The Team

Bob Crimmins
Bob CrimminsManaging Partner
Jay Westerdal
Jay WesterdalSr. Venture Partner
Arry Yu
Arry YuVenture Partner
Claudius Mbemba
Claudius MbembaInvestment Director

The Philosophy

Startup Haven Ventures is a pre-seed venture fund. While we do sometimes make direct investments, we principally invest through the Startup Haven Accelerator. If what you see below resonates loudly with you, your team and startup, please drop us a line. Note that elements of the information included here are subject to change.

Who We Are

  • We are a team of experienced, no-nonsense startup founders and operators.
  • We understand the startup experience because we all have lived it.
  • We want you to succeed, even if we can’t invest.

What We Invest In

  • We invest primarily (>80%) though the Startup Haven Accelerator programs. In exceptional circumstances (<20%) we invest directly into startups who have not completed one of our accelerator programs.
  • We invest in founders with discipline. Of course, we love to see that discipline aimed at intractable problems in meaningful markets and with vision and passion.
  • We invest in capital-efficient business models that can make material progress with limited resources. E.g., software, platforms, marketplaces, SaaS-enabled everything, AI/ML, cybersecurity, etc.
  • We invest in teams who have built something and who have achieved some early element(s) of progress/traction/commercialization.
  • We invest in founders who can tell a cogent story about how they can use our capital to achieve their next, right strategic milestone. “Cogent” is a technical term for us.
  • We currently only invest in founders residing in, and running companies domiciled in, North America.

What We Don’t Invest In

  • Capital intense businesses that require significant resources in order to get a product to market. Examples can include ‘hard’ hardware, biotech, anything brick and mortar.
  • Highly-regulated businesses that require long lead times and/or significant investment in order to attain compliance. Examples can include medical device, pharma, biotech (FDA); banking, crypto and other financial services (SEC, FinCEN); energy tech (EPA); food and agriculture (FDA, USDA).
  • Business that provide consumables that are considered pharmacological, nutritional, functional, dietary, therapeutic, etc.
  • Vices. Examples can include alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, pornography, gambling.
  • Services-based businesses for which a significant element of the value delivered to customers comes from selling people’s time.

How We Add Value

  • We do not invest in companies that we don’t think we can help or in founders who don’t want us to help.
  • Our team is comprised of experienced founders who have mentored, advised and invested in hundreds of venture-scale startup founders.
  • We listen, mentor, advise and connect. As founders ourselves, we can also relate, console and kvetch.
  • We leverage the Startup Haven network of more than 2,000 vetted venture-scale founders and investors to connect our founders with what they need.

What We Believe

  • We believe that great ideas, hard work, persistence, gumption and grit are absolutely necessary… and utterly insufficient.
  • We believe that discipline, math and cogency are superpowers.
  • We believe that capital is the fuel, not the solution.
  • We believe that most of the very best things that happen for early startups come from people they know and other experienced founders are the best people to know.

Startup Haven Accelerator (>80% of investments)

  • Startup Haven Accelerator is a unique and rigorous 3-month program that leverages the GroundWork Growth Methodology to help startups chart the path to growth.
  • Our Accelerator provides up to $150K exchange for 5% – 7% equity.
  • We have adopted a shared tuition model where both the startup and Startup Haven contribute to the costs of the accelerator program on a sliding scale based on funding amount, equity exchange and company stage. Tuition can range from $0 to $17k.
  • 100% of our mentors are experienced founders and investors. In addition to these ‘regular’ mentors, and each team is also assigned two executive mentors who work with every week throughout the entire program.
  • The Accelerator curriculum leverages the GroundWork Growth Framework to ensure that are positioned to achieve the absolute best outcomes possible.

Startup Haven Fund Direct (<20% of investments)

  • The Startup Haven Fund invests at the crossroads of growth, at the earliest stages of commercialization, where passion and discipline collide.
  • Startup Haven Fund writes checks from $50K to $300K
  • We write first checks into first rounds of $500K or less. (occasional exceptions up to $750k and rare exceptions up to $1M.)
  • We ascribe valuations from $1M – $4M. (Rare exceptions beyond $4M with meaningful traction.)
  • Our diligence process leverages the GroundWork Growth Framework to asses the impact our capital can have.
  • We’ll also ask you to complete a diligence questionnaire and to provide some common diligence documentation.

