StoryCo Funded $6M to Accelerate Growth of Storytelling Platform in the Digital World

Storytelling

StoryCo is a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of an open storytelling platform where creators and devoted fans collaborate and co-create the following fantastic story franchises and jointly participate in their success.

StoryCo was funded $6 million led by Collab + Currency and Patron with participation from Blockchange Ventures, Floodgate Ventures, Sfermion, Flamingo DAO, and angel investors Lloyd Braun, Packy McCormick, Sabrina Hahn, GMoney, and directors from UTA and WME. The company plans to utilize the new funds to accelerate growth and expand operations.

StoryCo has also declared the takeoff of its ground-breaking collaborative storytelling platform, where conventional Hollywood creators and devoted fans unite forces to build the following outstanding media franchises, participate in their success, and publicize the future delivery of The Disco Ball its first story universe led by Story Architect Kyle Killen.

Justin and J.P. Alanís, founders of StoryCo, said they are building a new model to guide the development of remarkable new stories and let their community of creatives and fans contribute meaningfully to its growth.

Announce on the StoryCo platform in early 2023; The Disco Ball is an enticing and combined storytelling experience – a first-of-its-kind interactive record progress across the StoryCo site, social media, and reality interplay.

Jason Yeh, General Partner at Patron, commented that better models would emerge which help emerging creative talent to capture and share in the value around these IPs. They’re thrilled to be partnering with the StoryCo team as they look to build a platform that does just this, helping creatives attain more control and ownership of the IP they help to create.

Community members can now declare their Disco Ball StoryPass to accumulate and earn digital art related to crucial story moments and characters, culminating in an exclusive piece of rare digital art conveying the right to control the future of The Disco Ball story.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Convincing Investors Your Business Idea is Really Worth the Risk

business idea

How do you convince investors your business idea is worth the risk of investing money? You may have the most innovative and creative idea ever put forth, but that doesn’t mean anyone is going to invest in it. Even a good idea can flop if it’s not implemented correctly. Of course, the most well-known example in business history is the 1958 Edsel. The car had a poor name, a poor pricing strategy and was manufactured during a recession. It remains to be seen if the modern-day Chevy volt will be classified as the “new” Edsel for similar reasons.

Investors are willing to accept risk, but they will do everything in their power to ensure they understand how much risk is involved. Investors are not the same as business speculators in most cases because they want a value proposition that includes a very good probability of earning positive returns. There are many different factors investors will consider to determine risk, and you should assess them first.

Risk is a function of management competencies, available collateral, market acceptance of the business idea and time. To convince investors your business idea is worth the risk of funding, you will have to first prove that the people implementing the plan are fully competent and capable of running a business.  Investors will also want reliable collateral. You need to show that the product or services can be efficiently brought to a willing market. Finally, the investor will want to assurances that the payback agreement in terms of time will be met. Payback in terms of money is taken care of by the other factors of competency, market success and collateral.

You can convince investors to fund your projects by developing a sophisticated business plan that clearly and carefully shows the level of risk the investor is assuming. The good news is that the time spent developing a business plan in the first place reduces risk right away.

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Grazzy Funded $4.25M for Enhancement of Digital Cashless Employee Tips in Service Operating Businesses

Cashless

Grazzy is an Austin, TX-based developer of a digital payment portal designed to make cashless tips seamless and personal. The company’s portal helps to reduce operating costs, increases wages, and elevates the customer experience through tip enablement and compensation, enabling travelers to maximize earnings and get real-time visibility.

Grazzy was funded $4.25 million, led by Next Coast Ventures, some strategic angel investors, and Tuesday Capital. This latest infusion of capital will accelerate development across enormous hotel brands and operating groups, restaurant groups, and salons scrutinizing for modern ways to enhance the employee experience while reducing costs. Further, this budget will sustain the continuance of logical integrations between the Grazzy platform and the effective payment systems that most hospitality and service businesses rely on to run their operations.

The company is led by Founder and CEO Russell Lemmer. Grazzy allows consumers to digitally cashless tip diners and hotel attendants by scanning a QR code. Workers can immediately access those funds rather than wait for their employer to convert them to cash. Grazzy said this setup could improve employee retention.

