🚀 Issue #84: Claremont's Most Successful Startups
A closer look at the Claremont-founded startups that have exited or reached a valuation of ≥ $500M
💬 Welcome to issue #84 of Between the Lines
Good morning & happy Thursday. Earlier this year, we shared data on Claremont’s impressive last decade of startup financing and how we stack up against other top universities when it comes to raising venture dollars. But, as many know, there’s much more to startup success than fundraising.
This week, we take a closer look at the historical data on the most successful Claremont-founded companies and founders that have done far more than just raise money…It’s a Claremont world out there. 👇
~ Josh, Miles, & Pat
📊 6th Street Stats: Claremont’s Most Successful Startups
Authors: Josh Tatum & Miles Bird
For the past year+ now, we’ve been shouting from the rooftops about all the impressive success the Claremont startup and technology ecosystem has had. Despite the success of Claremont founders and technologists, the Claremont scene has historically still been slept on when it comes to entrepreneurship, but we’ve done our best to change the narrative.
For this analysis, we only focused on Claremont-founded companies with a significant liquidity event (either an IPO or acquisition) of ≥ $500M and those on a current break-out trajectory with a private valuation estimate of ≥ $500M — we refer to these companies as “Winners.”
We found 47 of these Claremont-founded Winners — 22 have already exited for ≥ $500M, and another 25 are still private with estimated valuations of ≥ $500M (16 of which are currently unicorns). Most of these companies were either Biotech, Healthcare, Security/Infrastructure/DevOps, or E-Commerce companies, and over 60% of these companies also had a B2B business model. In case you need a refresher on Claremont’s impressive Biotech ecosystem, check out some of our past findings on the space.
Of these 47 companies, 34 were founded just in the last decade.
Between the 2010 and 2020 vintage years, there were an average of 3+ Winners founded each vintage year, and 4.6% of all the Claremont-founded startups that we have surfaced since 2010 have either already exited for ≥ $500M or are currently valued at ≥ $500M.
So far, the most impressive vintage years for Claremont have been 2014 and 2017, with nine and six Winners founded during those years, respectively.
The combined exit value + current estimated private valuation value of all of these Claremont Winners is over $85B — ~$36B coming from companies that have already exited and another ~$50B in estimated valuations from private companies.
Clearly, Claremont’s startup success extends past just founding companies and raising capital — many of these Claremont-founded startups have become massive businesses impacting the world around us. We also know that StoryHouse’s existence in cultivating this ecosystem will continue to impact the number and quality of companies founded by Claremont entrepreneurs.
It’s never been a better time to be a Claremont founder.👇
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: Jake Heller & Casetext
Claremont graduate and Silicon Valley native Jake Heller (PZ ‘07) is the co-founder and CEO of Casetext – the leading legal tech company that develops unique, AI-powered technology for lawyers. After completing his studies at Pitzer, he clerked for Judge Michael Boudin in the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and trained at Stanford Law, where he was president of the Stanford Law Review. He then joined Ropes & Gray as a litigator for ~2 years before co-founding Casetext in 2013. The idea of improving the practice of law with the help of technology pushed Jake to start his own company and eventually be named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and the Fastcase 50 for legal innovation.
Jake and Casetext have been working with OpenAI to build CoCounsel – the world’s first AI legal assistant. This new tool can handle routine and sophisticated legal tasks for lawyers so they can have more time to focus on other higher-value work. Jake was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to officially announce the launch of CoCounsel.
💼 Who’s Hiring?: Hiki & Plotly
Claremont grad Jamil Karriem (PO ‘12) is the Founder and CEO of Hiki – the world’s first friendship and dating app for the neurodivergent community. Every part of Hiki has been built in collaboration with neurodivergent adults to ensure the app is sensory aware and truly representative of neurodivergent needs. Hiki is the first-ever social ecosystem built to enable neurodivergent adults to find friendship, love, and community. Check out their recent openings to learn more:
Plotly, co-founded by Claremont grad and CTO Alex Johnson (HMC ‘99), is a software company with a mission to enable every company around the world to build data apps. Their product, Dash Enterprise, is a platform of best-in-class development tools to easily visualize data in Python from virtually any data source. With customers across the Fortune 500, Plotly is a category-defining leader in enabling data-driven decisions from advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. They’re hiring for several open positions:
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 Claremont financing 💸
VC and Claremont grad Drew Oetting (CMC) just announced their $880M Fund V to continue backing entrepreneurs who are building innovative solutions to the world’s complex problems. Drew is the Founding Partner of 8VC – a technology and life sciences investment firm.
Everything else you need to know💡
Imagine driving 40x around the planet, with nobody behind the wheel. AV manufacturer, Cruise, co-founded by Claremont graduate and CPO Daniel Kan (CMC), has finally reached 1M miles with their self-driving vehicles and made it happen in just over a year.
Visa announced Reality Defender as one of their newest partners in combating dangerous deep fakes and generative content. Co-founded by Claremont grad and Chief Defender Ben Colman (CMC), Reality Defender is a deepfake detection platform used by enterprises to flag fake users and fraudulent content (audio, video, and images) in real time.
Can’t get enough of Between the Lines? Follow and connect with us on Twitter!
🍽️ BTL Snacks:
💸 The Three Secrets To PMF….. Claremont grad and Growth X co-founder Max Menke (PZ ’10) shares three specific traits he’s seen most successful startup founders have in common when it comes to achieving product-market fit. Max’s company, Growth X, is a VC fund investing in B2B founders from rising cities. He is also the creator of the Market Acceleration Program (MXP), a proprietary go-to-market system that helps founders find PMF and grow revenue.
💡 The Prototyping Mindset….. HMC Engineering Professor Josh Brake is the author behind The Absent-Minded Professor, a weekly newsletter that focuses on sharing the process behind the success. In his recent article, he talks about spending time with Claremont entrepreneur Benson Tsai (HMC ‘06) and how his company embodies the prototyping mindset through an ethos of embracing failure, building in public, and the magic of play. Benson is the co-founder and CEO of Stellar Pizza – makers of robotic pizza food trucks that can cook touch-free pizza from start to finish.
💉 Needle-Free Injections Work Better….. A review article recently published in Vaccines Journal (MDPI) discussing multiple injection delivery methods shows that PharmaJet’s precision delivery devices allow for a more efficient delivery of DNA-based vaccines into the cells. Claremont grad Heather Callender-Potters (CMC ‘86) is the co-founder and Vice-Chairman of PharmaJet – a private drug delivery technology company that has developed proprietary needle-free injection technologies.
🧠 The Golden Age Of AI….. Tech startup Voxel made it to Fast’s recent list of the most innovative AI companies in 2023. Voxel combines AI and robotics to analyze video feeds for industrial and manufacturing businesses. Their AI can spot actions that heighten risk for employees and alert employers to real-time threats on their production floor. A few HMC grads are currently working at Voxel (including Vai Viswanathan) to continue developing this technology. Seth Winterroth (CMC) and his VC firm, Eclipse Ventures, led the company’s $15M Series A last year.
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