PJC PJC is an early-stage VC firm investing in, supporting, and building relationships with entrepreneurs who are creating the future.

This   we’re excited to feature the Co-Founders of Openly, Ty Harris and Matt Wielbut. This past week the team announced...
06/24/2022

This we’re excited to feature the Co-Founders of Openly, Ty Harris and Matt Wielbut. This past week the team announced their Series C funding to expand their home insurance product to more states and agencies, and to continue enhancing its leading technology and insurance product offering. Investors included Advance Venture Partners, Clocktower Technology Ventures PJC, Obvious Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Techstars, and MTech Capital. ⁠

Openly is a tech-forward premium homeowners insurance platform, offering comprehensive coverage to consumers through independent agents across America. Openly has grown in-force premium more than 500% year over year and has already achieved double digit new sales market share in the majority of its live states-often beating out the top 100+ year-old incumbents.⁠

We’re thrilled to continue this journey with Openly which began in 2018, when we first met Ty and Matt while they were at TechStars. As Ty stated in our August 2020 interview with him: “I met PJC very early in 2018, in the first quarter while we were at TechStars. The relationship has been really great. As an early investor they betted on us from the start without seeing a lot of results at first, as it took time to get to the market. They continued to do so in their latest round, and their trust in us has made a huge difference. For example, even in these tough times (COVID-19) while we were seeking an external raise, they reached out to talk through the options and do what they could to support us, and their industry experience really helped with our confidence in the raise.” ⁠

Glad to be part of this latest round and to continue to bet on first time founders, like Ty. Keep up the great work, team. Also- they are hiring! ⁠

Learn more on their latest funding in their press release: https://www.accesswire.com/705641/On-a-Mission-to-Empower-Independent-Insurance-Agents-Openly-Secures-75-Million-in-Series-C-Fundraising-Round

PJC Interview: https://www.pjc.vc/news/openly

Catch Ty on the first season of The Uncovered Podcast (our most downloaded episode of all): https://www.pjc.vc/podcast/season-1-episode-12

We're back with another   and this time to celebrate founders (both ) Arun Saigal and WeiHua Li.⁠⁠This past week Thunkab...
04/08/2022

We're back with another and this time to celebrate founders (both ) Arun Saigal and WeiHua Li.⁠

This past week Thunkable announced their $30M Series B financing that will help continue funding the future of no code mobile app development.⁠

Founded six years ago, Thunkable was launched with the mission of empowering creators to get hands-on with digital innovation. Since that time, they have grown their capabilities, community, and team. There are now more than 3 million users from 184 different countries using Thunkable to get hands-on with no code mobile app development. We can't wait to see what's next for the community and this team and to continue our partnership.

🔗 Read full TC feature here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/05/thunkable-raises-30m-after-its-no-code-mobile-app-development-platform-hits-3m-users-and-6m-apps/

Fun fact: Entrepreneurship runs in the Saigal family! Amrita Saigal, Arun's sister, is the founder of Kudos, a PJC portfolio company, that is helping save the planet and baby's bums by creating the first and only disposable diaper where baby's bum touches 100% cotton lined diaper. ⁠

🎙 New this week! Guest Virginie Raphael, Founder and Managing Partner of FullCircle, joins us for this season on The Ent...
03/15/2022

🎙 New this week! Guest Virginie Raphael, Founder and Managing Partner of FullCircle, joins us for this season on The Entrepreneurial side of VC. Listen here: https://www.pjc.vc/podcast/season3-episode5

FullCircle is a pre-seed fund focused on the structural changes required to create a better workforce and closing the incentive alignment gap. Matt Hayes and Marissa Milbury talk with Virginie about her path to venture, her motivation for starting FullCircle (first launched in June of 2021) and her passion for helping companies at the earliest stages with FullCircle’s perpetual fund structure. ⁠

More on what what is : ⁠
🔍 Virginie’s unexpected journey to venture ⁠
🔍 FullCircle’s perpetual fund structure ⁠
🔍 The strategies and challenges with fundraising for a perpetual fund ⁠
🔍 What her first LP commitment was like ⁠
🔍 The parallels between fundraising for a startup and a venture fund⁠

PJC VP Gaurav Bhogale will be a featured investor at the  VC Connect North America Edition on March 8th - an event that ...
03/01/2022

PJC VP Gaurav Bhogale will be a featured investor at the VC Connect North America Edition on March 8th - an event that connects startup founders with early-stage investors.⁠

If you are a startup founder interested in the event and would like to book a 15 minute call with Gaurav you can sign up by clicking on the link in our bio. ⁠

🎙️ ICYMI: This week we launched Season 3 of The Uncovered Podcast! This season is all about The Entrepreneurial Side of ...
02/18/2022

🎙️ ICYMI: This week we launched Season 3 of The Uncovered Podcast! This season is all about The Entrepreneurial Side of VC. LInk here to listen: https://www.pjc.vc/podcast

Within these 8 episodes you'll hear from VC founders across the U.S. at varying stages of development – from those who have just closed their first fund, to others coming off their eighth fund. In each episode we’ll dive into the founder’s background, what motivated them to get into venture capital, and some of the challenges experienced and lessons learned along the way.⁠

📅 Tune in every Tuesday over the next 8 weeks to uncover a new founder’s story. ⁠Thank you again to all of our guests for a great season!

