January 2022 Investor Update
Let us start by saying thank you to everyone here. We are honored and grateful to have you all as investors in Route 1 Ventures and are excited for what the future holds.
As you know, 2021 marked the founding of Route 1 Ventures and we are already starting to see all of the diligence and work we put in last year beginning to show promise.
It was our goal to give our investors—all of you—diversified exposure to early-stage startups, and we can confidently say that we accomplished that goal. After making 13 investments in 2021, we now have a well balanced portfolio that covers multiple industries and business models (including, real estate, crypto currency, productivity software, data analytics, payments, consumer packaged goods, logistics, and pharmaceuticals).
Before diving into a recap of 2021 and our plans for 2022, a bit of housekeeping. Our accountants are working on preparing tax forms for the fund, and we expect to have those out to you in the next few weeks.
Looking Back
We had another exciting quarter at R1V as we wrapped up 2021, with a number of our companies showing incredible progress and growth. Some highlights below:
Hyperlinq — a Bloomberg terminal for cryptocurrency traders — continued bringing on new users and saw month-over-month growth of over 10% while maintaining a low cash burn. [Cryptocurrency; Data Analytics; SaaS]
Banner — the operating system for commercial real estate teams — successfully completed a pilot with one of the largest CRE asset managers in the U.S. leading to a nationwide rollout of Banner’s product. [Commercial Real Estate; SaaS]
Datlo — which helps major brands expand through geographic and demographic data — grew to over 40 clients and began expansion into the U.S. Their client list includes 12 publicly traded companies (including Coca-Cola) as well as one of the largest privately held companies in the world. [Data Analytics; SaaS]
CandyCan — which manufactures healthy snack food and is run by industry veterans — introduced subscriptions to their business model, saw monthly orders increase by 10x between July and November, and grew online store sessions by 8x across that same period. [consumer packaged goods; retail and eCommerce]
Resquared — the data analytics and prospecting platforms for retail businesses — continued growing revenue at 10% month-over-month and increased their team from five to over 30 employees, making them well-positioned for a Series A. Typically, a Series A funding round values the company at a multiple of the original investment. [Data Analytics; Sales & Growth]
In addition to the successes of the companies above, one of our companies in the AI construction industry had a product launch that did not go as expected and another in the residential real estate space had to shift its strategy to find product-market fit. Our confidence in the founders remains high as they pivot and work around the expected challenges faced by almost all early-stage companies.
Looking Forward
We have many goals in 2022, centered around growing our positions in existing companies and preparing ourselves for a larger fund over the next 12 months.
Growth — We will be bringing in new investors and accepting new funds from existing investors to execute on Route 1 Venture’s continued growth by adding additional companies to the portfolio from the Y Combinator Class of 2022 starting in March. Our goal is to have up to 30 companies in the portfolio.
Reinvestment — As our portfolio matures some of our companies are showing more success and when possible we will reinvest in these companies to minimize our dilution and maximize potential returns.
New Focused Opportunities — Potential for current investors in R1V to invest in new and comparatively de-risked opportunities that we will be bringing to our investor base. These will include SPV’s (Special Purpose Vehicles) for investment in subsequent fund raising rounds for private companies.
Our outlook for 2022 is one of continued growth and partnership with our portfolio companies and investors. We’re excited to see what this year brings, and look forward to our collective success.
Ace & Tomer