📢 HCP Newsletter: Working Hard, Winning Big 💫 – May 2021 📢

This newsletter is Harlem Capital’s monthly recap of updates on our portfolio companies, industry news, content, and events we suggest to check out and more!

May 27, 2021

This newsletter is Harlem Capital’s monthly recap of updates on our portfolio companies, industry news, content, and events we suggest to check out and more!

Now, buckle up! 🏎️💨 LIVE FROM EVERYWHERE, it’s Road to 1,000 – May 2021 🥰

Monthly Update 📅

🚀Harlem Capital’s 2021 Annual Meeting 🚀

With our 2nd Annual Meeting in the books, we want to thank our LPs enabling us to do good, while doing well 💪🏽. We are excited for the future and wanted to share our observations on the market. 💫

Key Learnings:

💡 Deal velocity is at an all time high and Q1 is typically our slowest quarter. Founders should know getting partner bandwidth will be harder. VCs should create space for themselves.

💡 Deals are coming from all over the country, but we do see concentration in the major VC cities on the coasts and Chicago.

💡 Pre-Seed rounds being skipped — many top founders are raising $2M+ Seed rounds pre-product at a pace not seen before. It means funds are taking pre-seed risk at Seed pricing, so be mindful.

💡 Seed+ rounds happening frequently — many companies raising less than $3M Seed rounds are raising Seed+ as the Series A bar continues to rise. Even if starting a company is cheaper, scaling may still take significant capital.

Check out more insights in our twitter thread here:

Harlem Capital @HarlemCapital

2nd Annual Meeting in the books, thank you to our LPs enabling us to do good, while doing well. We are excited for the future and wanted to share some key learnings to the broader market

Portfolio News 🗞️

💰 PreShow Raises $3M Seed Round💰

Congrats to Stacy Spikes and the PreShow team on their $3M Seed round. We are excited to be on their journey to providing gamers with a new way to earn in-game currency in exchange for watching ads. The concept will eventually expand to movies, streaming and on-demand. Shout out to Canaan, Wavemaker Labs and Front Row Fund for joining the journey.

👯 WorkChew Partners with District of Columbia’s "Return to Work Safely" 🤝

WorkChew partners with the District of Columbia to support the city's "Return to Work Safely" initiative to help bring employees back to work. The partnership between WorkChew and DC will provide people in the city with a unique network of on-demand workspaces to be productive while supporting local businesses.

✊🏽 Blavity Announces Social Impact Arm, Blavity.org 🙌🏽

Blavity.org is a new racial equity and social impact organization created by the founders of Blavity, Inc. Blavity.org is launching its Growth Fellowship, a six-month program that focuses on scaling teams, operations and systems to Black entrepreneurs through advising, grants, business tools and sponsorship from industry leaders, alongside a $10,000 non-dilutive grant.

📢 Wellory is Expanding the Team 📢

Wellory is hiring a Director of Ops to own network processes, policies, hiring, training, and retaining for all health coaches, nutritionists + dietitians. The ideal candidate has managed marketplace experience + can build for major scale. Learn more here.

Interested in working at one of the Startups in our portfolio?💻👇

Search job openings across the Harlem Capital network here!