Guest lineup below:
🔹Ian Rountree of Cantos - Available Now
🔹David Fialkow of - Available Feb 22nd
🔹Abby Miller Levy of Primetime Partners - Available Mar 1st
🔹Vishal Vasishth of Obvious Ventures - Available Mar 8th
🔹Virginie Raphael of FullCircle - Available Mar 15th
🔹David Martirano of PJC - Available Mar 22nd
🔹Lee Hower of NextView Ventures- - Available Mar 29th
🔹Phil Bronner of Ardent Ventures - Available April 5th


New on the Inside PJC blog ➡️ An easy-to-follow overview of   and the most promising areas for investment, written by Ga...
02/11/2022

New on the Inside PJC blog ➡️ An easy-to-follow overview of and the most promising areas for investment, written by Gaurav Bhogale. ⁠

Link here: https://medium.com/inside-pjc/a-vcs-guide-to-the-web3-crypto-galaxy-633e2af3f5f9

Whether you're a VC, non-crypto native, looking to start something in the space, or just curiously browsing, we hope you find something useful in this memo.⁠

In this guide, Gaurav covers: ⁠
1) a mental model to think about the internet vs. the blockchain⁠
2) what is web3 and why it is important now⁠
3) where we are in the life cycle⁠
4) three investment areas in the core web3 building blocks: DeFi, NFTs, DAOs⁠
5) three predictions for 2022⁠

We would love to hear from you and get your thoughts! Leave a comment below or on medium and be sure to give the article a 👏 if it resonates with you! ⁠

Image source: Sparkline

Happy Founder Friday! This Friday we are spotlighting founders Sam Zimmerman and Jeff Wright, who announced this past we...
01/28/2022

Happy Founder Friday! This Friday we are spotlighting founders Sam Zimmerman and Jeff Wright, who announced this past week the completion of their $5.25M seed round to create "the banking our parents deserve." PJC is excited to be part of this round, co-led by 25Madison and Primetime Partners along with SixThirty, TTV, Clocktower, Crossbeam, and Gaingels. ⁠

Jeff and Sam both bring a unique understanding of the challenges facing seniors and the experience to truly implement change. Sam served as CTO of PathCheck Foundation, the world's largest nonprofit open-sourced project for COVID-19 contact tracing and vaccine passport solutions. It has become the official app in five U.S. states and territories and is supported by over 3,000 volunteers around the world. Previously, Zimmerman co-founded and was the CTO of Freebird, a unique consumer travel insurance startup acquired by Capital One in August 2020.⁠

Co-founder and COO Jeff Wright has spent nearly two decades developing financial products with Liberty Mutual Insurance and Plymouth Rock Assurance.⁠

Read more on Sagewell's new financial products built for seniors in their recent press release - link in bio! 🔗⁠

Great article by Anna Heim highlighting first-time founder success. 67% of PJC portfolio companies are founded by first-...
01/21/2022

Great article by Anna Heim highlighting first-time founder success. 67% of PJC portfolio companies are founded by first-time founders, which have had tremendous success, including , and Openly to name a few. Our unique approach allows us to identify potential in founders regardless of their entrepreneurial track record. We're proud to partner with both repeat and first-time founders. Read full article here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/20/dont-underestimate-first-time-founders/

We're flashing back to November (as December flies by) to recognize the amazing work and achievements from our portfolio...
12/10/2021

We're flashing back to November (as December flies by) to recognize the amazing work and achievements from our portfolio. November was a huge month for the PJC portfolio with making its debut on under the ticker EXFY, new partnerships, growth, and top awards to several portfolio companies for their innovative work & leadership in their respective industries. As always, below are just a few of the highlights. Read more in our roundup below for the full articles that share the amazing work these founders and teams are doing. https://www.pjc.vc/news/november-21-portfolio-roundup

🔹 Anno Ai featured in Yahoo News for their work in the national security space using their AI software and creating a “multi-modal sensor fusion” which is a development of machine learning programs that can collect and interpret data across a wide range of platforms.⁠

🔹 BlockFi is named to Inc. Magazine's Best-Led Companies of 2021⁠

🔹 TechCrunch covered Expensify's IPO and interviews David Barrett on Expensify going public and why expense management is a $1T opportunity⁠

🔹 Kudos won the 2021 Hygienix Innovation Award, the first time a diaper company has received this honor. ⁠

🔹 Neurable is listed in BostonInno's 2021 Inno on Fire which includes the 50 startups and individuals setting Boston's innovation ecosystem ablaze as well as Fast Company ’s inaugural Next Big Things in Tech list.⁠

🔹 SparkCharge CEO Joshua Aviv is honored as one of the 100 People Transforming Business by Business Insider.

Along with other great news from Openly, Lively, Inc., Eden Health, Synthesis AI, Thunkable, SplitSpot and Vee24.

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