Newark Venture Partners, an early-stage venture fund, announced it has started its Fall 2018 NVP Labs program.
The program consists of a group of eight startups from the all over the U.S, as well as one from New Jersey. The cohort represents industries in human resources technology, voice, consumerization of health care, health tech, robotics and fintech.
“Moving to Newark is one of the best decisions Audible has made, and I’m excited for NVP’s fall class companies to discover how energizing it is to be here,” Don Katz, Audible founder and CEO, and the founder of NVP, said. “These startups will have access to the incredible domain expertise of Audible employees and our amazing corporate partners, which will help them get to the next level and, in turn, catalyze Newark’s historic comeback by generating jobs and taxable revenue.”
NVP was founded by Katz to grow Newark as a hub for technology and innovation.
“The competition to be selected for this cohort was fierce — and we are confident that this group of startups are game changers. The momentum at NVP is palpable and we are excited to help these companies put down roots and grow here in Newark,” Tom Wisniewski, managing partner at NVP, said.
The eight companies were selected from a pool of more than 1,800 companies. This cohort has six female founders or co-founders, four of which are also the company’s CEO.
The companies are as follows:
- Upsider: Allows recruiters to leverage AI technology to identify candidates which align with their business and role requirements. Founded by Josh McBride and Xuan Smith in Ho-Ho-Kus.
- Ejenta: A remote health monitoring company that gathers data from wearable and IoT devices and from electronic medical records to deliver analytics that help health care providers predict patient needs. Founded by Rachna Dhamija and Maarten Sierhuis in San Francisco, California.
- Exempt Me Now: A company that helps nonprofits become tax-exempt and connects grantees with grantors. Founded by Sevetri Wilson in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Floss Bar: A preventative brand for oral health care, offering routine dental care on-site for employees, members and tenants. Founded by Eva Sadej in New York, New York.
- RankMiner: A voice analytics company that automatically predicts agent and customer behavior. Founded by Preston Faykus in St. Petersburg, Florida.
- StackSource: Provides lender matching, data system integration and a platform to manage the underwriting process for the commercial loan market. Founded by Tim Milazzo and Nathan Wall in New York City.
- Talentegy: Applies AI talent analytics and engagement technology to monitor a job candidates’ journey to provide data-drive insights for hiring improvements. Founded by Shawna Berthold, Dwaine Maltais and Stephanie Ralston in Dover, Delaware.
- Team Mobot: Deploys teams of robots to test software across different devices, use cases and integrations for quality assurance. Founded by Eden Full Goh in New York City.
NVP Labs said it will invest an initial $120,000, with an addition $100,000 at the close of the program. NVP’s investment arm will also provide up to $1 million in subsequent funding rounds.
The companies will also get space in NVP’s coworking offices, which are housed in the same building as Audible and the Rutgers Business School. They will also be provided mentorship and growth team opportunities.
The funds corporate partners include Audible, Dun & Bradstreet, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, Panasonic, Prudential Financial, RWJBarnabas, TD Bank through the TD Charitable Foundation and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
“Each of the selected startups address an industry pain point that our corporate partners have either identified or confirmed in their own unique markets. With that market validation as a starting point NVP is then able to help our founders execute on their sales and marketing strategy to quickly get to scale,” Dan Borok, managing partner at NVP, said.
“NVP serves as a fantastic catalyst for the growth of Newark as an innovation hub and enables our employees to engage with a premier venture capital firm. They provide us with direct access to a world-class talent pool and allow us to leverage their growing portfolio of enterprise-ready solutions to drive our business goals.” Dele Oladapo, chief technology architect and innovation officer, Prudential Financial, said.
This is NVP’s fifth accelerator program since it was founded in 2014. Since then, it has helped numerous startups achieve operational success.
“An investment from NVP Labs includes high powered connections, expert support and a community of growth-minded mentors,” Allison Williams, director of NVP Labs, said. “This cohort of founders is not only prepared to take these resources and run with them but also poised to be market leaders in the B2B space.”
