Global Alumni SUCCESS

We helped a Bay Area-based Automotive Electronics Hardware startup raise $800K

The client is an automotive electronics hardware startup that builds smart lock boxes which attach to vehicles and serve as a vault for the keys to provide remote access to the vehicle which enables contactless and on-demand gas, grocery, package deliveries, and other services directly into the vehicle. After a decade in the automotive industry, its Founder & CEO launched the company because too many of her delivery packages were stolen from her house and she needed an alternative to store them safely whenever she was gone. This is why the startup is focused on developing a best-in-class approach to provide remote access and safe storage to 90% of vehicles on the road today, making it easier than ever for a delivery person to simply place packages or goods inside the vehicle.

Following a major product pivot, the client faced challenges and urgency in adapting quickly from selling directly to a niche market to building out an entirely new customer outreach process. Speeding ahead with major changes at a dizzying pace, the startup needed to slow down in order to go faster – it had to reevaluate its risk profile, core market strategy, and consumer base outlook. To succeed, the Founder & CEO direly needed strategic guidance and mentorship to rightsize her fundraising timing expectations: she believed the startup’s traction would be enough to entice investors to help her close an entire round of funding in a mere three months. 

We helped the client meet her first investor – ever. After right-setting the startup’s fundraising expectations and strategy, it captured the attention of an IP-centric fund that infused $100K in capital. The Founder & CEO even mentioned that she wouldn’t have been able to reach out to the investor if it wasn’t for Newchip. This key milestone opened major doors for the client as it then led her to meet a lead investor, among other backers, who helped drive momentum in a round that would culminate in an $800K raise.

Through continued mentorship and strategic guidance in the accelerator, the client learned the importance of setting realistic timelines for a fundraising round. In her case, the three-month fundraising goal doubled to six months. Yet, after reevaluating the position of the business, the startup could now realign the business with a plan that would ultimately see a sharp increase in sales and substantial interest from professional investors.  

We helped a Singapore-based CleanTech Battery Recycling Technology startup raise $3M

The client is clean battery material recycling startup based out of Singapore, with offices in the USA and India. After witnessing the pollutive and hazardous environments created by heavy metals in batteries as an international commodity trader, its Co-Founder & CEO launched the business to develop the world’s cleanest and most efficient lead-acid battery recycling technology.

Considering that 95% of the world’s energy storage systems are stored in lead-acid batteries, this presented the startup with an outsized opportunity to innovate. It also plans to develop recycling solutions for lithium batteries and other forms of E-waste. By 2025, the startup aims to recycle 130,000 tons of plastic, preventing 3.5M tons of CO2 from being emitted and 280M kilograms of landfill created.

One of the early challenges the startup faced were misconceptions about the recycling industry. While most potential investors were familiar with the basics of plastic and paper recycling, the startup’s niche segment of environmental waste – a $16B+ market growing rapidly with the adoption of EVs and personal electronics – was a foreign concept to most. The client’s investor pitch lacked focus as he sought to both onboard investors to his market and explain the company‘s multiple and complex revenue streams. Despite generating over $20M in revenue in his first year, the startup struggled to operate his fast–growing company concurrently with his fundraising efforts, leading him to overestimate how much he needed to raise to achieve short–term goals, namely international expansion targets.

The startup‘s ambitious international scaling plan required significant investment from foreign investors, but the client lacked a strong investor network and brand reputation outside of Singapore. Moreover, given its underlying values and vision, the startup needed help to find investors with a mindset that aligned with his environmental global impact mission. 

We helped reposition the startup as a viable investment to foreign investors in a number of ways. It paired the client with a strategic mentor who brought a deep understanding of the intricacies in the battery recycling industry and provided strategic guidance on framing a compelling investor pitch. The startup also refined its fundraising strategy with Newchip’s Venture Fellow team to create specific financing targets tied to growth plans in each planned expansion country.

With these fundraising strategy plans in mind, the client was introduced to Newchip‘s global investor network to find qualified investors who wanted to support the company‘s unique vision, including Scrum Ventures in Japan – whose prestigious investment program accepted the startup – as well as SeedInvest, which is helping crowdfund additional capital. Beyond their successful raise of $3M, the client has reached significant milestones, including a signed major partnership agreement with a 70–year–old veteran recycling company in Asia spanning eight countries, the creation of ancillary technology in reducing slag size by 70–80%, and also the first stages of development for commercial recycling facilities in Southeast Asia and the U.S. in the next two years.

