Start Up

The mile. Originating with the Roman Empire and refined to its current distance by the British in the late 1500’s, the mile has become a primary unit of measurement in the United States - and has many colloquial uses. Some people talk a mile a minute, some are willing to go the extra mile, and some will take a mile when only given an inch. On the cinder track of ...

  We are pleased to announce that Origin Ventures has led Utah-based Carketa’s $6M Seed round, with participation from Crosslink Capital, Hack VC, Lancaster, and I2BF.   The investment is our second in auto tech, following our 2018 investment in BacklotCars.  When we made that initial investment, we joked in our blog post that “we finally met a used car salesman that we like.”  Well now… we’ve found another one!   In ...

Ty Blunt would endlessly scour online marketplaces, stores, and estate and garage sales for hidden gems – Nintendo games, antiques, arbitrage products – anything he thought could fetch a decent premium. He quickly grew his reseller business to almost $2M a year in revenue, living out of the warehouse that held his inventory. But as he scaled, the administrative burden of running his business – listing and delisting products across ...

On January 19th, 2021, I added myself to the waitlist for a paid sneaker enthusiast community called “SoleSavy”. A quick Twitter search revealed hundreds of posts from members raving about what the platform enabled them to do: acquire hard-to-find sneakers at reasonable retail prices. Once I was accepted off the waitlist by the CEO and co-founder – Dejan Pralica, who has personally processed more than 5,000 members – I discovered ...

One of the most unsettling shows I’ve ever watched is Hoarders. Each episode is a journey into a condemned living space, choked with unnecessary trinkets and papers. The show is personal for me, as my aunt was a hoarder. After she died, while piecing together her financial life was a painstaking archeological affair, it revealed the singular advantage of hoarding: every piece of information we needed was in her townhome. ...

  At Origin Ventures, we like to invest in companies that make the world “the way it should be.” The average American family has a median checking account balance of $2,000 and younger generations have an average credit limit of <$10,000. Putting a hold down of even a few hundred dollars can meaningfully pinch the available credit or bank balance for wide swaths of Americans. Enter BlackCart, which allows online ...

A Glimpse of the Future of Product Placement   Showrooms and malls have been in decline as the share of retail spending via e-commerce steadily grows year-after-year – a trend that the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated. The opportunities for consumers to sample products in showrooms and stores are becoming scarce and brands need new ways to place products in front of consumers for sampling, feedback, and impressions. Origin Ventures is ...

The campus at the University of California at Berkeley includes an oversized bulletin board, where students and organizations can post a variety of announcements – ride sharing, concerts, stand-up comedy nights, and kitesurfing lessons are just a few examples. Known as the “blueboard,” it has become a vital source of entertainment news and information for students. The original “Blueboard” on the campus of the University of California (Berkeley) In 2015, ...

The past months have changed the way we live, work, and play. Companies of all sizes, including those in Origin Ventures’ portfolio, are re-assessing their internal processes. The focus on capital efficiency shifts the focus from rapid sales growth to sustainable sales. Now is a good time to redesign go-to-market strategy in the increasingly competitive SaaS market. Shake up the sales team, focus on customer personas, redefine territories, or build ...

COVID-19 has created widespread impact for startups. Perhaps no functional area has been disrupted more than the sales organization for B2B software companies. Origin Ventures recently facilitated a sales leadership discussion with our B2B SaaS portfolio companies to discuss and share strategic and tactical shifts in their sales processes. The questions we used to frame the discussion included: For benchmarking purposes… what’s your Q1 and Q2 updated forecast vs. your ...