Another quarter has flown by and we’re quickly moving into spring. Q1 was a busy time for our firm and portfolio companies, and here’s a brief recap of some of the various news clippings, fundraising announcements, and other happenings across the V1 community. As we’ve said before, we’re just writing about the things that have been announced publicly. There’s a lot of great stuff happening behind the scenes as well.  

Fundraising News

In January, we made our first Blockchain investment in Blockstack.  The company raised $4M, led by Union Square Ventures, and is building a platform for developing decentralized server-less apps.

Top Hat raised $22.5M in Series C funding, also led by USV. The education technology startup has even more firepower to shake up the textbook publishing and educational content industry.

Accolades

The V1 portfolio was well represented in Techvibes’ recent Canadian Startup Awards. Top Hat took home the top award of the night, Startup of the Year. Clio was named Employer of the Year and Figure 1 won the award for best social impact.

There were more recognitions for Top Hat this quarter. Toronto Life featured both Top Hat’s Mike Silagadze, as well as VarageSale’s Tami Zuckerman for their contributions to the tech sector.

Inc. named Mattermark’s founder, Danielle Morrill, one of the 30 Inspirational Women to Watch in Tech in 2017, while Forbes called Outreach one of the top 20 B2B technologies to try in 2017.

Portfolio companies in the news

Shippo will be holding its first summit in San Francisco next month. The 2017 Shippo Summit: Shipping as a Competitive Advantage takes place on April 28 with a full-day of speakers and exhibitors focused on transforming shipping from a backroom operation to a strategic way to drive sales and build brand.

Creative Blog wrote a great feature on Abstract’s Josh Brewer. You can learn how Abstract is redesigning the design process (as well as Josh’s journey to build better software and digital experiences). Josh will also be speaking at Generate San Francisco on June 9.

You can read how Booster is taking the hassle out of gassing up. Its corporate-focused on-demand gas delivery service can ease Silicon Valley’s “Carmageddon” (and the company’s lower operating costs translate to lower gas prices).

In other news, Mattermark announced new updates, including an update to how its Growth Score is calculated for a better representation of a company’s activity.

Blockstack announced the developer release of Blockstack Auth, an authentication system that lets users sign into websites without third-parties or remote servers.

Last, but certainly not least, we recommend everyone should read this humbling reflection told by Matt Munson of Twenty20. We all are human, and as such, subject to moments of self-doubt, fear, sadness, and all the numerous other emotions that make life painful and beautiful.

Updates from us

In case you missed it, we published our social platforms book in an easy-to-skim deck. And, we’re excitedly working on the ambitious project of building a startup data repository to bring more transparency to the industry. And, of course, this was a big quarter of Version One, as Angela was promoted to Principal.

We’re looking forward to Q2 and onward. To make sure you don’t miss any of the action, follow us at @VersionOneVC.