In Q1-2022, the startup announced the launch of its $7M Series A round.

We helped a Madrid-based On-Demand Home Services Marketplace startup raise €600K

The client is an on-demand home services marketplace where users can search, book, compare, review, and pay for services, including house cleaning, nannies, tutors, and more, right from the convenience of their own home. Its Founder & CEO launched the company to empower people to simplify their access to everyday house-related conveniences all through its mobile app. Its marketplace is built on a deep analysis of the current industry methodologies for hiring service providers and innovates by bringing new efficiencies to the online process.

The startup’s long-term goal was to disrupt the burgeoning home services industry in Europe by providing people with simplified access via its simple mobile app. In order to accomplish this endeavor, it needed to raise capital from serious investors who saw the same level of potential in the startup. However, the Founder & CEO had no clue on how to craft an investor pitch, let alone what types of investors to seek, where to find them, and how to convince them to pay attention.

Moreover, the startup needed help in not just assessing but solidifying its business fundamentals, including KPIs, financial projections, and its growth plans – all key to crafting a compelling fundraising narrative. Its founder knew he needed help, and was willing to consider an accelerator, but he remained concerned with the lack of support and commitment endemic across many accelerators nowadays.

We helped the client gain the confidence it needed to fundraise successfully in Spain. The interactive online guidance and support it received overseas was the perfect fit for the startup because it lacked the resources to move to the United States. The Founder & CEO also found deep value in the monthly Mastermind sessions because they enabled him to meet and engage with other motivated startup founders who shared similar struggles in raising capital and getting their product to market. The level of openness and support in that group helped him realize that the entrepreneurial journey is a challenging one – and that he wasn’t alone.

Moreover, the accelerator also taught the startup essential skills on how to scale the company effectively and how to think about a long-term vision that compelled investors to back his dream. The results the startup has accomplished since Newchip have been astounding: in the last year, it has grown 25% month-over-month, 100% organically, and with an 80% repeat customer rate – all without any marketing spend. The team believes it is closer than ever to finding its product-market fit. Through ongoing strategic guidance, Newchip helped the startup to close their first two rounds of fundraising totaling €600K from angel investors in Europe.

We helped a Montréal-based SportsTech Fitness startup raise $3M

The startup is a Montréal-based technology firm that is combining real world sports with a digitally engaging experience and A.I. to create real world gaming. Its co-founders launched the company to help motivate users to move a bit more every day by combining tech and the addictive side of gaming. Their team is using the addictive playbook of Silicon Valley to drive people to exercise. The startup recently developed a gaming and fitness application that motivates everyone to meet small, daily movement goals for anyone, anywhere. Their goal is to make fitness fun by turning exercise into an addictive game.

As the startup set out to raise capital, its co-founders sought out two types of investor partners: a strategic one who understood their business and brought early-stage startup experience, and then one who could provide meaningful connections towards subsequent fundraising rounds. Understanding that fundraising was time consuming, the key challenge the startup faced was finding the right investors who fit this profile in the least amount of time possible.

They needed to get in front of the right investors fast so that they could focus on building a best-in-class product. But more importantly than just meeting investors, the co-founders of IntelliSports needed preparation and strategic guidance to better position their company pitch and marketing opportunity for success.

Newchip helped the startup to prepare with high confidence for investor meetings. One key area of focus was in the pitch preparation process, which allowed the startup to conduct numerous practice sessions with other entrepreneurs and investors who have extensive fundraising experience. These interactive sessions helped the co-founders identify errors in their core narrative and enabled them to make key adjustments.

Given that the startup is based in Canada and the co-founders had limited to key investors, the startup benefited from having access to a broad network of mentors and U.S. investors through Newchip’s remote experience. This was an important aspect of their accelerator experience because it helped the startup to drive their $3M round by meeting with the right type of investors, not just those who were close to Montréal.

