FJ Labs

Exciting News: CollX has raised a $10MM Series A! As part of this round, we are also welcoming MLB superstar Bobby Witt Jr to the team as an investor and ambassador. I am so proud of our team, investors, and collector community on the app for growing CollX to this point. Brand Foundry Ventures and 114 Ventures co-led the A, with Next Coast Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, FJ Labs participating, alongside our amazing angels, including Nat Turner (CEO of Collectors) Howie Rosman (Eagles GM), David Adelman (Co-Owner of Sixers), Scott Keeney. We now have more than 3 million collectors who add 1 million cards to their collections daily. Even more exciting, we are helping these folks level up in the hobby, including buying and selling via our marketplace (growing 25% MOM), grading (we have become one of the top referrers and affiliate for PSA Collectors ), and breaking (we’re also a top parter for Whatnot, Fanatics Live). We have long said there is a massive pool of 85 million Americans who own cards, and the opportunity to grow, the hobby is by finding ways to activate them. With this next chapter on the CollX story, with amazing folks like Witt on board, we’re excited to do this on a bigger scale. Let’s go! https://lnkd.in/eGQp4JWM

Exciting News: CollX has raised a $10MM Series A! As part of this round, we are also welcoming MLB superstar Bobby Witt Jr to the team as an investor and ambassador. I am so proud of our team, investors, and collector community on the app for growing CollX to this point. Brand Foundry Ventures and 114 Ventures co-led the A, with Next Coast Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, FJ Labs participating, alongside our amazing angels, including Nat Turner (CEO of Collectors) Howie Rosman (Eagles GM), David Adelman (Co-Owner of Sixers), Scott Keeney. We now have more than 3 million collectors who add 1 million cards to their collections daily. Even more exciting, we are helping these folks level up in the hobby, including buying and selling via our marketplace (growing 25% MOM), grading (we have become one of the top referrers and affiliate for PSA Collectors ), and breaking (we’re also a top parter for Whatnot, Fanatics Live). We have long said there is a massive pool of 85 million Americans who own cards, and the opportunity to grow, the hobby is by finding ways to activate them. With this next chapter on the CollX story, with amazing folks like Witt on board, we’re excited to do this on a bigger scale. Let’s go! https://lnkd.in/eGQp4JWM

🚀 Exciting News! 🎉 We’ve raised $50M in a Series D round led by Altos Ventures, with participation from Industry Ventures, BMO Capital Partners, FJ Labs, and Flight Deck Capital. With this investment, we’re furthering our mission to provide Canadians with the most seamless and transparent car buying and selling experience. We’ve grown 4x in the last three years, demonstrated profitability in 2024, and are just getting started. Read more about what this means for Clutch and what’s next in this post from Clutch CEO Dan Park 👉 bit.ly/clutch-series-D Let’s Go Canada! 🇨🇦 Dillon Krasnigor Anthony Lee Brian Langner Adam Figura Andrew Hockin Thomas Rethazi, CFA Samuel Olubowale FCA,FMVA®,mMBA Jay Kahn Jeff Weinstein Laura Chau Anshul Ruparell Stephen Seibel Scott Dougan Anne French Ryan Crooks Richard Schneider Daniel Chitayat, CFA Maggie Mo, CPA, CA Dan Park Konata Lake Natalie Miller Tyler Cassack #buildcanada #canadiantech #torontotech #startups #autotech

The story is still far from over with Clutch but even there should be a movie made about the saga up until this point! We quadrupled down in the company’s painful recap round in 2023 and invited our good friends at Altos Ventures to join as new investors. Props to Dillon Krasnigor for being willing to think outside the box and invest in one of the hairiest and most asymmetric opportunities I’ve seen in my career. Now marked up >12X in just over a year. Also special to now have our great friend and FJ Venture Partner Anshul Ruparell onboard as an independent board member. Most importantly, a HUGE shoutout to the amazing Dan Park, Stephen Seibel and team for a fantastic turnaround! You guys are the definition of resilience and we’re excited to watch you execute and compound for years to come.

A few years ago, I left the traditional corporate path to build something from scratch. Recently, Revista Emprendedores España wrote about that journey and the early traction of Squad—why we believe AI, referrals, and networks will shape the future of hiring. Grateful for our early users and day 0 supporters (FJ Labs Fabrice Grinda Jose Marin Jeff Berger). Excited for what’s ahead!

A few years ago, I left the traditional corporate path to build something from scratch. Recently, Revista Emprendedores España wrote about that journey and the early traction of Squad—why we believe AI, referrals, and networks will shape the future of hiring. Grateful for our early users and day 0 supporters (FJ Labs Fabrice Grinda Jose Marin Jeff Berger). Excited for what’s ahead!

Today, I'm excited to announce that Baton has raised a $10M Series A, led by Obvious Ventures, and other incredible investors Burst Capital, FJ Labs, Fluent Ventures, and 75 & Sunny. In addition, existing investors Divergent Capital, Bloomberg Beta and Zeno Partners also participated. Of course, none of this would be possible without our seed investment from Giant Ventures, which started us on this journey three years ago. 🎉 We’ve been heads down building the world’s best marketplace for SMB acquisitions for the last three years, and today is a testament to the progress we’ve made. This funding will help us to support even more SMB owners and buyers and continue growing our company’s mission of making small business ownership attainable for all. I’m extremely grateful to Luisa Beltran at Fortune for writing our story, check it out in the comments below. Luisa really spent the time to understand what makes Baton different, better, and special. She spent the time to interview our customers and discover how Baton supports them in their selling journey. A huge thank you to my co-founder Dylan Gans and the entire Baton team for believing in our vision every step of the way. I look forward to what we’ll accomplish next! If you’re a small business looking to sell, or an entrepreneur looking to start your journey, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Triton Liquid Fund released a white paper on ETH’s inherent value, in collaboration with John Pfeffer, former KKR partner and McKinsey & Company consultant. John authored “an Institutional Investor’s Take on Crypto Assets” 7 years ago, offering a long-term investor's lens on evaluating liquid crypto asset investments, using ETH as a case study. We refreshed the piece with today’s priors. Here’s some takeaways: > Blockchain technology, led by Ethereum, will drive immense industry disruption and value creation. > Successful projects will integrate blockchain strengths, disrupt incumbents, and create substantial user value. > Increasingly, cash flows and fundamentals will lead to higher dispersion, but sustainable value capture is more difficult for crypto assets > Mature assets will transcend "crypto" labels, becoming investable businesses in a new internet-based financial system. > At maturity, Bitcoin is expected to dominate as a non-sovereign store of value while new value capture mechanisms will arise that lead to fundamentally new investable asset classes To capture the full essence, our paper is linked in the comments below. We recommend it for holiday readings 🙂

Playgama raises $3M to build the go-to HTML5 game distribution platform https://lnkd.in/eY6RjQHy

🚨 Big News! 🚨 We're excited to announce a partnership between Leland and LinkedIn to bring career coaching to LinkedIn Premium members! Starting today, millions of LinkedIn Premium members will have access to a free month of Leland to build their career, develop in-demand skills, and reach professional goals across hundreds of different categories. Leland access is being rolled out among four other perks for Premium members: Spotify, The Wall Street Journal, name.com, and Duolingo. What a group. So, if you are a Premium member, make sure you take advantage of this exclusive perk by clicking "Your Premium features" or looking out for an email from the LinkedIn team. If you aren't a Premium member yet, go try it out! You'll get access to a wealth of resources, including this exclusive Leland trial. Big thank you to the LinkedIn team who made this possible. Can't wait to see all the lives we change together through this partnership. #linkedin #partnership #premium