🌎 Issue #36: Remote Work, Global Impact
A look at just how well Claremont-founded companies performed during the remote year of 2021
💬 Welcome to issue #36 of Between the Lines
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, everybody! As a special treat for you all today, we took a look at just how well Claremont-founded companies performed during the remote year of 2021. We’re excited to share our findings...Claremont founders got lucky this year. ☘️
Also, it came to our attention that there was an error with the interview link from last week. So, if you happened to miss our full interview with Zach Weismann last week, make sure to check it out here.
~ Josh & Miles
📊 6th Street Stats: Remote Work, Global Impact
Authors: Josh Tatum & Miles Bird
When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge — every adversity — contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.
- Roy T. Bennett
Shortages, shutdowns, social shifts, sicknesses, the list goes on — 2021 was a challenging (to say the least) year that did not always go our way. However, as 2021 moves to the rearview, excitement lies ahead for the Claremont Colleges’ startup and technology ecosystem on the heels of an awe-inspiring past year.
Even though the 600+ private, acquired, and public Claremont-founded companies out there in the world may have all been working remote during 2021 and had every excuse for mediocre performance, these founders and companies had nothing short of a massive global impact. Claremont took the 2021 year with its challenges and adversaries and turned it into an opportunity for growth, improvement, and global impact.
In 2021, we tracked 56 different Claremont-founded companies with publicly announced fundraising events from Pre-Seed to Series E rounds. Ten of these companies raised capital with intendant public announcements for the first time, continuing to pave an even brighter future for our ecosystem. Collectively, all these Claremont founders raised over $11.9B in venture funding in 2021 — that’s ~4% of all the U.S. venture capital investments for the year, in case you were curious. Claremont, however, did more than get checks wired — they also filed and got acquired. Four Claremont-founded companies filed and went public during the year, raising an additional $1.8B at their IPO. They now have a collective total public market cap of $19.6B as of the end of February. In total, eight Claremont-founded companies also hit unicorn status in 2021, and 18 more companies were acquired for a collective $2.2B.
Where The Checks Were Wired
At least 56 private Claremont-founded companies publicly raised capital during 2021 — for a combined total of $11.9B. Don’t worry, we won’t list all 56, but here are some of the headliners of 2021.
The Goliaths: Some of the most considerable capital raises in the ecosystem.
Resilience, co-founded by Drew Oetting (CMC), is a first-of-its-kind manufacturing and technology company dedicated to broadening access to complex medicines and protecting biopharmaceutical supply chains against disruption. They’re changing the way medicine is made, and they raised a Series C round this past year and continued to zoom past its initial unicorn valuation.
Honeybook, co-founded by Shadiah Sigala (P.O.), is the leading client experience and financial management platform for independent business owners. They are supporting independent service-based businesses with the tools they need to be successful doing what they love, and they also raised over $400M in 2021 to propel them to unicorn status.
LaunchDarkly, founded by HMC graduates Edith Harbaugh and John Kodumal, is the first scalable feature management platform that allows development teams to innovate faster by fundamentally transforming how software is delivered to customers. They raised a monstrous $200M Series D round in 2021.
Spotter, co-founded by David Carroll (P.O.), provides a financial solution for independent content creators across digital platforms. It delivers a solution that allows creators to remain independent while receiving the capital to grow. Spotter raised a Series B and C round in 2021 and has already started 2022 with a $200M Series D.
The Davids: Not all funding rounds need to be 9-figures to be meaningful and impactful.
ImmuneAge Pharma, co-founded by Sebastian Brunemeier (P.I.), is currently in stealth and working on small molecules for immune system rejuvenation.
Ready, Set, Food!, co-founded by Daniel Zakowski (P.O.), developed an evidence-based solution that makes it easy for parents to protect their babies from common food allergies. They’ve publically raised over $9M to support their mission.
Lofty AI, co-founded by Jerry Chu (CGU), is a computer software company that specializes in blockchain, augmented reality, and virtual reality. They let you invest in tokenized real estate for only $50 and are backed by Y Combinator, Jason Calacanis, Rebel Fund, Hustle Fund, and more.
The Companies Who Filed
In 2021, four different Claremont-founded companies filed to go public, raising a combined total of $1.8B at their IPO, and they currently combine for a total public market cap of $19.6B.
Matterport, co-founded by Michael Beebe (HMC), is leading the digital transformation of the built world. Their groundbreaking spatial computing platform turns buildings into data, making every space more valuable and accessible.
Janux Therapeutics, co-founded by David Campbell (HMC), is an innovative biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation Therapeutics based on its proprietary Tumor Activated T Cell Engager (TRACTr) platform technology to better treat patients who have cancer.