We helped a Nairobi-based FinTech KYC Inclusivity Banking Data startup raise $450K

The client is building a financial ecosystem focused on digitizing the KYC (Know Your Customer) data of the village and creating a credit footprint for financial inclusion for the grassroots of Africa. Its platform is built around the massive unbanked population in Africa of over 400M people, of which the majority are represented by savings groups across Africa in forms of SACCO, AJO, ESUSU, SUSU, and more.

The startup was facing trouble in securing fundraising at a time where their brand identity lacked direction. They had the business experience and a team of veteran entrepreneurs, but when it came to objectives like brand strategy and recruitment there was a bit of a gray area. The client also needed help simplifying their pitch deck and cutting it down to a digestible takeaway for investors. Additionally, the startup wanted to test the platform on their audience and ultimately develop their valuation by other thought leaders in the industry. As such, the client needed expert validation in order to become investment ready and race towards the fundraising finish line.

We helped the startup by providing critical guidance and ongoing feedback that would improve the brand narrative it was using to fundraise. One of their most important successes was the fine tuning of their investor pitch deck which, according to the client, was overhauled and perfected with help of its assigned mentor. The startup also took advantage of the global resources available to Newchip startup founders, including online networking sessions, Mastermind groups, expanded mentorship opportunities, and the advice from the other CEOs who were  experiencing the same problems and seeking effective solutions.

The client also explored new ways of approaching their branding and marketing initiatives and were able to increase their exposure to investors through the Newchip Online Demo Week. Since completion of the accelerator, the startup has met with over 35 investors from different markets, continents, and industries, including the Stanford GSB Impact Fund. It now counts on $450K in capital commitments and plans to return to Newchip to continue driving its growth and success. The client is also making progress towards new initiatives on its roadmap, including the development of two more products: a crypto payment solution and an alternative program in grassroots trade.

We helped a Wisconsin-based Baked Goods CPG startup raise $400K and land a national TV deal on QVC

The client is a food CPG startup focused on preparing St. Louis-style butter cakes in different flavors and formats. Steeped in decades of history and tradition, this company started off as a mon-and-pop business and eventually decided to expand the scope of its quintessential midwestern dessert to countless homes across the nation.

Although the client was already facing the initial issues in building a thriving bakery, creating a brand that would scale quickly beyond its local and regional confines presented a whole new range of challenges. The love and support the brand had developed regionally for its undeniably indulgent dessert was self-evident. However, as the company aspired to scale beyond its original sphere of influence and drive distribution nationally, it needed to raise capital from serious investors in the highly competitive food and CPG industries. To attract and sustain interest, the startup needed to rethink its core narrative and investor pitch so that it could transcend from a local mom-and-pop treat into a high potential national rising food brand.

We helped the client reframe its core objectives as they related to fundraising and scaling the business. The ability to gain clarity on the most relevant and critical milestones they needed to achieve enabled the CEO to visualize the exact steps forward. The week-by week cadence of interactions with mentors, advisors, CPG startup founders, and other core members of the Newchip ecosystem enabled the CEO to engage continuously with key people who helped refashion his pitch deck and fundraising strategy.

The global Newchip network also opened doors for the client in numerous ways, including an introduction to an Investor Relations Venture Partner who facilitated a high-level introduction to QVC and helped score a deal for air-time on the famous home shopping channel, which lead to many new grocery store chains seeking to distribute the butter cake product. Additionally, active engagement with angel investors and venture capital funds helped the client raise over $400K in capital to catalyze further growth. Gradually, since the client partnered with us, what started as a small local venture has evolved into a rising brand across the U.S.

We helped a Mexico City-based Logistics & Procurement eCommerce startup achieve a $250K debt financing

The client is a cloud-based Procure-to-Pay (P2P) solution for logistics and procurement businesses in Latin America. In development for nearly 15 years by its Founder, the company helps companies improve their purchasing decisions and increase profitability by centralizing and automating the procurement process: from quotations to purchase orders, requisitions, and invoicing. The client is now a leading platform that automates the purchase requisition processes of companies. Currently, it has over three million yearly transactions on its platform, which represents approximately $8B in annual volume exchanged between 40 buyers and 40,000+ suppliers active on the platform.

