Another month of building Daring Ventures in the books, and we’re continuing to make great progress! We thank you for your continued support for what we are building here at Daring Ventures.
Why start Daring Ventures?
Resumes and pitch decks never tell the full story. The real insights are hidden between the lines. That is our story. On paper, we never really looked quite right.
Most saw unusual experience, weird pivots, and strange career paths. But they missed the real story: resilience, curiosity, and self-belief.
So why start Daring Ventures? We can see the incredible, illegible talent everyone misses. For us, this isn't a thesis. It's just who we are.
From Maddi & Joe:
June was an energizing month coming off the Tech Week buzz and officially kicking off our fundraising efforts as we began having early conversations with LPs. The support and constructive feedback we’ve received so far has been validating, and we’re grateful to those who have taken the time to engage with us.
We’re continuing to refine our pitch and strategy, and remain dedicated to getting in front of LPs who will be the right partners for us. It has been helpful to see what parts of our message resonate with folks, and we’re focused on maintaining our momentum.
We are ramping up our travel and looking to get in front of as many people as possible. If there are any individuals you think would be great partners, or simply people who embody what we represent at Daring, we would love to meet them.
Being first-time fund managers is no easy feat, and we remain incredibly grateful to have such a strong bench of supporters in our corner cheering us on through both the highs and the lows. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if there is any way we could be helpful to you; helping our ecosystem is truly what we enjoy the most.
Warmly,
Maddi Holman & Joe Alalou
Your two GPs
Focus for July: Continued Fundraising!
Operations Updates:
While building infrastructure, we've also been executing, and the early developments are encouraging:
Increased access to founders through our media presence (OoS newsletter, podcasts, posts).
Continued to source deals adding 46 to our pipeline as of June 1st. Over 1,000 companies reviewed since forming Daring Ventures.
Maddi spoke on the Wallet Max podcast (episode will be released in next update) and Fortify Wellness podcast (here)
Portfolio Highlights
Hostie: AI customer experience platform for restaurants
Hostie held their first official onsite in San Francisco in June where they got the whole team together to talk vision, process, expectations, roadmap and beyond.
Hostie attended Bar Convent Brookyn (BCB) to build relationships with bartenders and owners as another sales funnel.
Official partnership with Yelp that will allow Hostie to make/cancel reservations and check or join the waitlist for restaurants.
Hostie published a customer case study demonstrating their ability to boast over the phone covers by 141% for Burma Food Group. View the case study here.
PraxisPro: AI-powered intelligent backbone for the future of life science commercialization
PraxisPro is wrapping up their new round of funding - our team has made 12 investor intros for this round so far! They will use the proceeds to accelerate growth and expand the team to execute on their pipeline.
New customer signed and blue chip pharma prospects in the pipeline.
PraxisPro achieved its SOC 2 Type 1 attestation. View their post here to learn about the significance of this milestone.
Steer: All-in-one influencer marketing solution built for consumer service brands
Steer continues to expand their two-sided influencer marketplace and have opened up access to their platform to get the word out. Read more about their offering here.
Beagle Labs: AI platform that empowers insurance carriers to underwrite homeowners and commercial property policies up to 10x faster with significantly fewer errors
$1.6M in new signed contracts and expansion into commercial properties.
Over 12,000 properties inspected to date at 92% compliance.
Over $4M in auto adjusted premiums by Beagle Labs to date.
Can’t Get Enough Daring Ventures?
You can find us 'thinking out loud' here:
📝Out of Scope
This is where we explore ideas in more depth and have a little fun along the way.
We partnered with Jesse McLean at Ancient Teens to give it a brand new look!
🎙️Let's Be Heard Podcast Maddi turns whispers about women's health into powerful conversations. Latest Episode: Functional Medicine with Lynn Dudley & Jenny Realo, Co-Founders of LERA Health
Daring Ventures in the Wild
Daring Ventures Team alongside sponsor, Offit Kurman, at NY Tech Week: Venture Roadtrip USA.
Daring Venture’s NY Tech Week Roadtrip USA panel from left to right: Christy Johnson (Fireroad VC), William Leonard (Valor Ventures), Jennifer Abele (VC 414), and Anish Zuté (Drive Capital)
Just Us Investors Dinner: Future Of Finance: Family Offices At The Edge Of Innovation'
Past Travel—did we miss someone we should connect with? Let us know!
CalPERS Catalyst in Sacramento, CA
Upcoming Travel—should we look forward to seeing you? Is there someone we should meet?
Joe will be in Michigan July 24th-28th
Maddi will be in Massachusetts & Maine July 25th-30th
Behind the Scenes
It has officially been a whole month of getting to work with our wonderful interns! These three have been a tremendous help in lending an extra hand to various work projects, covering events across New York, and putting their own spin around “seeking LPs.”
Dawson, Kira, and Sarah are getting an inside view into how a firm is built and operated from the ground up, and we’ve had a great time exposing them to various elements of the venture capital landscape.
Dawson and Sarah have expressed interest in working in venture capital and eventually launching their own funds, while Kira, the most linguistically trained of us all, is an English major soon to be turned lawyer.
There’s a world in which these three cross paths with Daring in the near future…more tales of this trio to come!
Dawson & Sarah documenting their post-4.5 mile run courtesy of the Friday Pitch and Run’s on West Side Highway.
Dawson, Kira, and Sarah venturing to the financial district to engage potential LPs.