AltaIR Capital
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On-demand grocery startup Food Rocket launches in the Bay Area, goes up against delivery giants
On-demand grocery startups like Gorillas are invading Europe right now, but although on-demand-everything is kinda old-hat in the Bay Area, a new startup thinks it might just be able to do something new.
Food Rocket says it has raised a $2 million investment round from AltaIR Capital, Baring Vostok fund and the Angelsdeck group of business angels, including Philipp Bashyan, of Russia’s Yonder, who has joined as an investor and advisor.
Yes, admittedly, this tiny startup is competing with DoorDash, GoPuff, InstaCart and Amazon Fresh. Maybe let’s not get into that…
Using the company’s mobile app, users can order fresh groceries, ready-to-eat meals and household goods that will be delivered within 10-15 minutes, says the startup, which will be servicing SoMa, South Park, Mission Bay, Japantown, Hayes Valley and other areas. The company hopes to open 150 “dark stores” on the West Coast as part of its infrastructure.
Vitaly Aleksandrov, CEO, and co-founder of Food Rocket, said: “The level of competition in this market in the U.S. is still manageable, which is why we have the opportunity to become leaders in the sphere of fast delivery of basic products and household goods. We aim to replace brick-and-mortar supermarkets and to change consumers’ current habits in regards to grocery shopping.”
What can we say? Good luck?
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Legionfarm, pairing pro gamers with amateurs, raises $6 million Series A
Legionfarm, the gaming platform that lets gamers play with pro players in their favorite games, has today announced the close of a $6 million Series A round. Investors in the round include SVB, Y Combinator, Scrum VC, Kevin Lin, Altair Capital, Ankur Nagpal and more.
Legionfarm launched out of Y Combinator at the beginning of last year with a mission to give pro players a way to generate income and amateur players the chance to get better by playing with a pro coach. It started out with an à la carte business model but has since added a subscription product.
It either costs $12/hour to play on an individual session basis (one hour of play) or you can pay $25 or $50/month. That gives gamers access to discounted prices for pros and unlimited sessions with pros who are brand new to the platform, which Legionfarm calls “rookies.”
The company was founded by Alex Beliankin, who is a former pro gamer and was once in the top .01% of World of Warcraft players. There are many, many pro caliber players out in the world who can’t necessarily make a living off of gaming. They either have to be signed by an org (super limited supply) or play in as many tournaments as possible (unreliable) or stream on Twitch.
Legionfarm gives these pros the opportunity to earn a living playing the games they love.
Meanwhile, gamers are always looking to get better but don’t often have the environments in a game to do so, particularly in Battle Royale games. Legionfarm, which supports a couple of the biggest BRs (Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends), allows these players to team up with pros and learn from them.
The startup is also running a hardware support program, which lets pros on the platform effectively rent gear by paying for it over time in installments that come directly out of their earnings each month.
“Recently, we’ve learned that one pro player can acquire seven or more new customers to the platform if we work with the pro properly,” said Beliankin. “That’s the biggest growth point for us and the biggest challenge. We don’t need to demand in the performance channels, but through existing supply. If we manage to build some sustainable processes here, I think we’re going to skyrocket because we see some huge potential here.”
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Freelancer banking startup Lili raises $15M
It’s only been a few months since Lili announced its $10 million seed round, and it’s already raised more funding — namely, a $15 million Series A.
The startup, founded by CEO Lilac Bar David and CTO Liran Zelkha, is creating a bank account and associated products designed for freelancers, with features like early access to direct deposit payments and the ability to set aside a percentage of income for taxes.
The account (and associated Visa debit card) is free of overdraft fees or minimum balance requirements; Bar David said the company only makes money from card processing fees.
She also said that the platform has seen rapid growth this year, with transactions up 700% since the beginning of the pandemic and nearly 100,000 accounts opened since the launch in 2019.
Bar David suggested that the economic turmoil caused by COVID-19 has prompted (or forced) more skilled workers — such as programmers and digital marketers — to turn to freelancing. Meanwhile, she’s also seen “a big shift from part-time freelance to full-time freelance.”
Lili CEO Lilac Bar David
Bar David predicted that the recent growth of the freelance economy won’t simply disappear once the pandemic is over, because workers are discovering the benefits of freelancing.
“If you have a 9-to-5 job, you’re dependent on one employer,” she said. “If something happens you’re out of a job … If you’ve got a diversified customer base, you’re not dependent on just one source of income.”
In recent months, Lili has added new features like automatically generated quarterly income and expense reports, a digital debit card (which customers can use before the physical card arrives in the mail) and the ability to send and receive money via Google Pay (Lili already supported Cash App and Venmo) .
Bar David said the startup decided to raise more funding to expand its engineering team and further accelerate its growth. Apparently she was preparing for a traditional Series A fundraising process (albeit one that was conducted in the middle of a pandemic), but “our current investors were so tremendously impressed by the product-market fit and the growth” that they were willing to fund almost all of the new round.
So the Series A was led by previous investor Group 11, with participation from Foundation Capital, AltaIR Capital, Primary Venture Partners and Torch Capital — along with new backer Zeev Ventures.
“As the global workforce evolves at a rapid pace, we are excited to lead another round of funding to help Lili capitalize on unprecedented demand and offer an entirely new solution to help freelancers seamlessly save time and money,” said Group 11’s Dovi Frances in a statement.
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