NVP Labs Launches Fall 2018 Cohort, Welcomes 8 New Tech Startups to Newark
September 25, 2018Newark Venture Partners (NVP), a leading East Coast early-stage venture fund, today announced the start of its Fall 2018 NVP Labs program. The newest cohort of 8 startups is made up of companies hailing from the northeast, as well as North Carolina, Florida and California, and represent the industries of HRTech, Voice, Consumerization of Healthcare, HealthTech, Robotics and FinTech.
“Moving to Newark is one of the best decisions Audible has made, and I’m excited for NVP’s fall class companies to discover how energizing it is to be here,” said Don Katz, Audible founder and CEO, and the founder of NVP. “These startups will have access to the incredible domain expertise of Audible employees and our amazing corporate partners, which will help them get to the next level and, in turn, catalyze Newark’s historic comeback by generating jobs and taxable revenue.”
“The competition to be selected for this cohort was fierce – and we are confident that this group of startups are game changers. The momentum at NVP is palpable and we are excited to help these companies put down roots and grow here in Newark,” said Tom Wisniewski, Managing Partner at Newark Venture Partners.
The selected companies were chosen from a pool of over 1,800 companies, more than 3 times the number of applicants for past cohorts. Notably, this cohort includes 6 female founders or co-founders, 4 of which are also the company’s CEO.
Selected companies are:
Ejenta: Founded by Rachna Dhamija and Maarten Sierhuis in San Francisco, CA.
The future of healthcare is care at home, an $18B market opportunity for remote health monitoring. Ejenta gathers data from wearable and IoT devices and from electronic medical records to create AI-driven analytics that help health providers to detect and predict which patients need care, resulting in reduced readmissions and increased patient satisfaction. Ejenta’s technology is exclusively licensed from NASA where the founder developed AI to monitor astronauts in space.
Exempt Me Now: Founded by Sevetri Wilson New Orleans, LA.
The number of nonprofits being created in the U.S. each year has more than quadrupled over the last decade. ExemptMeNow seeks to be the glue that brings together a fragmented market by drastically reducing the hassle it takes to become tax-exempt, and connecting the dots between grantees and grantors to drive impact. ExemptMeNow does this by providing a SaaS solution that simplifies the creation, maintenance and compliance processes for startup and existing non-profit organizations. It also has an Enterprise software that targets customers that deploy capital (think cities, private foundations and corporations) overseeing compliance, providing technical assistance on-demand, and driving data and information exchange.
Floss Bar: Founded by Eva Sadej in New York, New York.
With a window into the consumerization of healthcare and a door to tap for top-notch dental hygienists in the ever growing gig economy, Floss Bar might just be the future of dentistry. As the first preventive brand for oral health care, they offer high quality, routine dental care at thoughtful prices and a location of your choosing. With a model flexible enough to work with clients of any size, they provide dental services on site for employees, members, and tenants. For anything non-routine, they have a referral network of dental offices vetted and compliant with the company’s ethical standards. Floss Bar turns dental care into a key workplace wellness initiative that everyone can appreciate.
RankMiner: Founded by Preston Faykus in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Voice analytics is growing at a CAGR of 28.82%, expected to be $3.69B by 2023. However, a missing element for companies is to automatically predict agent and customer behavior. RankMiner does exactly this by analyzing 383 signals to extract the emotions and behaviors expressed in phone conversations that lead to business outcomes. RankMiner is currently applying their patented technology to the call center industry. RankMiner’s national and international clients have realized business improvements of up to 200% using the RankMiner solution.
StackSource: Founded by Tim Milazzo and Nathan Wall in New York City.
The $3 trillion commercial loan market is currently run by brokers who are more motivated by commission than by transparency. StackSource’s digital marketplace provides a superior solution: immediate lender matching, data system integration for instant diligence, and a platform to manage the underwriting process end-to-end. StackSource has underwritten hundreds of millions in commercial lending as of today with 200+ lenders actively involved on the platform.