Also, by addressing the financial wellness of those employees, they can reduce turnover and improve lives. Based on the comment of Lemmer, even as hourly pay rates increase, they know that cash constraints have meant meaningfully fewer gains for service industry employees who rely on tips to supplement their hourly wages. We’re on a mission to fix that. Our digital, cashless employee-centric platform supports those who earn more money, use it the same day, and save and spend better.

The progressively cashless economy has made it challenging for numerous service-based industries to tip out workers at the end of their shift, compelling multiple to defer tip-outs to weekly or twice monthly paychecks. Grazzy opens access to digital tips, paid through customer credit cards, letting service-based businesses offer same-day, instant access to tips for their staff.

Thomas Ball, Co-Founder of Next Coast Ventures, said, Grazzy’s capability to serve the complex needs of the enterprise makes them impressive to the landscape. In addition, the product and the team’s proven ability to deliver at scale make Grazzy the most potent player today.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Syky Funded $9.5M for Product and Technology Development in the Fashion Platform

Fashion

Syky is a next-generation luxury fashion platform provider based in New York. The company believes technology can be an outstanding balance, and the next generation of designers will be digital-first, revolutionizing design in digital, physical, and augmented worlds.

Syky was funded $9.5 million, led by Alexis Ohanian, angel investor of Seven Seven Six, with participation from Brevan Howard Digital, Leadout Capital, First Light Capital Group, and Polygon Ventures. The new funding intends to deploy into building up the company team, setting the designers into the community, and on product and technology expansion.

SYKY was launched and is led by Alice Delahunt, the ex-Chief Digital & Content Officer at Ralph Lauren and Digital & Social Director at Burberry. Delahunt was at Ralph Lauren and had her first countenance at the blockchain. Still, it wasn’t until years later, while working on pioneering some digital cupboard schemes with companies like Snap, Roblox, and Bitmoji, that she had a chance to see that web3 would be more than a place community for luxury fashion.

That’s when Delahunt left Ralph Lauren and started developing Syky, which she said would serve as an incubator, marketplace, and social community for the next generation of fashion designers and consumers. The company is kicking off the community part of its platform by releasing its first NFT, The Keystone, of which 987 will be available on January 20. Fifty Keystones will be reserved for and granted to aspiring designers.

The company plans for the future marketplace to be a revenue driver. It will allow rising and unestablished designers to sell and trade their collections with consumers. It will also be where designers and consumers can curate spaces to showcase their fashion desires.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Branding a Business to Imprint Angel Investors

Branding

Branding is one element addressed in the marketing section of the business plan. It’s also the image presented to angel investors when searching for business funding. Contrary to popular belief though, branding is not just about a trendy logo or elaborate advertising. It’s the element that represents you as the business owner, the quality of your products, and the level of customer service. Brand is composed of your individuality and your company’s value.

Branding is a complex concept which is one reason why it’s often reduced down in people’s minds as being mostly about advertising. The assumption is that if the target market is aware of your logo, then branding efforts have been successful. However, it goes much deeper than advertising, which is why your business plan must present more than an advertising plan to potential angel investors.

Business brands is about the quality and value that underpins the entire business. It’s the projected image, but more importantly it’s the tie-in for everything the company does or will do. business brand is a broad brush that covers marketing, pricing, the level of customer service and the business culture. Branding pervades the business plan and is not simply one element in the marketing plan.

Common question angel investors ask always concerns brand. What do you want your brand to project to the marketplace? Is it quality, innovation, creativity, problem solving or all of the above? Branding is important to startup companies as well as established companies. In fact, branding for startups can perform an important job for startups on limited budgets by making advertising efforts more effective. Clear and distinct branding differentiates the company in the minds of customers, thus giving the company more value for marketing dollars spent.

Before preparing a business plan to present to angel investors, make sure the brand is well defined. Branding is not just advertising. It’s the element that ties your entire business together.

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Array Behavioral Funded $25M for Virtual Health Care and Innovative Technology Enhancement

Behavioral

Array Behavioral Care, a Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based provider of telepsychiatry assistance to alter access to quality behavioral health care through innovative technology applications. The company’s services include assessment, screening, diagnosis, consultations, and medication management, which can implemented and executed in various settings, enabling hospitals to provide convenient, affordable, and readily accessible mental health services to their patients.

