Mercury

🎉Exciting news - Vivo has taken 1st place at the CNS Summit 2024 Innovation Showcase! Vivo is setting a new standard for precision, transparency, and efficiency in clinical development. We’re honored to be recognized for Vivo’s transformative impact on clinical trial data management and excited for the future. Read our full release about this milestone and how Vivo is revolutionizing clinical trials are conducted ↴ https://lnkd.in/grqkDckk #cnssummit2024 #clinicaltrials #datascience

I’m really excited to partner with Josh Teekell, founder and CEO of SmartAC.com, and join the company’s board of directors. Josh was recently featured in The Deal about this latest fundraise, which was led by Mercury. I also had the opportunity to catch up with Nikitha Sattiraju about SmartAC and why we invested. The full article (link in comments) covers all the details and Nikitha's takeaways. What I love about this deal is that SmartAC is pulling contractors into the 21st century. The company helps them remotely monitor HVAC and plumbing systems through advanced sensors, AI-driven diagnostics, and proactive alerts which help contractors manage and optimize their HVAC and plumbing maintenance memberships. This results in: • 97.6% contractor customer retention rate • Greater transparency for homeowners • SmartAC's revenue growing by ten times year-over-year in 2023 • A reduction in unnecessary service calls HVAC and home services is a really exciting vertical, with industry consolidation and PE investment. SmartAC is a key partner as the industry continues to modernize and further professionalize its systems. Congratulations to Josh Teekell, Andrew Fuselier, and the entire SmartAC team! I'm looking forward to seeing all that you accomplish.

Americans are migrating to the sunbelt and with that has come high volumes of construction, leading Mercury portco Buildforce to continue to expand within the Southeast with its acquisition of YC backed, Atlanta-based Ladder. Buildforce’s construction tech platform: • Enables electrical contractors to connect with skilled electricians looking for construction-related work and steady incomes. • Handles HR and administrative services for contractors, helping electricians escape the gig economy and enjoy the benefits of being a W-2 employee. With the Ladder acquisition, Buildforce gains access to Ladder's fleet of customers and 10,000 pre-screened electricians. Anila Yoganathan of the Atlanta Business Chronicle covered the acquisition. You can find all the details in the link in the comments below. Congratulations to Buildforce Co-Founder/CEO Moody Heard, Alex Stewart, and both the Buildforce and Ladder teams!

SmartAC.com is the customer loyalty platform for HVAC & plumbing contractors. The company allows contractors to monitor, manage, and optimize their HVAC and plumbing maintenance memberships through advanced sensors, AI-driven diagnostics, and proactive alerts.   Key facts: • Contractors who use SmartAC have a customer retention rate of 97.6% • SmartAC grew its revenue by ten times year-over-year in 2023  • SmartAC’s growth coincides with the surging financial interest in the HVAC and home services sectors   The company services contractors that make $3 million in revenue all the way up to multi-billion-dollar businesses.   Customers include: TSG Consumer Partners LLC-backed Wrench Group and Cortec Group Management Services LLC-backed Goettl Air Conditioning & Plumbing.   Congratulations to Josh Teekell and the entire SmartAC team. The round was led by Mercury.   Read more in The Deal: https://lnkd.in/gtNZfFKT Blair Garrou Aziz Gilani adrian fortino Heath Butler Samantha Lewis Melissa Lutzke Turowsky Jackie Pfister Andreas R. Galliker, CFA Winston Gilpin Dan Watkins Eddie Lou Tolonye Williams Patrick Okorafor, CPA Alex Gras Lisa Roberts Aileen Allen Nikitha Sattiraju

I LOVE working with founders who are unapologetically bold and willing to do the really hard things to solve problems that others shy away from. Jeremy Smith, CEO of Civitech, is an embodiment of this. Civitech is a company that uses very sophisticated data tools to create a fairer and more equitable democracy by increasing civic participation, particularly around voter registration. As you can imagine this was a monster year for them and I’m so proud of everything Jeremy, Stephanie Fisher, and their teams accomplished this year. Outside of great startup metrics, they also engaged with over 10 million new voters who had never voted before. But solving problems in fragmented, overlooked markets takes a different approach than building a traditional software company. Here are some key things I’ve learned working alongside Civitech for the past few years: • Having a CEO who is a respected thought leader in the sector and also has a unique approach to solving a well-understood problem is key. • Hiring a team who understands that problem AND knows how to build a scalable tech company is vital. This is especially important if you plan to raise venture capital dollars. No matter how big the problem you’re solving is, at some point in your company journey your metrics have to be able to justify a VC investing in you versus another “safer” market bet. • Having the right group of advisors and board members can be super valuable. Civitech has brought in serial entrepreneur Dan Graham; one of the smartest people I’ve met on voter registration Tamer Mokhtar; entrepreneur, ex-Google and professional board director Kurt Abrahamson; and most recently, Aileen Allen, a former Atlassian operator who helped develop their go to market strategies over multiple iterations of the company. (Huge shoutout to our lender Zack Ellison, CFA, CAIA who has helped us with capital formation strategy throughout this entire year.)

