The Pitch

Founder Ariana Vargas wants to destigmatize talking about mental health. So she built a social app. No wait, now it’s a Slack app for the workplace? This founder is willing to do whatever it takes to secure investment - maybe too willing. Will Ariana build the business she wants, or the one investors want? 

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell, and Neal Sáles-Griffin. If you’ve been enjoying our comeback season, will you share The Pitch with a friend?

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Jenna Sereni believes the best product recommendations come from family and friends. That’s the genesis of her social shopping app, HandsDown. Her pitch starts out like normal - until the investors flip the script and start pitching back, sending HandsDown on an entirely new path.  

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell, and Neal Sáles-Griffin.

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When Ali Kaminetsky started her first job out of college, she quickly realized she didn’t have a stylish way to pack her lunch every day. So, she created Modern Picnic, a company that makes insulated vegan leather lunch boxes for women. The first two years of the company were a success. But then, in 2020, when Apple released IOS 14, it completely changed the way D2C companies scale. Now Ali needs to convince investors she’s found a new way to build a billion dollar consumer business.

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Phil Nadel, Mark Phillips, Victor Gutwein, and Neal Sáles-Griffin

If you would like to invest in Modern Picnic, go to pitch.show/picnic

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Ismail Salhi and Johanna Hartzheim, co-founders of Qleek, have been through the wringer. They first pitched their company on our show in 2017, when an investment from a listener helped bring them back from the brink. Today we hear the rest of the story. Ismail shares the not-so-happy ending of Qleek and what it's like to pick up the pieces and try again.

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This tale starts with a problem Kehan Zhou found when trying to buy a hobby farm. Zillow didn’t have good search options for land and LandWatch.com was even worse, so Kehan ventured off to combine computer vision technology and satellite imagery to create a new rural property search platform, Terrascope. But the investors wonder if this innovative technology is wasted on the wrong customer.

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell, and Neal Sáles-Griffin.

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There are tons of companies popping up in the scheduling space now that Calendly is valued at 6 billion dollars. Everyone wants to build the next billion dollar calendar app, including David Matthews, founder of Dotcal. He thinks he’s created a scheduling platform that will take over the space. But will the investors place their bets in Dotcal or is the scheduling race already overbooked? 

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Phil Nadel, and Neal Sáles-Griffin.

If you would like to invest in Dotcal, go to pitch.show/dotcal

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A few years ago, Claire Smith moved back to her family farm, where they practice sustainable farming, and created Teffola. It’s granola made with an ancient Ethiopian grain called teff, which is filled with lots of protein, fiber, iron, and calcium. The only problem is… no one’s heard of it. Is it too risky to invest in a business that needs to educate consumers on a rare ancient grain and on sustainable farming practices?

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Phil Nadel, and Neal Sáles-Griffin.

To try the 'Granola Guy Approved' snack yourself, visit pitch.show/granola

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Clothing rental companies get a bad rap in the VC world. It seems like no matter how much money investors sink into them, they always just… fail? But today’s founder thinks she found a way to make it work. Capri Wheaton is going after a demographic that always has to be red carpet ready: sorority girls. 

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell, and Neal Sáles-Griffin.

If you're interested in investing in Dressd, visit pitch.show/dressd, and if you'd like to taste the product on next week's episode, go to pitch.show/granola

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AWSM Sauce founders Carl and Paul have perfected a sustainable way of making sauce. But then, they had another idea – a futuristic way of getting sauce on our plates. Will the investors see this as a two-innovations-in-one deal, or will they get lost in the sauce? 

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Phil Nadel, and Neal Sáles-Griffin.

Carl and Paul were kind enough to put together a sample pack of what the investors tasted in the room. So if you’d like to try some AWSM sauce yourself, head over to pitch.show/sauce and check out The Pitch Pack.

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Founder Luis Medina Rivas travels across the world to pitch his big vision on how to solve one of the most important problems of our time - energy. His pitch is close to perfect. However, the VCs worry about the location of his company and come back to him with an easy solution, but it’s up to the founder to decide what’s right for his company.

Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell, and Neal Sáles-Griffin.

If you are interested in investing in Tether, visit pitch.show/tether and if you'd like to literally taste next week's pitch alongside the investors, go to pitch.show/sauce 🌶️

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