VC/PE Portfolio Companies Helping us Through These Times

Your Port Cos at Work!

May 13, 2020

Please send Kathy Pyne at [email protected] any information you'd like to share about your Portfolio Companies making a difference during this pandemic.

7Wire Ventures has built a resource for digital health startups (including their portfolio companies) -- it’s a comprehensive overview of recent legislation due to COVID-19 and points out regulatory changes early stage businesses should pay attention to. Check it out here.

2ndKitchen launched 2ndKitchen 2Go, a free pickup and delivery solution helping local bars, breweries, and taprooms stay open by powering their to-go, pickup, and delivery orders. - Hyde Park Venture Partners

ALUMinate announced on March 25, 2020 a special program to assist college and university advancement organizations to stay productive and mission-driven during this time of social distancing.  Under the C-19 PiP program, ALUMinate is offering special incentives, including complimentary data analytics services to smaller colleges and universities. The program includes updated contact information and personal and professional data on donors, prospects, and other constituents. - Limerick Investments

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Vir Biotechnology teamed up in March to develop RNAi therapeutics against the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 outbreak. The collaboration builds on Alnylam's synthesis of siRNAs that target highly conserved regions of coronavirus RNA.

Alnylam has synthesized more than 350 siRNAs targeting all available genomes of SARS-CoV-2—the virus at the heart of the outbreak—and SARS-CoV. The partners claim some of the siRNAs hit highly conserved regions of RNA, suggesting they may be broadly efficacious against coronaviruses.

Encouraged by those early data, the partners plan to put the siRNAs through in vitro potency assays. Vir will then perform in vitro and in vivo assessments of the antiviral activity of the most promising, potent prospects with a view to selecting a development candidate. - ARCH Venture Partners

Apervita – The leading healthcare platform for value-based collaboration. - Baird Capital

Arrive– The nation's largest on-demand parking app, which enables drivers to find and book parking at top parking facilities across the U.S. - Baird Capital

Beekeeper - Workplace communication platform Beekeeper is offering a Crisis-Ready Kit to help companies communicate effectively amid the COVID-19 crisis. With expedited support, the service can be rolled out in 48 hours and customers will receive the first month for free. For workers in the healthcare, hospitality and related industries, Beekeeper is offer a free 90-day extended trial period of its service. - Energize Ventures

Bellerophon Therapeutics - a clinical-stage biotherapeutics company, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted emergency expanded access allowing its proprietary inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) delivery system, INOpulse®, to immediately be used for the treatment of COVID-19.9. - ARCH Venture Partners

Brightmont Academy:   Brightmont is based in Deerfield.  Brightmont is an accredited school (mostly high school but also some junior high school students) that provides one on one learning instruction for students that may not be successful in a more traditional school setting for a variety of reasons.  The company operates a number of campuses in 5 major cities with plans to expand.   When Covid 19 struck, Karen Buckner and her team were forced to move to an online one on one teaching environment and did this in less than a week, allowing students to continue to get their education, allowing teachers to continuing working and collecting a pay check, and giving parents of these students piece of mind regarding their children. - MK Capital

Clarify Medical San Diego, CA

• Products/Services: Connected platform enabling at home delivery of NB-UVB therapy for patients suffering from psoriasis, vitiligo and eczema 
• Helping to address the safety/issues of the day:  Enables individuals suffering with chronic skin disorders to gain access to treatment remotely from their homes while alleviating a burden from providers the healthcare system during COVID. - 7wire Ventures

Clinician Nexus and MN CovidSitters partnered to help health care workers who have lost access to child care as a result of the pandemic. MN CovidSitters is using the Clinician Nexus platform to power the MN CovidSitters application verification and matching process. - Hyde Park Venture Partners

EasyKnock provides immediate liquidity to homeowners and allows them to retain upside in their homes. During a lull in the buying and selling, Easyknock is also providing commissions to real estate agents for their referrals.- Moderne Ventures

ENTACT - Headquartered in Chicago. As the economy and population are relying on select, essential businesses right now, it is critical that these companies can safely stay in service.  If a site is exposed to COVID-19, ENTACT’s disinfection services allow employees to safely return to work and for these companies to get back to supporting the country.  For almost thirty years, ENTACT has provided environmental services to their customers for their most difficult challenges. Please find their COVID-19 Time Critical Facility Cleaning & Disinfection Services information here.

Fixer -  With more people working from home, Fixer (FII)  is now offering video consultations to aid in DIY projects. - Hyde Park Venture Partners

FourKites Chicago, IL

• The leader in supply chain visibility, FourKites provides real-time and predictive supply chain visibility to shippers, carriers, brokers and 3PLs.
• How is it helping the economy during the pandemic? It has been well documented that the need for supply chain visibility is only growing as this pandemic ravages on. The world's leading shippers rely on FourKites' machine learning and data analytics to calculate shipment arrival times, improve on-time performance and strengthen end-customer relationships. Being able to support those customers and maintain the efficiency of supply chains and drive transparency between stakeholders is of the utmost importance to helping the economy during the pandemic.    
• How is it helping to address the health/safety issues of the day? FourKites is committed to supporting its customers and the broader logistics community by providing new product rollouts, deep data insights and helpful tips. Just in the last two weeks, FourKites has created a free, public-facing network map to show cross-border delays by country in real time. In addition, the company is offering enhanced (and essential) features to both customers and non-customers, including free ocean tracking for 60 days and free vendor-managed shipment visibility requests through its Network Visibility solution, which allows retailers such as grocery stores to gain real-time visibility into their inbound shipments to keep their shelves fully stocked. The company is also expediting carrier onboarding to provide broader visibility for its shippers. 
  
