Deal Abstract

Invest in Cortex: AI-powered visual analytics that helps marketers make better creative choices | Wefunder
See why 100 Wefunder investors invested in us. Read up on our mission, team, and traction.
Cortex on Wefunder

Image analysis SaaS play for businesses to understand what social assets convert best. Already has 20 large B2B customers on board. Will be curious whether they can pull of the tech-assisted service provider to SaaS play.

Financials (VRB)

|Question|Notes|
|---|---|---|
|1. Fundraising Target? |$1m|
|2. Fundraised So Far?|$150k|
|3. Pre-Money Valuation?|$8.42m|
|4. Previous Year's Annual Revenue |$603k|
|5. Previous Year's Annual Burn |~-$18k|

Profitable, but I'm curious if the debt is just a way of masking the net loss e.g. that would have been a $500k cost. That would have had revenue at $600k and burn at $500k

The 6 Calacanis Characteristics ("Sow Passion, Not easy mediocrity", or S2 P6 N18)

Criteria Yes/No
1. A startup that is based in SV? No: Boston, MA
2. Has at least 2 founders? Yes: Two co-founders
3. Has product in the market? Yes:
4. 6 months of continuous user growth or 6 months of revenue? Yes: see above.
5. Notable investors? Yes: Revup and Techstars, nothing earthshattering
6. Post-funding, will have 18 months of runway? Yes: Tricky. If you assume $500k burn because I'm conservative and like it that way, then yes, they'll have 24 months at $1m for $500k annual burn.

The 7 Thiel Questions (Every Time Man Profits, Don't Dismiss Serendipity)

Question Score Notes
1. Engineering? 2 Didn't disclose much about engineering but probably some generic image analysis looking at resolution, contrast, etc.
2. Timing? 3 Good timing for B2B SaaS
3. Monopoly? 2 Unsure, need to ask marketing peeps if they've heard of this thing
4. People? 2 Unsure, will check the peeps in my network.
5. Distribution? 3 Good in that it's B2B and these founders obviously can sell. In addition, the point about pricing just below the corporate policy point was a nice point.


Want to read the whole post?


You don't have access to this post on Startup Investing for All by Muhan Zhang at the moment, but if you upgrade your account you'll be able to see the whole thing, including comments, as well as all the other posts in the archive! Subscribing only takes a few seconds and will give you immediate access.