Talentegy: Founded by Shawna Berthold, Dwaine Maltais and Stephanie Ralston in Dover, Delaware
Over 50% of candidates will sever a business relationship with a company due to a poor candidate experience and over half will abandon an application process because of a technical issue. That poor candidate experience has bottom line business impacts and can cost companies millions of dollars each year in lost revenue or brand loyalty. Talentegy solves this problem by applying AI enhanced talent analytics and engagement technology that continuously monitors the candidate journey to provide data-driven insights for improvements. Current clients include RWJBarnabas Health, Service Master, Charter and G4S. Prior to Talentegy, the founding team worked together and had multiple successful exits in the HR technology space.
Team Mobot: Founded by Eden Full Goh in New York City.
As a former Product Manager in the data, medical and energy software industries, founder Eden Full Goh became tired of flawed automation approaches to QA (quality assurance), which often rely on slower, costly, manual testing. To address this $10B industry, Team Mobot deploys teams of robots powered by computer vision to test software across different devices, use cases and integrations. As a solution for the enterprise, Team Mobot aims to cut QA costs in half and deliver test results on demand.
Upsider: Founded by Josh McBride and Xuan Smith in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ.
Talent acquisition professionals spend over 60% of their time on ineffective job boards and manual search tools, trying to identify relevant candidates to engage for their open roles. Upsider allows recruiters to leverage AI technology to identify a comprehensive set of candidates which align with their business and role requirements, resulting in a more strategic understanding of the best possible talent for the job. Upsider also offers a set of communication tools to engage candidates. Current clients have found that talent pipelines are filled 5x faster, and they are able to execute a more predictable, data-driven recruiting strategy.
NVP Labs invests an initial $120,000, with an additional $100,000 at the close of the program, and potential investment from NVP’s direct investment arm of up to $1 million in subsequent funding rounds. Companies also get space within NVP’s coworking offices housed in the same building as Audible and Rutgers Business School, as well as guidance from a robust mentorship and growth team. The fund’s corporate partners, Audible (an Amazon Company), Dun & Bradstreet, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, Panasonic Corporation of North America, Prudential Financial, RWJBarnabas, TD Bank through the TD Charitable Foundation, and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority also regularly interact with NVP Labs companies, providing market-based insight, technology assistance, and high level networking opportunities.
“Each of the selected startups address an industry pain point that our corporate partners have either identified or confirmed in their own unique markets. With that market validation as a starting point NVP is then able to help our founders execute on their sales and marketing strategy to quickly get to scale,” said Dan Borok, Managing Partner at Newark Venture Partners.
“NVP serves as a fantastic catalyst for the growth of Newark as an innovation hub and enables our employees to engage with a premier venture capital firm. They provide us with direct access to a world-class talent pool and allow us to leverage their growing portfolio of enterprise-ready solutions to drive our business goals.” said Dele Oladapo, Chief Technology Architect and Innovation Officer, Prudential Financial.
The program aims to guide the companies to achieve in-depth strategic plans and scalable marketing and sales operations. The NVP mission is to help innovative entrepreneurs build distinctive technology companies while catalyzing development of the technology ecosystem in the City of Newark. This is the fifth time NVP has run the accelerator program since its inception in 2014.
“An investment from NVP Labs includes high powered connections, expert support and a community of growth-minded mentors,” said Allison Williams, Director of NVP Labs. “This cohort of founders is not only prepared to take these resources and run with them but also poised to be market leaders in the B2B space.”
Newark Venture Partners was founded by Don Katz, Audible founder and CEO, to grow Newark as a hub for east coast technology and recast the city as a pioneering innovation zone and ultra-bandwidth tech center. With billions of dollars earmarked for construction projects, affordable housing, new retail development, and 21st century work spaces, Newark’s community of entrepreneurs and young talent is growing, as they look to reach New York City’s resources without its legendary cost of living and doing business.