Michelson Impact Ventures

Catalyzing Change at Scale

Michelson Impact Ventures seeks to accelerate progress toward a more just, equitable, and compassionate world by supporting nascent, market-driven technologies that can catalyze change at scale in the fields of the knowledge economy, pet care, environmental sustainability, financial inclusion, and social justice.

To date, Michelson Impact Ventures has directly invested mission-aligned capital into 42 earlystage startups. Through its Michelson Runway Accelerator and its Leap Venture Studio, Academy, and Bootcamp programs, it also has created new centers of gravity in the education, future of work, and pet care sectors to nurture positive growth for dozens more founders, operators, and investors.

“Through our impact-oriented, expert, and patient capital we are hoping to help more purpose-driven startups cross the chasm from proof of concept to broader market validation and traditional venture funding,” says Phillip J. Kim, managing director of Michelson Impact Ventures and CEO of Michelson 20MM Foundation. “We are trying to surface sustainable and scalable businesses that can create new categories, drive disruptive innovation in stagnant verticals, and even provide new points of light with the potential to inform policy change at the state and federal levels.”

Michelson portfolio startups have to date raised follow-on capital now representing more than 32 times Michelson’s early investment from some of the world’s premier venture capitalists, including Peter Thiel, Mark Cuban, Greycroft, Felicis Ventures, Techstars, Relay Ventures, and Metamorphosis. More than 60 percent of Michelson portfolio companies are run by diverse founders, a figure four times larger than the broader venture market.

Michelson Impact Ventures has realized its first three exits from its holdings over the last year: Authess, a performance-based competency assessment platform; PetHospice, a provider of quality-of-life assessment, in-home hospice, and palliative care; and Lacuna Diagnostics, a digital cytology solution for pets that cuts diagnostic time from days to minutes.

Michelson Impact Ventures’ portfolio includes:

Edquity

Edquity, which provides emergency aid and resources for students in need to help narrow equity gaps and facilitate social mobility. Edquity has provided support to more than 10,000 students during the pandemic within 24 hours of their request. Since its founding in 2016 by David Helene (pictured below, left), Edquity has deployed nearly $5.2 million in emergency aid while increasing the overall retention rate in its client colleges by 5 percent. Nine out of 10 students served persisted semester over semester.

AdmitHub

AdmitHub, which uses a conversational AI chatbot to recruit, enroll, and retain college students for its university clients. AdmitHub has supported more than 2 million students while achieving a 22 percent reduction in summer melt and an increase in student persistence year over year by 3 percent. Its institutional partners include Georgia State University, University of Memphis, West Texas A&M University, and Arizona State University.

David Helene, cofounder and CEO of EdQuity

“‘Homelessness and food insecurity are not endemic to college students but are exacerbated among them,” says David Helene, cofounder and CEO of EdQuity. ‘‘We’re excited that Michelson 20MM Foundation believes in our work to help students achieve excellence in postsecondary education.” ANDREW MAGLIOZZI CEO, AdmitHub

ReUp

ReUp Education, which partners with higher education institutions to help college students who drop out to re-enroll and graduate. Using a blend of data, technology, and coaching, ReUp has enabled more than 370,000 students in their educational dreams. Its partner institutions include Arizona State University and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

Leap Venture Studio

Even with the emergence of major companies in the pet care space, pet startups still suffer from underinvestment and lack platforms to support them as they scale. Leap Venture Studio and Academy is one of the first programs designed to ignite meaningful growth across the pet care startup ecosystem. Leap Venture is a partnership between Michelson Found Animals Foundation and Kinship, a division of Mars Petcare. MFA and Kinship recognize the immense value of the pet care sector and seek to foster innovation and growth from the bottom up.

Leap’s programming allows startup founders to develop their ideas, bring their product or service to market, and receive investment and support to grow. In exchange for equity positions in these for-profit startups, MFA only considers applicants with products or objectives that align with its charitable purposes.

The 19 companies currently in the Leap Venture portfolio were selected not only for their innovative concepts and potential for growth but also for their benefit to the world. For example, Shameless Pets—a direct-to-consumer sustainable dog treat company whose products are made from upcycled human-grade ingredients—is on a mission to reduce the 63 million tons of food waste that accounts for 8 percent of greenhouse gases.

Leap Venture Studio is designed to springboard innovation in the growing pet ecosystem. At the beginning of the 12-week program, the companies choose from four tracks and work on two of them with a team of experts who assist each company in developing its pitches for the venture investor Demo Day, which marks the program’s culmination. There have been three Studio cohorts to date, with the next one starting in February 2021. All 19 companies in the portfolio are still in business and have collectively raised more than $48.9 million since graduating from the program.

In addition to taking an equity stake in select companies through the Studio program, Leap Venture Academy provides yearround, public programming for pet care startups at any stage and at no cost.

FEATURED LEAP PORFOLIO COMPANIES

PetHospice

Dr. Shea Cox calls hospice care “the redheaded stepchild of veterinary medicine”—nearly three-quarters of pet patients don't receive any care during the last 18 months of life. She’s been working to improve that statistic since 2012, co-founding Pet Hospice to provide comfort and care to both pets and their families when the end of life nears. A 2020 Leap Venture investment, Berkeley, California-based Pet Hospice is looking to expand its services to create a nationwide telehealth service focusing on quality of life.

Renaldo Webb, founder of Pet Plate (pictured, with his dog, Cooper)

PetPlate is an online subscription service that delivers freshly cooked, vet-designed, human-grade dog food to customers’ doors. Founded by Renaldo Webb (pictured, with his dog, Cooper), PetPlate has delivered more than 9.2 million meals across the United States and recently raised $9 million through a Series A funding round led by DFE Capital Management and 301 Inc., General Mills’ venture capital division.