🥇 Issue #115: Lessons Learned From Building & Funding Winning Startups
Serial Claremont entrepreneur and VC Shahram Seyedin-Noor shares the lessons he's learned from years of founding, operating, exiting, and investing in startups and founders.
💬 Welcome to issue #115 of Between the Lines
Good morning & happy Thursday. Success as a startup founder involves a myriad of factors working together in unison. It requires a combination of skills, mindset, and proper timing.
This week, serial Claremont entrepreneur and VC Shahram Seyedin-Noor shares his insights from years of building, operating, and funding startup companies. Shahram also talked about what he’s learned from his successful exits and his transition from law school to investing in startups. It’s a Claremont world out there. 👇
~ Josh, Miles, Pat
👤 Community Spotlight: Shahram Seyedin-Noor
Shahram Seyedin-Noor (PO ‘96) is the founder and managing partner at Civilization Ventures. Shahram received a JD from Harvard and worked at Wilson Sonsini and Cooley before going into investment banking at firms like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. He then entered the startup world, co-founding several startups. In 2017, he eventually launched Civilization Ventures, which is focused on supporting cutting-edge innovations in healthtech and biology.
Shahram has several exits under his belt, including his investments in Rewrite (acq. by Intellia), Replace (acq. by Tome), Lemonaid (acq. by 23andme), Singular Bio (acq. by Invitae), Rocket Pharma (listed on Nasdaq), and Palamedrix (acq. by SomaLogic).
Prior to founding CV, Shahram was the founding CEO/Chairman of Inspirna, an oncology therapeutics company currently in Phase 2 human trials; the founder of GraphDive, an analytics platform acquired by Sociable Labs; and the CFO and VP of Corporate Development at NextBio, a genomics software pioneer acquired by Illumina.
“The most effective managers will work and do their utmost to help even a company they’re not on the board of or have a small stake in to succeed. Doing that over and over again, that mindset that you’re responsible as much as you can hold yourself responsible, will result in greater success….. I honestly believe that it’s a superpower for people to have when they’re able to fundamentally look themselves in the mirror and hold themselves a hundred percent responsible for as many things as they possibly can because it’s empowering, it gives you agency, and it also makes you work on yourself.”
- Shahram Seyedin-Noor
Listen to the full episode on Lab To Startup to hear more of Shahram’s insights on investing in cutting-edge companies and supporting founders.👇
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: Helane Crowell & Roya Amini-Naieni
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2024 and Inc. Magazine’s 2024 Female Founders list were just released, and we are proud to have two outstanding female Claremont founders included on both lists.
Helane Crowell (PO ‘03) is the founder and CEO of Saie – a New York-based cosmetic company that offers a toxic-free cosmetics beauty brand and affordable and effective makeup, from tints, luminizers, lip balms, kits, and accessories. Helane and Saie were included in Inc. Magazine’s 2024 Female Founders list for prioritizing clean beauty and achieving profitability in the saturated beauty market within only four years. Saie is backed by investors such as actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Unilever Ventures.
Roya Amini Naieni (HMC ‘21) is the co-founder and CEO of Trilobio – a robotics and synthetic biology startup. Trilobio was created to improve synthetic biology and life science research processes by building robotic lab automation modules coupled with an "app store" to package and distribute lab protocols as code. Roya and her co-founder Maximillian Schommer were awarded a spot on the 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Last year, Trilobio raised $3M in funding from investors such as Argon Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital.
📣 Claremont Announcements: Atmos Financial
Atmos Financial, co-founded by Claremont entrepreneur Pete Hellwig (CMC ‘05), is a fintech company that allows everyone to take real, measurable action on climate change. They are building a next-generation digital banking solution to shift capital rapidly towards a clean economy for all. Today, Atmos offers the world's most climate-positive bank accounts, where 100% of customers' money supports greenfield clean energy development.
This year, the company is expanding beyond consumer accounts and bringing this opportunity to businesses, foundations, and nonprofits nationwide. Setting up a commercial account only takes 10 minutes. Check out Atmos to learn more about maximizing the impact of your idle cash. 👇
💼 Who’s Hiring?: Speakeasy & Swiftly
Sagar Batchu (HMC ‘15) is the CEO and co-founder of Speakeasy – an API DevEx platform that instantly creates SDKs that make API integration easy for your users. Their platform takes the heavy lifting out of providing a great API experience by integrating directly into your GitOps and propagating changes. Speakeasy is leveraging platform engineering, code gen, and LLMs to provide a platform that unburdens teams who are creating, maintaining, and constantly evolving their APIs. They’re also backed by Google Ventures, Quiet Capital, and StoryHouse Ventures, and they’re hiring for several open roles on their founding team:
Claremont grad and serial entrepreneur Jonathan Simkin (HMC ‘10) is the co-founder and CEO of Swiftly – the leading transit data platform that helps transit agencies and cities improve urban mobility. Jonathan is also recognized in Mass Transit magazine’s 2023 40 Under 40 Awards and Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30. Today, over 7,000 transit professionals in over 110 cities across the globe use Swiftly to improve transportation for over 1.7 billion passenger trips per year. They’re looking for Account Executives to join their growing team:
Check out the other ~5,000 open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 1,000+ remote jobs, 100+ internships, or 40+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s top read 🔥
Earlier this month, Congressman Eric Swalwell announced that he will be working with Wolfsbane.ai to help prevent his 2024 election campaign content from being used to create AI clones and deepfakes. Wolfsbane.ai is a recently launched self-serve online tool created by Play Cubed. Founded by serial Claremont entrepreneur Randy Saaf (HMC ‘98) and Octavio Herrera, Play Cubed provides AI content protection services via its patented technology.