Congratulations to Cart.com on acquiring OceanX, LLC, bringing aboard 200 new employees and two new facilities, and making Cart the unified commerce solutions provider for over 25 celebrity & beauty brands!   Through the deal, Cart will enable iconic brands such as Meaningful Beauty, The Body Firm, Smileactives, and Westmore Beauty to manage their supply chains with the same sophistication as the world's most dominant retailers.   Read more: https://lnkd.in/ec9BUrX6 Guthy|Renker Omair T. Blair Garrou

It’s always a pleasure talking with Steven Carter. Otto is now the number one vet practice automation platform in the world because Steven saw beyond his founder identity and sought the best solutions for the company. The reality is, founders come from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and sometimes they’ve never launched or led a high-growth company. When they step into the CEO role, trying to meet the depth and breadth of stakeholder expectations can cause the founder to become overwhelmed and question their value. The bottom line is that you don't have to be a successful CEO to be a successful founder! Check out “Getting Beyond the Founder Ego” here: https://lnkd.in/ge5MdwbE

Congratulations to OmniScience on its just announced partnership with INmune Bio Inc. Vivo, OmniScience’s genAI clinical trial software, will be used to support INmune Bio’s global Phase 2 Alzheimer’s trial. “A global trial of this size is vast, and Vivo will be critical in our ability to analyze cognitive results,” stated Tara Lehner, INmune Bio’s VP of Clinical Operations. “With genAI provided by Vivo, we can amplify our clinical teams’ capabilities, turning complex data into actionable insights at unprecedented speed, which means we can get answers—and treatments—to patients faster.” Designed with explainability and interpretability at its core, Vivo ensures that every generated insight is supported by clear, traceable rationale grounded in data and clinical context. Its advanced cognitive architecture combines ontological knowledge of trial protocols with domain-specific clinical expertise, enabling qualitative and quantitative reasoning at scale. Angela Holmes, MSBME Dan Watkins Blair Garrou Samantha Lewis

Congratulations to OmniScience on its just announced partnership with INmune Bio Inc. Vivo, OmniScience’s genAI clinical trial software, will be used to support INmune Bio’s global Phase 2 Alzheimer’s trial. “A global trial of this size is vast, and Vivo will be critical in our ability to analyze cognitive results,” stated Tara Lehner, INmune Bio’s VP of Clinical Operations. “With genAI provided by Vivo, we can amplify our clinical teams’ capabilities, turning complex data into actionable insights at unprecedented speed, which means we can get answers—and treatments—to patients faster.” Designed with explainability and interpretability at its core, Vivo ensures that every generated insight is supported by clear, traceable rationale grounded in data and clinical context. Its advanced cognitive architecture combines ontological knowledge of trial protocols with domain-specific clinical expertise, enabling qualitative and quantitative reasoning at scale. Angela Holmes, MSBME Dan Watkins Blair Garrou Samantha Lewis

I'm often asked by aspiring first-time founders if new innovation should always be tied to software or electronics for investors to engage. The answer is not necessarily. Consider the mobile accessories market — how could you possibly innovate accessorizing a phone? Meet co-founders, RaShaun Brown, CEO, and Clay Canning, CPO, at Screen Skinz. (Full disclosure: I personally invested in the company a couple of years ago and recently caught up with RaShaun to get an update.) First, the screen protection market is a $51 billion industry that’s seen little innovation even as phones get more sophisticated and expensive. For most, screen protection is simply additional insurance, a practical way to protect an expensive investment. But there’s always room to go further... Enter Screen Skinz. RaShaun and Clay figured out how to put logos and designs on the part of a phone where owners ACTUALLY look: the screen. Designs that are visible when your phone is off and invisible when on. How did they do it? Trade secret! But that's not why I'm sharing their story... They've hit on something that serves both practical and personal purposes for consumers. Screen Skinz has found partners in ZAGG Inc. and obtained licenses from major sports and entertainment brands, like the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), Marvel Entertainment, and WWE.  The company has completely built custom software (Albert) to automate manufacturing/production and order management processes, giving them a clear path to enable on-demand printing inside mobility retail stores. How far can they go? The Screen Skinz platform is transferable. Albert can be configured to work in any print-on-demand or manufacturing system! They are currently piloting the platform with another software company to automate product imagery across all their designs. RaShaun and Clay are still cooking the sauce as gritty, early-stage founders but they've proved that you can innovate just about anything...it just requires the right team to build the right product for the right market at the right time!