Caribou Biosciences, co-founded by Jennifer Doudna (P.O.), is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company founded by pioneers in CRISPR genome editing, leveraging proprietary technology to develop genome-edited off-the-shelf immune cell therapies for the treatment of cancer.
Doximity, co-founded by Nate Gross (CMC), is the leading digital platform for medical professionals. The company’s network members include over 80% of U.S. physicians across all specialties and practice areas.
If you’re curious to read more about these four companies, check out our recent article that highlights some of their additional backstories. Also, a little bit of a friendly comparison to put these companies into perspective. Before this year, Y Combinator had only ever had four of their companies file to go public. After an impressive year for them as well, YC has now had 14 companies go public historically, but this is still short of Claremont’s historical 17 public filings.
Who Got Acquired
At least 18 different Claremont-founded companies were acquired in 2021 for a conservative combined total of $2.2B (acquisition prices are only publicly available for six of the companies). Here are a few of the biggest acquisitions we are aware of:
EveryAction, co-founded by Stu Trevalyan (P.O.), offers best-in-class digital, fundraising, organizing, and advocacy tools on a single, unified CRM. They help nonprofits and national movements save time on their day-to-day operations to maximize their impact. They were acquired last year by Apax Partners.
Mir Protocol, co-founded by Danuel Lubarov (HMC), is a scalable cryptocurrency protocol that allows arbitrary computations to be verified in constant time. They were acquired by Polygon Technology for ~$400M last December.
AdColony, co-founded by Randy Saaf (HMC), is one of the largest mobile advertising platforms in the world, with a reach of more than 1.5 billion users globally. Part of Digital Turbine’s leading independent mobile growth platform, AdColony helps brands, agencies, and apps expand their reach and results with the power of mobile. They were acquired by Digital Turbine for ~$400M last February.
By The Industry
Media & advertising, food & beverage, automotive, gaming, healthcare, biotech, govtech… the list goes on and on. Claremont had just about every industry imaginable covered in 2021, but a few rose to the top.
Security, Infrastructure, & DevOps. This industry blossomed for Claremont in the past year, as six different companies collectively raised over $320M, and two more got acquired. One of these six also raised capital for the first time during 2021 — Deep Discovery, an artificial intelligence company for fighting global corruption founded by Jeffery Stein (CMC).
Fintech. In 2021, five different Claremont fintech companies raised capital for a total of $340M. Three more Claremont fintech companies also got acquired, including Vivor — a hospital financial assistant platform founded by Ian Manners (P.O.). Claremont’s fintech success should be no surprise considering all of the fintech initiatives going on around Claremont campuses. Also, the good news is that the best of the fintech industry may be yet to come.
Biotech. Is anybody really surprised? Claremont continued to dominate the Biotech industry in 2021, just like it always has. 17 different Claremont biotech companies raised $2B during 2021, two went public, and two more hit unicorn status. One of those unicorn companies is Helix, a leading population genomics company working at the intersection of clinical care, research, and genomics — founded by Scott Burke (HMC).
Seventy-five different companies across industries, eighty-three different Claremont founders, $19.6B in public market caps, $13.7B in total capital raised, and $2.2B in acquisition amounts. I’d say Claremont stood up to the challenge of 2021!
💼 Who’s Hiring?:
Reality Defender, co-founded by Ben Colman (CMC), helps companies identify deep-faked audio, video, and images. Their API and web app provides real-time scanning, risk scoring, and PDF report cards, and the team has spent 20+ years at Google, Goldman Sachs, and the US Intelligence Community at the intersection of data science and cyber security. Their early investors include Y Combinator, Eric Schmidt, Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program, and the AI Foundation. They are currently hiring for numerous positions and are looking to fill them with Claremont talent.
Calling all undergrad students interested in VC. EVCA just announced the opening of applications to the 2022 EVCA Fellowship program! If you're an undergrad interested in VC, now is your time to apply by the application deadline of March 14. The Emerging Venture Capitalist Association is a non-profit dedicated to supporting the emerging VC community, and numerous Claremont folks just graduated from the 2021 cohort, including Charles Meng (HMC) and Courtney Reed (CMC).
Make sure to check out the other 5,000+ open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, make sure to create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 750+ remote-jobs, 180+ internships, or 30+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention Claremonsters!
As always, if any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or if you are an employer and are looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s top watch 🔥
Bernard Chen (PO), long-time Pomona Trustee member and member of the Hong Kong Executive Council, talks about the current HKSAR COVID wave in an exclusive interview with CGTN.
Congratulations are in order….🎉
Congratulations to CMC on their recent award for Fullbright U.S. Top Producing Institution for 2021-2022. Last year CMC had five graduates who were offered Fullbright grants, and this year there are currently 19 CMC applicants that are semi-finalists for Fullbrights - a record for the college.
Cheers to the winningest basketball coach in the history of the NBA. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that coach Pop started his career in Claremont. 🤓
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