Another month of building Daring Ventures in the books, and thank you for your continued support for what we are building here at Daring Ventures.
Daring Ventures: the fund for monomaniacal founders!
From Maddi & Joe:
We hit the ground running in September to capitalize on the infectious energy of people shaking off the summer haze.
Our online presence continues to grow, and we are excited to translate that energy into in-person community in order to be the best resource for our founders as we continue to build.
Being first-time fund managers comes with a lot of ups and downs. We’re so fortunate to have such a strong group of supporters in our corner. This month we want to shout out David Tswamuno at Fairbridge VC for some incredibly poignant fundraising advice.
Fundraising Updates:
Our portco PraxisPro continues to outperform and will be raising their next round of capital in the coming weeks. More detail in the portco update section, but we feel very strongly that Daring Ventures should participate in this round and maintain our ownership.
Our first close will fund our follow-on investment in PraxisPro
This is exactly the type of pattern recognition and early access that defines our investment edge.
Enhanced economics for pre-first close partners still available
Strong ramp-up in the number of initial LP conversations since last month.
LP engagement has substantially increased at the later stages with both institutional LPs & individuals now in our data room.
We anticipate being able to share some really great news on our progress very soon!
Where You Can Help:
LP introductions! Please feel free to forward this email along to anyone who might be a fit.
Are you interested in seeing the deals we see? Fill out our deal flow questionnaire for a tailored round-up of the opportunities that hit our desk!
We’re always open to constructive criticism, feedback, or anything else that we should know. Life is a series of freshman years and we’re always down to learn.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to us if there is any way we could be helpful to you; supporting our ecosystem is truly what we enjoy the most.
Warmly,
Maddi Holman & Joe Alalou
Your two GPs
Portfolio and Operations Updates:
Operations Updates:
What better time than the fall for a change of scenery…stay tuned in October for some exciting updates on our end!
We continue to actively source deals, meet with founders, and maintain a robust pipeline to fulfill our promise that we’re a turnkey operation.
In September, we added 19 companies to our active pipeline
Portfolio Updates:
PraxisPro: AI-powered intelligent backbone for the future of life science commercialization
Announced their strategic partnership with INIZIO, a global life science services company that has more than 10,000 employees across 35 countries. This partnership gives PraxisPro the opportunity to scale past just commercial organizations.
Closed Biogen, major multinational pharmaceutical customer. Biogen is the first customer to launch PraxisPro Coach. Our conversational AI application for people leaders throughout the organization.
PraxisPro will be pitching at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 October 27-29!
Kicked off Seed round and the PraxisPro team will be out in SF Tech Week.
Hostie: AI customer experience platform for restaurants
Randall was featured in Full-Service Restaurant (FSR) magazine. Read the piece here!
Hostie made Grace Gong’s Smart AI 100 List, a list that includes the top 0.43% of ~23,250 Seed and Series A startups across the US!
Helped answer 11,000 calls and over-the-phone bookings are up 150% for Wayfare Tavern. Read the case study on it here.
Helped manage 84% of calls without transferring to a host, and phone bookings are up 42% for Harborview Restaurant & Bar. Read more about their discovery of Hostie here.
Allows Can Can Wonderland to focus on guests through 1,100 calls handled and 71% fully resolved. Read the case study here.
Helped customer, Belotti Ristorante, see a 15% increase in reserved covers, with overall covers climbing 12%. Read how they did it here.
Added a new product feature for September of FAQ prompting. This allows restaurant operators to have the ability to add and edit prompts within Hostie.
Beagle Labs: AI platform that empowers insurance carriers to underwrite homeowners and commercial property policies up to 10x faster with significantly fewer errors
Officially closed their $3m Seed round with Chingona Ventures leading the round!
Signed $1.6M in new contracts and expansion into commercial properties.
Inspected over 12,000 properties to date, averaging 4 days per inspection.
Executed over $4M in auto adjusted premiums to date.
Organizing a few Beagle community and launch events for new products toward the end of 2025. Stay on the lookout for more details on these events through their website!
Can’t Get Enough Daring Ventures?
🎙️Let's Be Heard Podcast: Maddi turns whispers about women's health into powerful conversations.
Latest Episode: Pretty in Pink and Totally Misled with Kaitlin Christine Co-Founder & CEO of Gabbi
Other Podcasts
Maddi was featured on the Meeting You Podcast hosted by Richard Jaknavorian. Listen to the episode here.
Daring Ventures in the Wild
Maddi on the “Emerging Opportunities and Hurdles for New Fund Managers” panel at the SuperReturns conference in LA.
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Downward Dog Daring! Investor yoga in Madison Square Park was a hit.
Nothing like having a seat at the Chef’s Table! All smiles here as we brought in more people to the Daring community. Joe’s phone case is Daring Orange.
🧳Past Travel—did we miss someone we should connect with? Let us know!
Joe & Lauren were in SF for SF Tech Week October 5th-8th
Maddi & Joe will be in Milwaukee for the NVNG’s +Venture North October 8th-9th
✈️Upcoming Travel—should we look forward to seeing you? Is there someone we should meet?
Behind the Scenes
When Maddi isn’t devouring pretzels, she is snacking on almond nut thins. No snack with a crunch is safe from her clenches…
Enlarged image of a nut-thins box commonly found next to Maddi’s monitor.
DV additions!
We’re so pleased to have Sarah Fanous back with us this fall helping out with anything and everything. Sarah interned with us during the summer and was a wonderful addition to the team.
We’re also extremely excited to have Mridul Prasad join us this fall to help on the portfolio support side. Mridul has experience working with startups, specifically with go-to-market strategy.
Deal Flow Questionnaire
Fill out our deal flow questionnaire for tailored exposure to the deals we see.