As you know, gas-powered vehicles are the greatest end-use source of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, even if we started producing nothing but EVs today, the current global stock of vehicle turnover is so slow that we would still emit 300% of the remaining carbon budget for the sector.  I just started working with a company called Blue Dot Motorworks that aims to eliminate that gap with the most cost-effective, resource-efficient, and equitable solution possible.

Ground-breaking technology from Blue Dot Motorworks fills a massive gap in the mobility market. Individual drivers and fleet operators of 1.4 billion conventional vehicles around the world are struggling with rising fuel prices and decarbonization mandates that they cannot afford to meet by purchasing new electric vehicles. Blue Dot’s Plug-in Hybrid conversion kits can be installed on nearly any light-duty vehicle by any mechanic in about a day and will reduce typical fuel usage by 70-80%. This first-of-a-kind, vehicle-agnostic approach, in development since 2015, enables mass production and is a paradigm shift in cost-effectiveness and scalability. Positive ROI can be achieved in as little as two years, and lifetime savings can reach tens of thousands of dollars.

Road-going prototypes of the Narwhal (for pickup trucks, traditional SUVs, and some vans) and the Humpback (for all other cars) have proven the viability and practicality of the technology. Multiple beta customers have signed letters of intent to purchase units for pilot programs in their fleets. First-mover IP, totaling 360 pages of innovations, provides broad protection through numerous alternative architectures. Adjacent hybridization technologies represent a strong product pipeline.

Norm joins seasoned entrepreneurs who are driven by a vision to unleash resilience in people, products, and the planet. They founded Ponto Footwear which reverse-designs and manufactures footwear that makes life lighter on the sole and the planet, for D2C, B2B and B2C applications, made from bio-based and recycled materials, all in a closed-loop supply chain.

Ponto is built on an underlying platform of applied circularly sustainable innovation, to ensure the circular economy is a profit-driving force for the end consumer and the industry of footwear. Using the company’s platform of standards for design to ensure recyclability, its network of supply chain innovations, its fully waterless solar-powered factory, and its built-in technology stack provides consumers with direct financial credit for upgrading & recycling their shoes; Ponto exists to make the tent bigger for the entire footwear industry through their licensable business model.

• Ponto’s owned and operated brand is sold direct-to-consumer, in wholesale, and is an official uniform supplier to Delta Airlines.
  • Their partnership with Delta Airlines emerged following a collaboration with Issa Rae and Delta as a part of LA Fashion Week which Forbes wrote a feature about here.
• Ponto sets the circular & recyclable footwear standard for B2B enterprise uniforms.
• The Ponto tech stack is set to be licensed to major footwear holding companies and brands.

Fieldhouse is an innovative early-stage start-up that uses proprietary data centralization, analytics, and AI to maximize athlete performance and wellness.

We are engineering:

• Home Screen for Your Health – integrates training, performance, and lifestyle data from 150+ digital training tools and stores that data on each user’s profile.
• Performance Coach in Your Pocket – delivers unmatched training insights based on real-time and historical data. We are in a prime position to capture the smart wearable market projected growth (15% CAGR through 2032) because we are device-agnostic.
• Health and Wellness Insights Engine – provides companies with the opportunity to license our predictive analytics and insights to contextualize their existing data.

Our Go-to-Market strategy is to partner with complimentary sports businesses (B2B2C) that have established customer bases.

We will be piloting our web-based application (Home Screen for Your Health) with users, as well as professional athletes, after Thanksgiving, then rolling out our product to two strategic partners and onboarding 10,000+ users. With a conservative 25% ongoing subscription/retention rate, we expect to be cash flow positive in Q3 of 2024.

While we are executing the business model for our consumer application, we will simultaneously be developing our data models, pattern matching, and insights. We are currently in discussions with wearable companies (ie. Whoop), national gym chains (ie. Crunch Fitness), and healthcare organizations (ie. American Heart Association) about licensing the Fieldhouse Engine – predictive analytics and insights to contextualize their existing data.

Profluence Capital is run by Andrew Petcash, a GenZ sports-thematic expert who has built a substantial media company, and Mitch Baruchowitz who has a proven track record founding, managing, and driving returns in funds (10 exits). They have global advisors across sports/venture (with billions in exits under their belt).

Launched in September, they already executed a first close and made 3 investments, an aspect of their value creation model is they expect to receive advisory shares in most deals thanks to their ecosystem and strategic guidance, with LPs getting 100% of this value creation, which will help create outsized risk-adjusted yields over time.

Unlike traditional sports VC funds, Profluence Capital focuses on the complementary asset classes of emerging sports leagues/teams and early-stage sports, tech, and media companies that are on the path to expand globally, and into other sectors beyond just sports. Furthermore, our investment allocation is equally divided between all the verticals in sports/tech/media (with partnerships in place to make sure the portfolio is diversified beyond North America). 

We add value far beyond just a check – from a global sports network, commercialization to millions of viewers, and experts on the team not just in sports, but across technology and media. Profluence Capital seeks to provide exponential growth for both our companies and our LPs.  