The client found numerous challenges as it sought to enter new markets beyond its core footprint in the Latin American procurement marketplace. In particular, it required additional capital infusions from venture capital investors to drive growth. Combined with the critical response of investors to the non-traditional business model and structure of the client business – it simply was not a fit for traditional startup investors. As such, the Founder and his executive team needed our guidance in refocusing its financing strategy from a VC-centric approach to one that was more geared towards private equity deals. Yet, once the change happened, the client faced additional hurdles as typical private equity raises and valuation requirements are much higher than a traditional VC deal.  

We helped the client rethink its fundraising and expansion strategy in addition to facilitating key investor and industrial introductions prior to its entry into the American market. This enabled it to grow its business development pipeline and scale faster all while driving the necessary revenues and KPIs to attract further investment. Our continued mentorship and guidance also empowered the client to secure a $250K line of credit that helped bridge the company as it prepares to launch a larger seven-figure round.

The Newchip Investor Relations team also facilitated numerous high-level introductions to private equity investors that will help the client’s future raise launch faster. Since our partnership, the company has continued to drive underlying growth as it adds new clients to its portfolio, which includes major industrials, such as Colgate-Palmolive, Kellogg’s, Fuller, Trinity Industries, and Kimberly-Clark. Further, the client now holds over 10% of the Mexican market and has also opened offices in Madrid, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. It now projects its growth to reach 15-20% of the Mexican market in the next three years, which translates to nearly $7M regionally, and potentially up to $15M once including other markets.

We helped a Dallas-based Graphene Battery Technology startup position itself for a $12M acquisition 

The client is a startup building the latest super-fast charging USB C PD and graphene battery technology. Its CEO, a UC Berkeley engineering  alumnus, has led the company to develop over nine patents in fast charging battery solutions for both hardware and software in the smart wearables and electric vehicles end-markets. Currently, the startup is one of the fastest growing and highest-rated sellers on Amazon.com.  

The startup was facing a challenging time fundraising due to the CEO’s lack of business experience as a hardware engineer. Although the patented technology he developed was resulting in a promising product, the client had little clue on how to scale the business let alone fundraise for it effectively. As such, to sustain its fast-growing operation, the startup needed hands-on, yet flexible, strategic guidance that would provide step-by step support on raising capital from strategic investors.

In under six months, we helped the client go from having no knowledge at all to possessing the hard skills, tools, and understanding needed to follow through on the entire fundraising and scaling process of his business. For a novice in the business world, the CEO found deep value in its resources, namely the online curriculum which helped fill in critical knowledge gaps as well as ongoing access to his strategic mentor he was assigned. Having 
Being able to interact with a diverse array of startup CEOs also enabled the client to gain a unique perspective on the complexities and nuances of not just launching a business but doing so in a scalable manner.

In particular, the client’s assigned strategic mentor played a critical part in helping the startup prepare for a major, and unexpected opportunity: an acquisition. All the way from receiving the term sheet, to analyzing it from different angles, to negotiating effectively, Sam quickly gained the knowledge and confidence to sell his early-stage company to Alpine 4 Holdings, Inc. for $12M.

We helped a Dublin-based FinTech Investment Strategy Data Startup oversubscribe its round to €900K 

The client is a data-driven investment fintech startup focused on helping Millennials make better investment decisions through an extensive catalog of quantitative investing strategies that have been backtested over a twenty-year period. Its Founder & CEO, a professional investor with years of experience in fundamental investment strategies, launched the startup after he struggled to find solid strategy and structure on how to build an optimal portfolio for investors moving away from actively managed funds. Democratizing investing and empowering users to create their own investment portfolio in under ten minutes has since become the underlying goal of the company, along with enabling them to invest in eco friendly, conflict-free, or principle-driven corporations.

The startup was facing initial challenges with proper networking. When its Founder & CEO started pitching investors, he put most of their effort on designing appealing slides and on delivering a strong demo, yet it effectiveness in yielding meaningful results was negligible. Moreover, the client’s startup pitch was falling flat and not resonating with prospective investors. As such, the startup needed to tell a story that encompassed the true scope of the industry problem they were solving. More importantly, in addition to strengthening his ability in networking, the Founder & CEO needed to place more targeted effort on identifying the right type of investors for their early stage.