The Portfolio

Pre-Seed

2023

CEO: Lawrence Coburn
CTO: Taylor McLoughlin

Ambient is an AI Assistant purpose built for Chiefs of Staff, Business Operations, and Founders.

Pre-Seed

2022

CEO: Matthew Iversen

AppRabbit is an-driven web app development platform purpose built to support small businesses.

Pre-Seed

2021

CEO: Dmitry Litvinov
CTO: Renato Vieira da Costa

B2B learning management platform for STEM education purpose built for coding camps and after-school programs.
Acquired by CodaKid in 2024

Pre-Seed

2021

CEO: Jon Harris

BuzzIt is a B2B hybrid event management system.

Pre-Seed

2023

CEO: Cornelius George

ChuqLab products enable law enforcement to process immense quantities of audio and video to aid in the investigation and prosecution of crimes.

Pre-Seed

2021

CEO: Alex Christian
CTO: Shivam C.

DataMynt built the leading B2B, blockchain-enable payment processing platform. The post-FTX environment that prevented DataMynt from raising additional capital and it was forced to shut down.

Pre-Seed

2022

CEO: Adam Baker

DealPad is a sales-enablement platform that creates a 2-way buying experience to help sales organizations build a better pipeline and get more deals closed.

Seed

2022

CEO: Abhay Agarwal
COO: Vrushali Sheth

GetBit created CROBO, a blockchain-enabled, cross-border payment platform to instantly send money from the USA to India.

Seed

2023

CEO: Charles Gellman
CTO: Brandon Woolsey

HiDo combines AI, RFID and robotics to create an IoT-enabled medication dispensing solution that solves the intractable challenge of medication compliance for patients with complex drug regimens.

pre-seed

2022

CEO: Francesco De Conto
CMO: Per Obiora

Kashew is a B2B marketplace for used furniture.

Seed

2023

CEO: Rishi Mathews
CTO: Vishal Srivastava

Keepe is a tech-enabled B2B marketplace for home repairs.

Pre-Seed

2022

CEO: Monica Plath

The LittleBird is a cellular-enable smart wearable for kids that helps parents keep track of their children’s health and whereabouts.

Pre-Seed

2019

CEO: Daniel Joy
CPO: Kiran Hedge
COO: Pallavi Rao

LogicMatter is a SaaS-based compliance monitoring and reporting platform for critical equipment and environments, e.g., Healthcare, Schools, Labs, Pharma, Manufacturing, etc.

Pre-Seed

2022

CEO: Bobby Quinn
CTO: Kyle Reichman
Engineering: Cooper Smith

Making it easy for drone pilots to create digital portfolios, share projects with customers, and get paid

Pre-Seed

2021

CEO: Luke Barwikowski

Pixels is the leading blockchain play-to-earn game.

Pre-Seed

2019

CEO: Chad Morgan
CTO: Costi Marin
COO: Michelle Sri

Quickpage is the leading mobile video sales-enablement platform for sales teams.

Pre-Seed

2023

CEO: Sadee Gamhewa

Velou is the AI Copilot for ecommerce, providing brands with data intelligence, product data enrichment, onsite search, recommendations, and customer experience.

Pre-Seed

2021

CEO: Arthur Chen
CTO: Roman Kozak

fVerdi is building modern, accessible automation tools for climate-smart agriculture.

Special Opportunities

Series A

2021

CEO: Jo Masterson

Digital Health, Mobile, B2B2C

Seed

2022

CEO: M.H. Lines

Stack Moxie provides testing, monitoring and observability for AI and revenue infrastructure.

Pre-seed

2022

CEO: Kwame Boler
CTO: Claudius Mbemeba

Spritz is a comprehensive, all-in-one SaaS platform and franchise alternative for cleaners.