Array Behavioral Care was funded $25 million led by CVS Health, which entered Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, Health Velocity Capital, Harbour Point Capital, OCA Ventures, HLM Venture Partners, OSF Healthcare, and other prestigious angel investors.

The company plans to use the budget to rise in new and existing markets through improved service offerings and operations, innovative technology, and new levels of partnership to develop access to high-quality behavioral care.

The Array has consistently been a strong mental health care provider within Aetna’s network. Array uniquely provides psychiatry and therapy across the continuum of care by serving hospitals, clinics, and individuals directly at home. Array will scale faster to give more keys to quality, convenient behavioral care in new and existing markets through improved benefit offerings and procedures, innovative technology, and the development of the training team.

CVS Health Ventures, Managing Partner and co-founder Vijay Patel said Array’s long record in virtual behavioral maintenance and its commitment to quality stand out. In addition, their partnership and investment can enhance entry to these services, which is essential, with the need for mental health services increasing enormously in recent years.

Virtual resolutions can also help psychiatrists, therapists, and other clinicians who are often loaded with excessive administrative work that detracts from the time finished providing direct patient care. At Array, clinicians have a help team of clinical, functional, managerial, and specialized specialists who support providers operating at the top of their licenses, combined with care units, and likewise practice as they would if they were physically present with the patient.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Qualytics Funded $2.5M to Empower the Data Quality for Enterprise

Enterprise

Qualytics an Orlando, FL-based developer of an enterprise data quality surveillance platform designed to monitor and actively defend against data pipeline corruption. The company’s technology includes a data firewall that captures erroneous data at the source and prevents it from entering downstream. Data platforms combine it with data pipelines, data flows, and surveillance hubs and use machine learning to automatically create data rules and adapt those rules through supervised workflows, enabling firms to detect and respond to anomalies in real time with active measures such as message-level quarantining.

Qualytics was funded $2.5 million led by Tech Square Ventures, with participation from Engage, SaaS Ventures, Knoll Ventures, and GRI Ventures. Including Inner Loop Capital, Propel Baltimore Fund, Maryland Momentum Fund, The LegalTech Fund, Gaingels, and prominent angel investors. The new investment will raise the company to meet increasing demand from Fortune 500 enterprises deploying Qualytics as their data quality platform.

Gorkem Sevinc, co-founder and CEO of Qualytics, said most companies need to learn the quality of their data. Managing enterprise data quality at scale is an ever-growing need in a world of data-driven findings, insights, and innovations. Their unknown approach applies ML-generated record-level data quality rules to determine anomalies as close to the source as possible. It enables our customers to address their data quality proactively. As they partner with impressive investors, they will resume catering to enterprise customers’ needs and fuel the growth of Qualytics on their exciting journey.

The partner of Tech Square Ventures, Bill Nussey, said they are excited to invest in Qualytics to address significant issues in enterprise data quality. The Qualytics team has built a fantastic product to support data teams and subject matter experts to manage and collaborate on data quality at scale. Qualytics is a rare early-stage company launched by veteran founders with startup and enterprise experience working on a large and growing problem.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Parallel Bio Funded $4.3M to Enable Advancement of Biotechnology through Human Immune System

Immune

Parallel Bio, a Cambridge, MA-based Operator of a biotechnology company, intended to design and engineer tools to change how diseases are cured. The company’s platform deploys human immune organoids to rapidly accelerate the discovery and development of immunotherapies, cell therapies, antibody therapies, and vaccines, enabling medical professionals to access novel insights into human biology.

Parallel Bio was funded $4.3 million led by Refactor Capital, with participation from Y Combinator Jeff Dean and other strategic angel investors of Breakout Ventures. The acquisition capital has helped it to establish the viability of its immune-system-in-a-dish venue and accelerate the rate of drug discovery and development—several biotech-focused reserves: and senior executives at global pharmaceutical companies.