We helped the client to find the confidence and courage to network with investors. Through ongoing mentorship and coaching, the Founder & CEO received strategic guidance on revamping his investor pitch deck as well as the story he needed to share in order to attract interest. Despite only having launched a few months prior to partnering with Newchip, the startup began to enjoy tremendous success, including 500 early-access users and €900K in raised capital, surpassing their initial €700K target. In fact, the round was so oversubscribed that the startup ended up having to close the doors on some investors!

In particular, the startup found Newchip‘s Founder Outreach tools highly valuable because they helped the Founder & CEO to quickly identify and acquire several key investors – including the CEO of a major American bank, who went on to become a member of the startup’s board. 

In Q1-2022, the startup announced the launch of a €5M Series A round.

We helped an L.A.-based Pet Industry CPG startup in the CBD space raise $150K

The client is a pet industry CPG startup focused on producing CBD treats that help dogs ease separation anxiety, pain, and aggression. The co-founders came up with the idea while trying to  help their own dog recover from surgery to treat its early-onset arthritis. After seeing the harsh medicines that were prescribed cause deep suffering in their pup, the co-founders searched for holistic  remedies to ease the pain. Yet, they found none on the market as well as  no long-term health alternatives for dogs. Ever since then, they have been on a mission to help pet parents ease the pain and anxiety in their dogs through high-quality, human-grade, lab-tested CBD products.

The startup was facing difficulty in raising capital due to the limited experience of its co-founder team in connecting and interacting with investors. Outside of reading a handful of books on the subject, they were not knowledgeable on how to build their pitch deck at the level of rigor needed to feel fully prepared and confident in front of professional investors. Moreover, as the startup expanded its market reach, the co-founder team found it challenging to consolidate their expanded product line and prioritize flavors based on actual customer data and sales trends. Although top-line sales were growing quickly, so were the operational inefficiencies. This meant that the startup needed to take a big step back and return to the fundamentals of its business in order to truly understand its core offering, value proposition, and market opportunity. Moreover, it needed to rethink the story it was sharing. Doing so would enable it to better position itself for interest from professional investors.

We helped the client gain the courage and confidence to connect with investors in a meaningful way. Through ongoing strategic guidance and mentorship, the co-founder team was able to hone in on their pitch deck, fundamental story, and outreach strategy which led them to engage in an extensive cold outreach campaign that generated over 100 conversations with investors, including angels and micro-VCs who paved the way for the launch of a round.

As a result of the fundraising strategy, the client met its goal of raising $150K in capital through a Reg CF crowdinvesting campaign and is now preparing for a new and larger investment round to keep driving growth. Moreover, the startup recently became a member of the National Animal Supplement Council (NASC), one of the major companies regulating CBD as a supplement. This certification is enabling the brand to become an industry leader and is empowering the brand to create new CBD products that help ease the anxiety issues that affect millions of dogs worldwide.

We helped an Idaho-based Home Improvement Hardware startup raise $1.2M

The client is a startup focused on producing lightweight wood panels that attach magnetically to existing metal garage doors, giving them a classical wood appearance without the expense of replacing the whole door. Its Founder & CEO launched the company because he needed to upgrade the look of his garage and nothing like this existed in the market at an attractive price point. After collecting feedback from retailers, customers, manufacturers, and other relevant stakeholders in the home improvement ecosystem, the client was having a difficult time preparing an effective fundraising strategy that would enable the production and distribution of its core product.

Considering that the startup manufactures its own product, locating investors open to hardware industries outside of tech was an enormous challenge. Even when Founder & CEO found a potential investor willing to listen, he struggled to convey the true value of his product and its potential to disrupt a $4.2 billion market opportunity in the U.S. alone. Given that he had never raised capital from angel investors or venture capitalists before, he also lacked the confidence to communicate his business vision in the manner that professional investors expect. In broader context, the client suffered a massive heart attack back in 2018 – an event that changed his outlook on the rest of his life and reinforced his commitment to bringing the startup to market. 

