Introduction: Welcome to Five & Thrive: a weekly podcast highlighting the Southeast’s most interesting news, entrepreneurs, and information of the week, all under 5 minutes. 

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My name is Jon Birdsong and I’m with Atlanta Ventures. 

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Event of the Week: Mark your calendars for March 22nd, Christy Brown of Dr. Noze Best is being interviewed at the next Atlanta Healthcare Entrepreneurship MeetUp. Dr. Noze Best is an infant nasal suction device that's portable, easy to clean, and designed with hospital-grade suction. This interview will cover several intricacies of healthcare including go-to-market, manufacturing, unit economics, and their origin story.       

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Raise of the Week: 

Cycle Labs out of Raleigh, NC raised $6.5M this week from Jurassic Capital. Cycle Labs  provides a continuous test automation software platform to large enterprises worldwide. Co-founded by CEO, Josh Owen, Cycle Labs has 30 employees and now has some more dry powder to put to use. 

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Also, AdPipe out of Athens, Georgia raised $3M dollars led by Atlanta Ventures with participation from Tom Noonan. AdPipe repurposes, repackages, and reposts content from your existing library of videos and makes them shorter and crisper with attractive copy so clicks are 3-4x of traditional, static marketing collateral. Congrats to Andrew and Sam! 

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Several funds are in the process of closing or just closed a new round. Starting first with Cofounder’s Capital out of Raleigh, NC. It was announced this week that they closed their 3rd fund of $50M. Cofounders Capital was started by David Gardiner and they invest in the earliest of early opportunities mainly in the RDU area. Congrats on their raise and more fuel for the ecosystem. 

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Keeping it in the funds category, TTV Capital closed their most recent fund of $250M. Led by Gardiner Gerrard. This Atlanta Stalwart has raised over a cumulative $700M and invests in B2B SaaS, cyber-security, and fintech. Local investments include GreenLight and Cardlytics.     

News of the Week: Fast Company came out this week with several lists including a few that we have highlighted before on the podcast. The first category is the Top 10 Innovative Companies with under 10 people and on that list is Franklin Junction. Franklin Junction matches food brands with underutilized kitchen space, making them a host kitchen – which is different from a ghost kitchen. Now a name brand food can be cooked in a kitchen with a completely different name and easily picked up and delivered to your doorstep…even if there is not a traditional restaurant location available. 

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The next list from Fast Company is the Top 10 Innovative Companies in Wellness and number two on the list is Reframe out of Atlanta. Reframe provides cognitive behavioral therapy on demand, offers a personalized daily alcohol reduction program, craving management tools,  community support groups and coaching. 

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Beta Product of the Week: Jordan and Scott Arogeti started a new company that helps people grieve around a death. Mi Alma (“my soul”) in Spanish offers resources necessary to not only aid in the initial grieving and times of need, but also creates a space where memories can live on in an active and meaningful way. Features include: community-wide collection of pictures, stories, and memories of the deceased with a “support registry” that makes it easy for anyone that’s inclined to give money, meals, or time. If you’re grieving over a lost family or friend, check out Mi Alma. 

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Blog Post of the  Week: The Godfather of SaaS is putting out superb content and the one worth highlighting today is his 5 Learnings from TradeDesk which offers self-service SaaS for Adtech. Here are three: first, the company was founded in 2009 and has been profitable since 2013. Just this past quarter it was announced they had a 42% adjusted EBITDA margin on 1.6B in revenue for the fiscal year. Second, they’ve been able to keep their sales and marketing spend at about 19%, which is half of what most fast growing companies spend on go-to-market. Lastly, they grew fast but not insanely fast. After hitting $100M in ARR, they grew anywhere from 28-76% a year, each one of them being profitable. Today they are over $2B in ARR, profitable, and in today’s markets that efficiency is rewarded through a $28B market cap. We put the post in the show notes. 

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Annnnd that is five minutes!

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Links discussed: 

🗓️ Event of the Week: Atlanta Healthcare Entrepreneur MeetUp

 🍾​ Raise of the Week: Cycle Labs, AdPipe, Cofounders Capital,  TTV Capital 

📰 News of the Week: Franklin Junction, Reframe

🚀 Beta Product: Mi Alma

📝 Blog Post: 5 Interesting Learnings from TradeDesk

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