A boost for early-stage consumer tech 🚀
Necessary Nuggets
Happy Thursday! If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets, your one-stop pre-seed shop. We deliver updates from Necessary Ventures and helpful tidbits on our little corner of the world. Every edition is also on our blog.
Jobortunities 🚨
✨NEW FEATURED ROLE✨
Copper: Rethinking the induction stove and making kitchen electrification more accessible than ever. Picture a fossil-free future, without sacrificing aesthetics.
| Senior Embedded Systems Engineer |
Infinite Machine: Envisioning the future of transportation beyond cars and into the realm of personal electric vehicles. Its first product, P1, is the ultimate tool for city navigation.
Reach out with any questions! All 186 open job postings are listed here.
Market Stirrings đźš©
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$7.2M
Total Amount Raised
6
Total Funding Rounds
$1.2M
Average Dollars per Round
$6.0M-$12.0M
Estimated Valuation Range
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
PUTTING THE CAP IN CAPITAL
According to Carta data across 3,124 rounds, post-money SAFE rounds have a median valuation cap of $10 million for most industries and slightly lower at $8 million for consumer/retail and media/entertainment industries. Although the hardware industry’s median was also $10 million, it had the highest valuation cap at the 75th percentile, exceeding $18 million.
Good Reads đź“–
For the rushed reader …
After co-founding a stock app and working at Raya and Dispo, TJ Taylor just launched Hobart Ventures, an $8 million fund with a mission to back the often overlooked consumer tech space.
Despite raising millions and attracting A-list investors like Natalie Portman and Lewis Hamilton, vertical farming startup Bowery Farming closed its doors after succumbing to a deadly plant pathogen.
A recent blog pulling insights from the Product for Engineers newsletter offers some sharp advice for first-time founders trying to build or sell a product.
For the less rushed reader …
EATING OR JUST CONSUMING: Could this new venture fund be the best impulse purchase yet? After co-founding a stock app and working at Raya and Dispo, TJ Taylor just launched Hobart Ventures, an $8 million fund with a mission to back the often overlooked consumer tech space. In fact, consumer tech isn’t as out-of-favor as it may seem: according to Carta data, it raised 7.1% of venture funding last year, more than hardware, energy, and even crypto. Taylor, a seasoned vet in the tech world, previously worked at a startup consultancy for early-stage teams and as a scout at Headline. Tired of passing on the startups he loved, he’s finally ready to write checks, aiming for investments between $150K and $300K. Only time will tell if the consumer is always right—or if they’re just always buying.
A CROPPY YEAR: Bowery Farming’s attempt to revolutionize agriculture has officially withered. Despite raising millions and attracting A-list investors like Natalie Portman and Lewis Hamilton, vertical farming startup Bowery Farming closed its doors after succumbing to a deadly plant pathogen. Even after raising a $300M Series C in 2021, Bowery’s business model couldn’t scale, with costs that made it hard to compete. This year, both Whole Foods and Albertsons dropped their products. The collapse serves as a harsh reality check for the vertical farming industry, proving that even with cutting-edge tech, growing a profitable indoor farm remains an uphill battle. Bowery’s fall is a cautionary tale: no matter how hard you try to reinvent the wheel, sometimes you just end up with wilted lettuce.
ADVICE SO YOU DON’T THROW A PRODUCT-MARKET FIT: A recent blog pulling insights from the Product for Engineers newsletter offers some sharp advice for first-time founders trying to build or sell a product. The advice covers various topics like selling with no experience, failure modes, and job ads, but boiled down to one-sentence, the advice is clear: show, don’t tell. Some interesting points: 1) For developer-focused products, share specific features rather than promising vague benefits. 2) Forget chasing vanity metrics like app downloads—focus on the one number that actually matters: product-market fit. 3) When it comes to hiring, job ads shouldn’t be bland—get weird, get real, and attract the right kind of talent. 4) When it comes to building, don’t get too caught up in what users say they want—often, they’re not that invested in solving the problem. The takeaway? Forget the flashy stats and focus on hard product truths … and read the article if you want more details past my broad summary.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
It was a big week for pre-seed raises. Sit down and get comfortable for this exciting list:
climate tech
Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering - Watching seagrass grow. Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering raised $2 million led by Lowercarbon Capital. Ulysses is building underwater drones that automate ocean habitat restoration, especially seagrass meadows. The company has already partnered with the University of Western Australia, The Nature Conservancy in Virginia, and government agencies in Florida.
SaaS
Workgrounds - Companies at the hotel, motel, Holiday Inn. Workgrounds raised $2.6 million from deftly.vc, Hannah Grey, Oceans, and Volo Ventures. Founded by Nikhil Sethi and Garrett Ullom, previous founders of ad-tech company Adaptly, Workgrounds is developing an AI agent that solves hotel room group bookings for companies.
Qlay - AI picking the “nice list” of engineers. Qlay raised $1.4 million led by ANOBAKA and Nissay Capital. Qlay is creating an AI-powered recruitment platform that vets and shortlists global, remote engineers for hire.
ARI Venture Studio - Running restaurants. ARI Venture Studio raised funding from Branded Strategic Hospitality. ARI Venture Studio is building the next generation of ResTech with an AI-driven platform that helps launch and invest in startups in the restaurant industry.
Carvis.AI - AI mechanics that give a truck. Carvis raised $1.2 million led by Trucks Venture Capital. Carvis is on a mission to provide autorepair technicians with intelligent diagnostics using an AI mechanic co-pilot.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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