CEO Robert DiFazio and chief scientific officer Juliana Hilliard, Parallel Bio has developed a platform replicating the human immune system in a drug discovery and development dish. Parallel Bio’s platform merges immune organoids with artificial intelligence and robotics to uniquely illustrate organoids as people. As a result, its platform is the leading technology of its type to model the immune systems of entire people and the only immune technology that has the needed complexity.

Parallel Bio achieved important scientific and business milestones this year, enabling it to get its immune venue to market to medicine and biotechnology partners.

Zal Bilimoria, the founding partner at Refactor Capital, said Parallel Bio has the idea and technology to cure the disease, which starts entirely through the human body. In addition, it is building a new drug discovery and development platform that upends a century-old support for animal testing. Parallel Bio’s method promises to shave billions of dollars of waste and years of extra waiting from the drug development procedure.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Eion Funded $12M to Build Up the Carbon removal Technology Distribution for Economic Beneficial

Carbon

Eion is a Princeton, NJ-based originator of fine-grained mineral material invented to terminate carbon permanently and at scale while delivering economic benefits to rural communities. The company’s product rapidly captures and holds carbon dioxide when applied to agricultural soils, providing farmers and the agricultural industry with a supportable pathway to decarbonization.

Eion was funded $12 million, led by AgFunder and some strategic angel investors of Ridgeline. New and returning investors contain SLVC, Carbon Removal Partners, Mercator Partners, Trailhead Capital, Orion, and Overture.

This budget round will help Eion to continue to make out its distribution partnerships and expand the availability of its patented CarbonLock™. This nature-based soil amendment removes atmospheric carbon dioxide permanently and verifiably through improved rock weathering on farming soils. The company will also employ the funds to draw high-impact talent to make out its financial, commercial, and science teams.

Adam Wolf, Founder, and CEO of Eion, said Eion’s technology allows permanent carbon removal on agricultural soils, but their vision is much broader. Eion seeks to leverage carbon removal to diversify agriculture and maintain land productivity, enhance margins for farmers, help the bedrock of American businesses in our supply chain, and boost rural vitality.

Tom Shields, Partner at AgFunder, said Eion’s CarbonLock™ solution delivers farmers a low-disruption way to help decrease carbon in the atmosphere. They are keen to work with Eion to accelerate the usage of carbon removal as a crucial part of addressing climate change.

Brandon Harris, Principal at Ridgeline, also states that Eion’s rare combination of solid agricultural co-benefits for farmers and high capability for checkable carbon removal positions the company to be a leader in the future.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.

Black Sheep Foods Funded $12.3M to Scale-up Global Production of Plant-based Meat

Meat

Black Sheep Foods, a San Francisco, CA-based. Producer of plant-based meat intended to provide an environmentally sustainable alternative to animal meat. The company’s products are a plant-based alternative to ground lamb. They are made using analytical chemistry from soy protein, coconut oil, and natural flavors. They enable consumers to lessen their carbon footprint by choosing the cheap lamb alternative with the same taste.

Black Sheep Foods was funded $12.3 million led by Unovis, alongside Bessemer Venture Partners, AgFunder, other strategic angel investors, and KBW Ventures. It intends to use the funds to raise production for its debut lamb produced from plants for global distribution.

Sunny Kumar, co-founder, and CEO of Black Sheep Foods said their senses associate meat with a form, a texture, and a flavor. The surface has been the focus of meat innovation, and the taste is a white space. The debut lamb produced from plants includes more depth of flavor, richness, and delicious aromatics than other meats, full stop. They’re in the business of giving consumers access to the most delightful meat variety, using plants instead of animals.

Charles Billies, CEO and Founder of Souvla, said they are incredibly thoughtful when selecting a plant-based meat partner. Since launching Black Sheep Foods’ product in their restaurants last year, they’ve been seriously impressed with its integration into their menu and the overwhelmingly positive response from their many loyal guests. They stay keen on the fate of their product offerings and this vital action in the years to come.

The company says Black Sheep’s lamb has gained a following in the Middle East. Prince Khaled calls the lamb “shockingly good.” But, he says, as someone who grew up with the taste profile in Saudi Arabia, he couldn’t believe the authentic mouthfeel and flavor. With preference being a vital aspect of customer adoption, Black Sheep Foods will easily overwhelm plant-based meats.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.