbook we shared a couple weeks ago. The number of pre-seed deals (displayed as a percentage of overall deal count) has experienced fairly steady growth over the past 5 quarters but still lags behind the amount of seed deals. This growth seems to come at the cost of a displacement in Series A deals, which experienced a slight drop. While the variations are small, it does hint at a shift in investor appetite.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Bee Partners closed $50 million in commitments for its fourth fund, investing in pre-seed companies focused on artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and frontier technologies.
The CDC recently reported that maternal mortality rates in the US have increased by 40%.
SBF was convicted on seven charges related to the collapse of his FTX crypto-empire and could face more than 100 years in prison.
Amazon recently announced that it will be expanding its drone delivery service to Britain, Italy, and another unidentified US city by the end of 2024, but the service has yet to take off.
For the less rushed reader …
PRE-SEED FUND: If you’re looking for a date that’s guaranteed to grab the check at the end, do I have the date for you! Bee Partners closed $50 million in commitments for its fourth fund, investing in pre-seed companies focused on artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and frontier technologies: a quadruple threat. The firm reported a 40% increase in deal flow year over year and became known for writing relatively large checks at an early stage, ranging from $350k to $1.5 million.
HEALTHTECH: As much as deep tech innovation is booming, maternal health tech is lagging, at least on impact. The CDC recently reported that maternal mortality rates in the US have increased by 40%. The news is more devastating for black women, who are 2.5x more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications. To put those stats into context, research has shown that 80% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. In what some are calling the golden age of medicine (mRNA vaccines for COVID-19, AI in drug development, biotech breakthroughs), it’s clear where founders should consider turning their heads next. Here’s the simple moral of the story: tell your mom you love her. Or get a tattoo of her on your arm.
FINTECH: Sam Bankman-Fried is a bankman who got fried by the court. SBF was convicted on seven charges related to the collapse of his FTX crypto-empire and could face more than 100 years in prison. After multiple contradicting statements from SBF on the stand, the jury reached a unanimous verdict in just a few hours. In spite of FTX’s downfall, crypto-hopefuls remain optimistic. There’s some information that suggests a potential rebirth: the price of bitcoin has more than doubled this year with backing from large institutions like BlackRock. It’s time to wait and see if a bit of a mess can be turned back into a bit of a coin.
BIG TECH: What does drone delivery and a penguin have in common? They’re both cool in theory but struggling to take flight. Amazon recently announced that it will be expanding its drone delivery service to Britain, Italy, and another unidentified US city by the end of 2024, but the service has yet to take off. Drone delivery is limited on several accounts: 1) Only one item can be delivered per drone; 2) It can’t weigh more than 5 pounds; 3) It can’t be big; 4) It can’t be breakable; and 5) It can’t be delivered in hot, windy, or rainy conditions. Amazon has spent 8 years building the project, but it’s debatable whether drone delivery has a chance at reality or should stay science fiction.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Notable pre-seed raises in …
Fintech
Assureful - Who said insurance was boring?
The Problem: eCommerce businesses seeking insurance coverage should pay for what they sell, when they sell it, without the need for arbitrary sales forecasts or upfront annual payments.
The Tech: Software that uses generative AI and machine learning to rate, price, and underwrite insurance for eCommerce businesses of any size.
Recently Raised: $1.5 million in funding led by Markd.
Also Note: The platform is the first to integrate with major marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart and Ebay.
artificial intelligence
Klu - For companies that need AI clue
The Problem: AI engineering talent is a hot commodity and not every company has access to it – let alone access AI engineers that can keep up with the pace of innovation.
The Tech: An LLM that empowers companies to create their own AI-driven applications.
Recently Raised: $1.7 million in funding led by Firstminute capital.
Also Note: Klu’s products enable businesses to deploy and optimize advanced LLM-enabled features in under 10 minutes instead of months.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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