Koala Wallet is reinventing crypto wallets as utility platforms, leapfrogging outdated solutions like Metamask by partnering directly with Layer-1s and providing deep ecosystem integration tools. Their team has been developing wallets since 2014 and they growth-hacked their last app (Coinomi) to over 3m+ users and millions in revenue. Now they are launching tools and services around Koala to help users educate, acquire, and utilize new blockchains.  Their mantra is ‘connecting users directly to emerging ecosystems’.

Koala has passed audits by Red4Sec and can only be downloaded from verified sources, ensuring users start safely. Our onboarding educates users in 30 seconds and we provide ongoing crypto education and partner with supported projects to further inform users. Built from scratch with the knowledge of 30+ years of combined blockchain development, Koala provides a single-chain experience in a multi-blockchain product. 

I am working with a group of brilliant entrepreneurs who built the technology, warehousing, distribution and a vast network of distilleries worldwide, and jumped through all the hoops of the complex requirements to allow a liquor Brand to be sold directly to a fan.

As you may remember (maybe not as well as me:-), liquor was deemed essential during COVID so the law changed to allow Distilleries/Producers to sell liquor directly to consumers.

We bypass the traditional, low-margin, 3-tiered alcohol distribution system and allow a celebrity, brand or influencer to create their own blend/brand of Whisky, Tequila or Vodka and we handle all the logistics from distillery to the fan’s door.

Thirsty yet?

Aesop’s core mission is to enhance both human and economic performance. The data indicates that both aspects are currently underperforming, which is negatively impacting real estate, corporations, and cities. Our client solutions utilize our software, tools, and services to address these challenges by enabling highly connected, productive, and creative “problem solving” communities. Our tools have been developed over a decade of learning and have been refined using the psychological principles of Appreciative Inquiry and corporate innovation strategies to align the interests of businesses and individuals. Corporations seek greater profits, while individuals desire a better quality of life. We design with both of these goals in mind.

Our solutions specifically have the power to address: 

Corporate:

• Return-to-Work Solutions
• Talent Retention and Activation Services
• Community Engagement and Talent Identification Tools

Real Estate:

• Building Repositioning
• Activation of Underutilized Spaces
• Assistance with Occupancy Issues to Support Tenant Return-to-Work Strategies and Lease Extensions

Community (Family Offices/Municipalities):

• Counteract Brain Drain
• Boost Tax Revenue
• Foster Innovation Clusters
• Stimulate Real Estate and Venture Capital Deal Flow

When viewed at a macro level, our stack of solutions and products are a “future of work” strategy. 

Founder of Back to Space, Danielle Roosa, is on a mission to inspire as many people as possible to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps, Apollo 14 Command Module Pilot, Stu Roosa.  Back to Space’s mixed-reality experiences allow space travelers to be immersed in the story of the Lunar Light, in an episodic unfolding that spans the Universe through multiple storytelling media.

Immersive experiences have captured the imagination, and the wallets, of consumers around the world, from the Van Gogh Experience selling over 5 million tickets by 2022, to Meow Wolf selling 2.7 million in 2022 alone. However, with increased competition and rising operations costs, creativity is only half the equation for success.

Gabriella Zielke, CEO, is an experienced operator, tech investor, and published sci-fi author. She created the world’s first B2B tech accelerator, which hit all the “top 10” lists, and spun out three additional programs, all on a shoestring budget from the 7 funds she raised. Back to Space’s COO, Matt Thompson, PhD, is a physicist, engineer, and 4x startup founder who enjoys designing and implementing systems that keep things moving smoothly.

In order to make this experience truly one of a kind, Back to Space has assembled a fantastic team of advisors and board members.

• Chief Technical Advisor – Eric Gradman – Two Bit Circus
• Technical Advisor – Jim Vaughn –  Meta, Magic Leap
• Finance – Maria Malavenda- Zoominfo, Kalypso
• Astronaut – Charlie Duke – Apollo 16
• Astronaut – Buzz Aldrin – Apollo 11
• Educational Partner – Andy Aldrin –  The Aldrin Foundation
• COO/Chief Counsel – David Anderman – Lucas Films, SpaceX, Jaunt
• COB – Michael Gorton – founded $3.8B NYSE Teladoc, serial entrepreneur, and author
• Board Member – Jack Roosa – Lt. Colonel in USAF, 20 years at Raytheon Missile Systems 

Fintech Built By Outsiders

The financial sector is enormous, accounting for roughly 20% of global GDP.

But it only works well for a tiny fraction of the population.

The big opportunity within fintech is not serving the top 10% that every fintech already caters to. It’s in creating economic opportunity for everyone else. Outside VC is creating the financial system the world deserves, betting on outsiders building fintech infrastructure and products that will lift up 100M people to the middle class over the next decade.

Mission Driven Outsiders are Welcome!

DataDome is an online fraud and bot management firm that provides a suite of tools to protect web applications from online fraud, web scraping, scalping, credential stuffing, account takeover, DDoS attacks, and card fraud.

They use machine learning algorithms and risk scores to analyze the request fingerprints and behavioral signals to detect and block bot attacks in real-time.

DataDome is one of the most sophisticated and hardest to bypass anti-scraping protection systems in use today.

Companies like AngelList use DataDome to try and prevent companies and developers from scraping data from their websites.

DataDome recently raised $42 Million in Series C Funding to advance the fight against bot-driven cyberattacks and fraud.  

• Eliminating fake account creation
• Mitigating credential stuffing
• Eliminating content scraping