In under one year, provided strategic guidance to the CEO through deep assessment of the business model, competitive analysis, and rigorous development of a cohesive brand narrative in order to to establish effective fundraising assets, including an investor pitch deck, data room, and one pager. This enabled the client to achieve major milestones, including key introductions to strategic investors at the largest angel group in the United States, the renovation of a new manufacturing plant, and an increase in weekly product waitlist sign-ups.

Since launch, the startup has seen intense interest for its product from just a static website, including 13,000 waitlist sign-ups without paid advertising. These successes reinforced the team’s confidence in their brand and gave the CEO the ability to meet, interact, and foster meaningful relationships with high-level investors, leading to finding his lead investor and raising $1.2M raise in seed capital from the largest angel group in the U.S. 

We helped a San Francisco-based Last-Minute Vacation Rentals Booking startup raise $3M

The startup is a last-minute vacation rental platform designed to sell the unsold inventory in the vacation rental industry. It offers travelers competitive last-minute deals on professionally-managed properties by negotiating steep discounts on unsold inventory. As such, it provides the best value for last-minute travelers and drives additional revenue for property management companies and property owners. The startup’s Founder & CEO launched the company because he loves startups and saw an opportunity in the vacation rental market that simply could not be ignored.

In order to compete with the titans of the online vacation rentals industry, such as Airbnb and Vrbo, the startup needed to raise capital from serious investors who could catapult the company to the next level of growth. Although the startup had already raised $1M, it needed to identify the right type of investors who would not only bring on larger sums of capital but also provide much-needed value to the growth and scale of the company. To this end, the startup needed to rethink the areas in which it was focusing its time and resources so that it could become relevant to VCs. This included the need for him to identify a co-founder who would help him accelerate his efforts.

Newchip helped the startup reframe its thinking in regards to fundraising and refine its approach to sourcing investors. The online curriculum provided its Founder & CEO with a step-by-step process that provided him with a roadmap on the key considerations and decisions he had to make in order to launch a fundraising round with VCs and scale the business sustainably. The startup also found deep value in the relationships it built with its mentor, a person who was so influential in the decision-making process that he eventually joined the startup’s advisory board. This new opportunity enabled the advisor to open many other doors to investors as well as provide guidance with the negotiation process.

Since joining Newchip, the startup has been introduced to numerous investors, including a tier-one fund that is interested in joining at the Series-A stage. Moreover, the startup has seen exponential growth of property acquisition, and gained traction on app downloads. On top of the $1M that had been raised prior to joining Newchip, we helped the startup raise an additional $3M in less than four months post-accelerator.

We helped a Raleigh-based Food Processing Technology startup raise $5M

The client develops and integrates the best technologies and systems that retain the natural goodness of food. Their systems preserve the nutrition and quality of food from beginning to end. Its co-founders started the company to promote worldwide health and wellness by fostering the delivery of high quality, healthy foods through sustainable methods. Their systems allows food manufacturers to process products that normally retain 90-100% of their key micronutrients.

The client had managed to operate for five years without raising any capital. Yet, as its co-founders contemplated the next level of growth for the company they struggled to understand the types of investors who would make sense for their specific industry and business model. In search of strategic guidance and mentorship with their fundraise, the company evaluated numerous accelerators.

However, the co-founders were not willing to give up any equity in their company to participate in an accelerator program – many were seeking a 5-10% stake. Regardless, in order to identify the right Series A-stage investors and share a compelling narrative, the client needed a plan to align with the specific needs of its business operations and desired growth.

Newchip helped the client get in front of the right investors by helping the co-founders prepare their data room, pitch deck, valuation analysis, and one-pager, among other core fundraising preparation activities. Given the complexity of its business model and industry niche, Newchip helped the client distill the core essence of its value proposition so that it would resonate with investors. To this end, we helped the co-founders rethink how they shared their narrative with investors: it evolved from a highly technical pitch to a compelling story about the potential impact its technology can have on industry standards.

The client also found deep value in its many interactions with other startup founders from the global accelerator ecosystem, especially in the monthly Masterminds. Newchip also helped the startup find investors and facilitated introductions that took their hit rate from 10% to 70%. Since Newchip, the startup has raised a $5M Series A round which is helping it usher in a new stage of growth and innovation.