  For additional support, FourKites has activated a COVID-19 channel within its online community for customers to share advice, and is offering our customers specific crisis management training, highlighting additional features that have been rolled out to help them manage COVID-19. On the product front, FourKites has built enhancements to help customers drive efficiency during these turbulent times. These include notifications to help customers provide updates on delays due to COVID-19; specific "emergency" load tagging, enabling users to prioritize certain loads internally; and enhanced location filters that help users determine if trucks are waiting due to possible location closures. - Hyde Park Venture Partners
  

Hello Alfred introduces 'Alfred Delivers' to deliver key essentials like RX, groceries, baby supplies and cleaning services (all while wearing gloves, booties and protective gear of course!) even in areas with Shelter in Place. They are offering daily package runs to residents' doorways, sourcing out of stock supplies and replacing on-site concierges. Residents can sign up with this referral link and buildings can join FREE OF CHARGE for 90 days by contacting Hello Alfred. - Moderne Ventures

Higi Chicago, IL

• Products/Services: Population health enablement company that empowers consumers to measure, track and act on their health data through easily accessible health stations currently found at over 11,000 retail and community based locations, and through the higi mobile application.
• Helping to address the safety/issues of the day:  Enables individuals to remotely manage their chronic health conditions and screen their risk for diagnosed conditions safely and remotely from their homes while also alleviating a burden off the healthcare system during COVID. - 7wire Ventures

Hireology – A leading provider of employee hiring and selection management technology for multi-location organizations. - Baird Capital

hOM which provides community pop-up events for multi-family housing like fitness classes and wine tastings is moving all its events and fitness classes online: distant socializing!- Moderne Ventures

• Imprivata’s secure messaging platform is being used by quarantined patients to communicate with their families
• Imprivata is providing its secure remote access technology, which allows physicians and nurses to provide care to patients from areas outside the hospital, free of charge through July for new healthcare teleworkers
• Yale New Haven Health is using Imprivata’s location analytics to understand which employees in the hospital may have been unintentionally exposed to patients with the COVID-19 virus
• “Imprivata is one of few vendors that is actually stepping up in our time of need. You are a true partner!” - Sunny Bang, Dir. of Integrated Apps, UCSF
• “Imprivata has been great about working with customers to use their technology to manage through the COVID-19 epidemic” – Glynn Stanton, CISO, Yale New Haven Health

SitterCity:  Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and Sittercity, America’s first online resource for in-home care, today announced a new initiative to help Chicago’s most essential workforce – healthcare workers, first responders and the teams who support them – continue to work on behalf of the City amid coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A new, dedicated website – sittercity.com/chicagoresponds – will make it easier for workers deemed an essential part of the infrastructure helping Chicago stay safe, to find reliable childcare that will allow them to continue their crucial work. - Baird Capital

Voyant Beauty, HQ in Hodgkins, IL - Supply chain, R&D, and manufacturing partner to leading and emerging beauty and personal care brands.  Voyant Beauty is producing hand sanitizer, soaps and foamers, for new and existing customers. Demand for these products has been surging as a result of COVID-19, prompting the company to redirect filling capacity to these critical product areas. - Wind Point Partners

Waggl (based in Sausalito California) offers software that helps companies crowdsource ideas, feedback, and sentiment from their employee base. It can have a meaningful impact on employee engagement and ripple effects like reducing unwanted employee turnover and customer satisfaction. Waggl put together a solution specifically to help companies ensure employees remain engaged and are feeling heard as they navigate the COVID-19 challenges. (Waggl was featured a few weeks ago in a report from S&P’s market intelligence arm on how employers can keep employees engaged when managing a suddenly remote workforce.) They’re offering that solution free of charge for some time. Their customer base consists primarily of larger employers (500+ employees), but they’re happy to offer it to smaller companies that are below their typical customer size to help them  navigate through this time. - First Analysis

Sign Up to access this special Waggl offering.

• Free use of Waggl for 90 days with 3 pre-loaded COVID-19 question sets
• Complimentary 15-minute set-up with Customer Success team
• Easy how-to guide “Getting Started With Waggl”

Wider Circle Redwood City, CA.  Wider Circle is focused on providing services for the most vulnerable populations. The Company is focused on safety and access by offering welfare check-ins, food delivery, medication supply, and telehealth enrollment and training. They are also providing social support and education through virtual groups, pandemic safety education, and buddy checks. - Sandbox Industries

Upfront Healthcare is having a massive impact on their hospital customers. - Hyde Park Venture Partners

Zipnosis - Zipnosis’ white-label virtual care platform is powering health systems across the country. In just the first 25 days of March, Zipnosis screened/treated 648,000 patients! - Hyde Park Venture Partners

Illinois Venture Capital Association | 312/241-1618