Premoney 39: Winno & Deft
All about efficiency: news & e-commerce.
Welcome to week 39! Apologies for the Thursday drop this week…long weekends right? I met the founders of one of the companies below (Winno) through my baby, Swapstack, a very fun mixing of two worlds!
Question for the readers:
A few investors recently requested that I collect and share links to investor decks. The purpose being that the info I share in the newsletter itself is enough to peak interest, but not enough to make a decision. I was initially hesitant to do so, as founders might not want full access to their decks spread around readily. However, I’m planning to test that assumption if it would add a step-change value to you as a reader.
Ask: Would you mind replying here with your perspective? Thank you!
This weeks companies:
Company: Winno
Founder: Daniel Lewis, Nick Rubin
Raise Details: Raise $600,000 to expand coverage, improve our product, and grow our audience. $60,000 raised from F&F & Angels.
Vertical: Digital Media
Business Model: Freemium, Affiliate
1-Liner: News that saves you time.
Description: Staying up-to-date is hard. Twitter is overwhelming, articles are long, and time is limited. Winno enables readers to stay informed efficiently. We are rebuilding news for a mobile-first generation by combining the short-format and personalizability of Twitter with the fact-based and finite structure of a digital publication. No clickbait. No clutter. Just short, factual summaries of the top stories from the topics you care about most.
Traction Indicators:
$0 spent on marketing
2x Apple's "App of the Day."
5,000 daily readers and 15,000 regular readers.
Primary news source for 3,500 readers.
94% of power readers would pay to read Winno.
Company: Deft
Founder: Zach Hudson
Raise Details: Raising 750k to add 2 more engineers to our team.
Vertical: E-commerce, Search, Artificial Intelligence
Business Model: Subscription, Affiliate
1-Liner: Find, research, and buy products from all over the internet. The fastest way to shop online.
Description: We like to think of it as the fastest way to shop online. You can search with natural language, images, or both! We aggregate all the reviews and content from around the web so you can make a decision faster. Also, we don't stop at the search bar - we send out a personal shopper to keep searching for you behind the scenes.
Traction Indicators:
$1k MRR
4-5 searches a week per user with a relatively small catalog
Conversion rate 5x the e-commerce benchmark
That’s all for this week!
Best,
Jake