This week’s must-watch 📺
Claremont Alum Michael Moreno (PI) joined Daniel Fox on the Future of Space podcast to discuss his insights on deep tech, space geopolitics, and his professional journey from the CIA to AWS. Michael is currently the Principal Business Development Manager for VC and Startups at Amazon Web Services. Prior to working in tech, Mike served the U.S. government as a Case Officer in the CIA and in other positions in the DoD, Department of State, and the FBI Academy.
This week’s Claremont financing 💸
Congratulations to Claremont entrepreneur Wyatt Toolson (HMC ‘07) and EV Realty on their recent $200M partnership with GreenPoint Partners. This capital enables the company to build out strategically located charging hubs for commercial fleet electric vehicles, delivering low-cost, turn-key charging solutions to their fleet customers across California and other markets. Wyatt is the co-founder and Head of Capital Markets for EV Realty, an EV infrastructure development platform powering commercial fleets.
Claremont alum Brian Feth (KGI) and his biotech startup Xcell Biosciences announced that they’ve added new elements to their research collaboration agreement with Labcorp, a global leader in laboratory services. In exchange, LabCorp has increased its strategic investment in the company. Brian is the founder and CEO of Xcell – a life science company dedicated to bringing an innovative primary cell control solution to the immunotherapy market to support research, drug discovery, and cell manufacturing.
This week’s top listen 🎧
Claremont grad and Rime CEO Lily Clifford (PI ‘14) was interviewed in the Future of Voice AI, where she shared her thoughts around innovations and challenges in text-to-speech technology, the applications and future of TTS, and Rime’s unique approach to building human-like TTS models. Rime Labs is an all-in-one solution for enterprise-level speech tasks and ultra-customizable speech synthesis.
Serial Claremont entrepreneur Colin Read (CMC ‘06) was recently a guest on the Live Life in Motion podcast. He talked about his professional journey, entrepreneurship, and how his recent venture is modernizing the hospitality industry. Colin is the co-founder and CEO of Whoosh, a modern hospitality technology company focused on using data and information to improve the membership experience.
Everything else you need to know💡
Having recently completed a Phase 2b clinical trial for its treatment of pain due to knee osteoarthritis, clinical-stage biotech company Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals went public on the NASDAQ. Eupraxia is focused on the development of locally delivered, extended-release products that have the potential to address therapeutic areas with high unmet medical needs. Claremont grad Amanda Malone (HMC ‘02) has been the company’s Chief Scientific Officer since it was founded in 2012.
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🍽️ BTL Snacks:
🔬 Getting Ready For Clinical Impact….. In his recent announcement, Claremont founder and CEO Brian Feth (KGI) shared that Xcell Biosciences is on the brink of a breakthrough in the clinical market with their pioneering cell culturing technology. Their newest product, the AVATAR Foundry, is designed not only to enhance the potency and persistence of cell and gene therapies but also to address the challenges posed by solid tumors.
🧘 Where Fashion And Wellness Intertwine….. LA Weekly featured Claremont alum John Hur (KGI ‘18) and his new fashion and wellness startup – Life Cocoon. In this interview, John talked about the founding story of Life Cocoon, navigating the challenges of the startup world, and his future plans for the company. He shared how his desire to help people find solutions to boost wellness and mental health inspired him to build a company that’s reimagining the intersection of fashion and wellness. Life Cocoon is the first direct-to-consumer and B2B wellness apparel company.
📱 The App To End The Loneliness Epidemic….. According to a 2023 report from the U.S. surgeon general, about half of the country’s adults reported feeling lonely, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The report warns that loneliness and isolation can lead to physical consequences, such as an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Luckily, Claremont grad Sean Emery (CMC ‘21) has the solution. Sean is the co-founder and COO of Buffet, a new app that addresses the loneliness epidemic by helping users meet new people by quickly matching them with a person and a place to meet up (think Tinder + OpenTable). Read more about Sean’s new startup on TechCrunch.
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