Morpheus Newsletter – May Edition
Welcome back to the Morpheus newsletter. Here is everything that happened in May:
It has been a very busy month for the Morpheus team as we are thrilled to announce that we have made a new investment into DropKitchen, and two follow-on investments into Sidecar Health and Tagnos.
As you would recall, Sidecar Health is simplifying health insurance by leveraging the power of paying cash to provide lower health care premiums, full price transparency, and the ability to see any doctor of your choice. The company raised a US$15m Series B-1 round led by Cathay Innovations with participation from GPV and Morpheus Ventures.
Tagnos, a clinical logistics automation platform, is enabling healthcare organizations to optimize asset utilization to prevent bottlenecks, reduce wait times, and improve throughput. The company raised US$3.5m led by Honeywell Ventures with participation from Morpheus, Zebra Ventures & others.
Our Partner Joe Miller and Scott Helfstein, Head of Thematic Portfolios and Co-Head of Market Research and Strategy at Morgan Stanley hosted – Perspectives from Tech Startups in the age of COVID. If you missed it then please click here to access the online webinar.
đł Meet Drop, the OS for your kitchen
Over the past few years, the world has moved closer to the connected home. Various rooms in the house, such as the living room and the bedroom have been a battleground for large technology players such as Amazon and Google and the major electronic companies such as Samsung, Sony, and LG. The battle has been fierce and there is no real room for new players.
The only room in the house left is the kitchen and its fair game!!!
Enter DropKitchen. Drop is a smart kitchen start-up based in Ireland and San Francisco which has developed Kitchen OS, an operating system for the kitchen that empowers anyone to cook food by connecting recipes and appliances. The kitchen is getting more and more complicated, not less. We have food processors, pressure cookers, temperature probes, steaming ovens â and much more to come as more connected devices are being added to the kitchen. Yet recipes (one of the most popular content media online) know nothing about individual kitchens or their owners. They are therefore only shared with the lowest common denominator of functionality, leveraging the most basic and generic of appliances e.g roast in an oven for ‘X’ time at ‘Y’ temperature. Even non-connected kitchen appliances are capable of so much more. Dropâs responsive recipe format and technology adapts recipes to you and your kitchen appliances â to allow you and your appliances to shine.
Dropâs new OS has firmware/hardware has integrated with appliance powerhouses including Bosch, Kenwood, GE Appliances, and Electrolux â to tightly integrate those recipes with kitchen equipment.
We are excited to announce that we have co-led DropKitchen’s Series A funding round with Los Angeles based fund Alpha Edison. Morpheus’ Managing Director Ray Musci will be joining the board. We look forward to an exciting journey with the company.
đĽď¸ Get Back to Work, Safely
As the world is preparing to âre-openâ, companies in many sectors (restaurant, leisure, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, etc.) need to demonstrate to the public that their operations are meeting âbest practicesâ in order to lure customers back into their establishments and keep them there. Separately and perhaps of equal importance, they also need to mitigate exposure from litigation.
In order to achieve both objectives, we believe that a combined approach will require cooperation from both trade associations and corporate leaders, with the active blessing of city, county, state & federal governments. SafetyCulture can contribute substantially to the ultimate solution, by having auditable checklists that report into corporate safety compliance officers, and provide visibility to senior leadership.
Morpheus has been working closely with the team at SafetyCulture to introduce as many of the above mentioned to make sure we get âback to workâ quickly and safely. We are happy to make any introductions to individuals or companies that are looking to collaborate on projects leveraging SafetyCultureâs leading inspection platform iAuditor. Reach out to Kristian at Morpheus if you would like to learn more
đ° What are we reading!
McDonald’s workers sue over its virus ‘failing’ â This article ties into what SafetyCulture is trying to achieve with its âback to workâ initiatives and the failing responsibility of corporations to protect their employees from safety issues.
âWe are now sitting at the all-time peak of public SaaS valuations in the midst of a global pandemic.â Meritech Capital gives insight into what public SaaS valuations have done over the last Quarter.
HouseCanary offers its weekly Market Pulse report taking a deep dive into the residential real estate market in the U.S.
Wire CEO, Morten Brøgger, and Forbes’ Charles Towers-Clark discuss the role AI plays in the future of communication and the key security considerations required to make remote work effective for companies.
â¤ď¸ Founder love
Housingwire names Russell Smith, Housecanary Director of Real Estate Strategy as their 2020 rising star. Well done Russel!!
Wire Leads with Security at the Forefront of 407% Year-On-Year Revenue Growth. Wire added 200 new enterprise customers in April alone, reaching a total of over 1,200 paying enterprise customers as of its calendar first quarter.
We are also proud to announce that Wire has been named as a finalist at the SCAwardsEurope – recognizing the innovation behind their secure communication solution.
Techround interview with Wire CEO, Morten Brogger. Morten discusses what Wire does that sets them apart from other collaboration platforms.
SafetyCulture has partnered with Aviva’s risk management platform. Aviva has made its COVID-19 Loss Prevention Standards available to all teams via iAuditor.
The Morpheus Team
