Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve co-led the $6M seed round of GridBank, a company building the global transaction network for real-world data.

At its core, GridBank turns every smartphone into a data node, enabling people to capture and sell real-world video, images, and location-tagged media to companies that need it. Pricing is dynamic and market-driven, so the value of what you capture reflects real-time demand. Already, GridBank has strong traction with marketing teams sourcing authentic content — with a much bigger opportunity ahead.

So why are we excited?

When we first met founder and CEO Laura Lalonde in December 2025, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. On the surface, GridBank looked like another marketplace helping creators monetize content from their phones.

But two things immediately stood out: the early traction with thousands of paying customers, and Laura herself. She was deeply driven, relentlessly resourceful, and had already bootstrapped the company to this point — very much the archetype of a Version One founder.

Still, one key question remained: was this a Version One company? We look for non-obvious, category-defining ideas — companies that don’t just participate in markets, but create them. So I asked Laura to share her grand vision beyond the marketing use case as I was certain she had one. What was the big, non-obvious, crazy idea behind all this?

The moment it clicked

When we reconnected this January, Laura came back with the answer (more below) and shared that the round was oversubscribed which prompted us to pass – not because we weren’t interested, but we didn’t want to rush into a decision without full conviction.

But passing didn’t sit well with either of us.

The next day, Laura hopped on a plane from Montreal to San Francisco which gave us the opportunity to spend hours with one another, to get to know each other and dig into the vision. That’s when it clicked.

What changed for us wasn’t the product — it was the scope. GridBank isn’t just a marketplace for content. It’s building the transaction layer for real-world data.

Today, that starts with enabling individuals to capture and monetize moments from the physical world using their smartphones, connecting them directly with enterprises seeking authentic, real-time content. But over time, this model can expand far beyond content creation — to anyone or anything generating real-world data to power other markets like physical AI… and GridBank will be the transactional layer that enables it all.

Lessons from this investment process

Every investment and decision making process leaves us with something to reflect on, and GridBank was no exception.

One of the clearest takeaways was how important it is for the ambition of the founder and the ambition of the company to match. Laura obviously has the drive, intensity and willingness to do whatever it takes to move things forward (like flying across the country at the last minute to continue a conversation!). But it was only when we fully understood the scale of her vision that everything truly clicked for us.

This process also reinforced that while speed is often a strength at the earliest stages, conviction matters more. We pride ourselves on moving quickly — often within days, and sometimes within hours — but occasionally, taking extra time to really understand both the founder and the idea leads to a much stronger partnership.

Finally, it was a reminder of how easy it is to become constrained by past pattern recognition and cognitive biases. It’s natural to be shaped by your previous battle scars, but timing changes. Markets evolve. And great founders often revisit ideas at exactly the right moment. Staying open is critical.

We feel incredibly grateful to be part of Laura’s journey and to support the GridBank team as they build what we believe could become foundational infrastructure for real-world data. The big dream is clear, and we’re excited for what’s ahead.