Premoney 73: Popwheels & CrowdSolve

Welcome back to another week. Kicked off the hiatus last week with a few hiccups - title issues and some typos. If you didn’t catch last weeks Premoney - please check it out here.

💰 You have an ad available! 💰

To all of the new readers of Premoney:

1. Welcome! If you haven’t already, please reply to this email introducing yourself, why you signed up, and what type of investing & scouting you’re interested in. Excited to meet you!

2. What to expect: In each Premoney newsletter you’ll learn about two companies that are currently raising.

3. Meet the founders: If you’re intrigued by the companies featured, hit the “Connect with…” button and we’ll introduce you directly to the founders.

If you’re a founder, currently raising, and want to apply to be on Premoney, submit an application here.

A shout out to our NYC readers.

Last week, Lauren Corcoran and Rachel Braun from REAL cohosted an invite-only event for NY-based tech & media entrepreneurs. We had ~50 folks join us at a cocktail bar in Manhattan to make new connections and meet more founders in the space.

We’ll be hosting another event on May 21st - if you’re interested, check out the event here and mention Premoney when you apply to join 🙂 

Support this weeks sponsor:

Ride the wave of 23% compounded annual growth

That’s the forecasted growth rate of the smart shades between 2023-2033. And RYSE’s automated window shade tech is positioned to dominate the market. They’ve generated over 20X growth in share price for early shareholders, with significant upside remaining as they launch in over 100 Best Buy stores. Invest in the rapidly growing smart shades market →

This weeks companies:

Company: CrowdSolve

Founder: Tim Wolters

Raise Details: Raising $500K Pre-Seed, 20% committed. Raised $500K this time last year.

Vertical: Climate

Business Model: B2B2C

1-Liner: CrowdSolve is the Traction Marketplace for Climate Tech Startups.

Description: CrowdSolve is a Marketplace for Climate Tech Startups. We scale up the accelerator model by offering an AI supported platform for climate startups to help get early traction with their climate business. We can easily build this database through our partnerships with 45 existing accelerators and 70 VCs. The database can then be leveraged for sourcing and selecting climate innovation by downstream accelerators, venture partners, and corporations seeking climate technology solutions.

Traction Indicators: - $2K MRR since launching memberships in mid-March

• 15% growth MoM

• 100+ partners feeding climate startups into our platform

• Old and Bronze medals at the World Alcohol Free Awards.

Company: Popwheels Inc.

Founder: Baruch Herzfeld

Raise Details: $2M priced seed round. Around $1M tentatively committed. Raised $1.2M from friends and family using SAFE notes already.

Vertical: Transportation

Business Model: B2B2C

1-Liner: Popwheels is building a battery swap network in NYC to end the battery fire crisis and increase e-bike adoption..

Description: There are more than 100,00 e-bikes in NYC that are privately owned, and used mostly for delivering food for restaurant delivery apps. These bike's batteries are a growing source of concern for the delivery apps, city government and the riders because they are extremely flamabble and should not be charged inside. Popwheels is building a managed e-bike battery swap network, where we own the batteries, and the subscribers are able to swap their batteries at any of our charging cabinets citywide. We expect to build out thousands of cabinets throughout the NY area over the next two years, raising most of our capital from non-dilutive sources. Our company will save lives, increase the usage of renewable energy for transportation, and have immediate social impact, with the possibility of an enormous return on investors' capital.

Traction Indicators:

• Won a pilot with Newlab/DOT Studio to deploy cabinets in NYC. The pilot is set to be extended to 5 more cabinets in Q3.

• Launched a trade-in program subsidized by the delivery apps in which riders turn in their old batteries for new batteries that work on the Popwheels network

• Performed their 1000th swap, on internally written software, using cabinets and batteries that were sourced and built specifically for the NYC market.

• Built the only UL certified battery that can be swapped legally into the NYC delivery fleet.

That’s all for this week!

As always - thank you everyone, and please share, send feedback and introductions, or reach out to collaborate.

Jake