![]() “It’s wildly efficient and it gives us control,” Stavropoulos says. Boulevard even offers customers its own silver box that can sit on the front desk to handle transactions. While the company started with booking, today it gets most of its revenue from handling payments. Its biggest customer is a high-end department store chain. Today, the Los Angeles-based company, which operates in all 50 states, helps more than 2,000 salons, spas and nail salons. They quit their jobs at social content firm Fullscreen and started Boulevard in 2016 as a simple booking platform. “Why is this so inconvenient?” Soon, the two were going door-to-door to interview salon owners in Santa Monica, California. “We were just ranting in a Millennial kind of way,” says Danna, 34. Founders: Matt Danna (CEO), Sean Stavropoulos Equity raised: $130 million Estimated 2021 revenue: $16 million Lead investors: Bonfire Ventures, Index Ventures, Point72, Toba CapitalĪfter waiting too long to get a haircut and forgetting to call until late at night, Stavropoulos, 35, wondered why getting a hair appointment wasn’t as easy as ordering a pizza. Atmosphere now streams in more than 30,000 venues globally, capturing 35 million unique visitors a month. Free for facilities, the service is supported by ad revenue from clients such as Jack Daniel’s, DraftKings, government agencies and state lotteries. Recognizing they couldn’t compete in the crowded consumer space filled with media goliaths with deep pockets, the brothers launched Austin, Texas-based Atmosphere in 2018. Resig and his brother John, 43, had first delved into the world of streaming in 2015 when they sought to extend the reach of their first combined venture-theChive, a Buzzfeed-esque website-via video content, creating Chive TV. Nearly four-year-old Atmosphere offers what CEO Leo Resig, 42, describes as “audio-optional” videos from YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and other sources for bars, beauty salons, doctors’ offices and other businesses. Founders: Alen Durbuzovic, Michael Grisko, John Resig, Leo Resig (CEO), Eric Spielman Equity raised: $140 million Estimated 2021 revenue: $25 million Lead investors: S3 Ventures, SageView Capital, Valor Equity Partners Customers now come to us, and say, ‘We have this problem, how do we solve it?’” With data centers growing fast, Astera’s revenue is expected to reach $100 million this year. “When they got convinced was when we delivered on our commitment. “I don’t know how convinced they were, but in the past we had done a good job on execution,” says Mohan, 49. To get Amazon’s AWS as an early customer, the founders went to their contacts and told them why they’d need such a solution to data-center bottlenecks. It designs its chips on the cloud, speeding up that process, and has them fabricated by TSMC. “This AI and machine learning train is heading really fast.” So in 2017, they quit their jobs to start Santa Clara, California-based Astera to create connectivity solutions that could help keep data flowing. “That was the aha moment for us,” says Gajendra, 48. The problem was that connectivity wasn’t keeping up with advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The cofounders met at Texas Instruments where they had the idea for a new chip business to remove bottlenecks throughout data centers. Founders: Sanjay Gajendra, Jitendra Mohan (CEO), Casey Morrison Equity raised: $85 million Estimated 2021 revenue: $35 million Lead investors: Avigdor Willenz Group, Fidelity, Sutter Hill With a zero-fee fuel card that offers a five-cents-per-gallon discount gaining traction with truckers and the recent launch of a new payroll product, revenue is expected to surpass $20 million this year. “We can use the telematics to prevent fraud and improve fuel efficiency,” Velivela says. With AtoB, they built a dashboard where truckers could see the price of fuel, their exact fuel charges and the like, all of it connected with the fleet-tracking software. ![]() As they traveled to trucking hubs like Stockton, California, to find out what truckers needed, they learned about fuel cards offered by Wex and Fleetcor and thought they could do better. After Covid hit, they quickly pivoted to working on a Stripe or Square for transportation. Three years ago, Velivela, 32, who had previously worked as a robotics engineer at self-driving car company Cruise, teamed up with Misra (ex-Uber) and Arora (who’d developed a cryptocurrency price-tracking app) to launch an Uber for buses. ![]() Founders: Harshita Arora, Tushar Misra, Vignan Velivela (CEO) Equity raised: $100 million Estimated 2021 revenue: $2 million Lead investors: Bloomberg Beta, Elad Gil, General Catalyst
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |