Black Angel Group

It started as an idea to diversify venture capital investing, and now, it’s a reality. Fresh out of stealth mode, the Black Angel Group (BAG for short), was formed during the pandemic. BAG is a collective of professionals across Google and Alphabet dedicated to investing in early-stage, venture-backable, high growth startups. Check out this TechCrunch article to learn about our goals and what we’ve been working on during the past year.  #startups #investing https://lnkd.in/ggCDpBmb

This past #NYTechWeek, Black Angel Group Co-Lead and former Gradient Partner Bonita Stewart attended the Gradient Ventures Founders Summit, which is an annual event that brings together portfolio companies to mingle and share best practices with one another. During the event, Lambda Co-Founder and CEO Stephen Balaban shared his journey and pivots to becoming a unicorn in discussion with Zachary Bratun-Glennon, General Partner at Gradient. Lambda Labs is a deep learning infrastructure company that provides computation to accelerate human progress. The company's cloud technology, servers, and workstations are pre-configured with common ML frameworks, enabling clients to simplify and accelerate the training and deployment of deep learning models. Lambda is also a Black Angel Group co-investment — we couldn't be more excited about the disruptive journey this team is on.

The Black Angel Group is proud to announce our investment in Kudos, an AI-powered smart wallet that recommends the best credit card to maximize rewards and cash back when making purchases. Kudos raised a $10.2M Series A round, led by QED Investors, with co-investors including Patron, Samsung Next, SV Angel, Precursor Ventures, the mini fund, Newtype Ventures, and Four Cities Capital. We were particularly excited about Kudos for a few reasons: 🧠 Founder Expertise: Co-founders Tikue Anazodo and Ahmad Ismail have extensive experience in the payments space and a working relationship spanning at Microsoft, Google and Affirm prior to starting the Kudos journey together. With deep technical expertise in Computer Science from top institutions, they offered an easy to understand value proposition - an issuer agnostic streamlined process for maximizing credit card benefits, resonating well with users seeking to maximize their spending. 💡 Product Innovation: Kudos compliments the buy now, pay later experience by providing a smart wallet that works seamlessly everywhere you shop online. Its delightful and rewarding experience focuses solely on the users with embedded security settings at the point of purchase, demonstrating a commitment to customer satisfaction. 📈 Market and Traction: Early issuer and merchant adoption indicated a promising opportunity for monetization growth at scale. Sitting at the intersection of credit card issuers, ad spend and merchant affiliate spend, Kudos is uniquely positioned to capture value for users and market share of customers acquisition budgets. We believe in Kudos' vision to transform the way consumers interact with their credit cards, and we are excited to be a part of their journey. #fintech #artificialintelligence #venturecapital #startups #angelinvesting #finance #tech https://lnkd.in/gqxyFsjt

With $7.4T worth of private businesses owned by baby boomers, the rule of thumb is 70% of those will not go to descendants because their kids want to enter different professions, as lawyers, doctors, in tech, etc, which is great. This is also true with Gen X, which is right after Baby Boomers. Where there's $7.4T in baby boomer, there's $6.9T for Gen X, which is almost as big and in some ways will continue to grow as baby boomers retire. Both generations will look to sell their businesses in an easier way than the word of mouth process primarily being used currently. Now meet Chat Joglekar, Co-founder & CEO of Baton, a revolutionary marketplace transforming small business acquisitions by providing free valuations and transparency between buyers and sellers. 💼 In our interview with Chat, we have a few takeaways: - Baton envisions becoming the go-to platform for small business owners and establishing them as a significant asset class. 📈 - The platform tackles challenges like price discovery and working with partners to digitize financials for businesses that may not be digitally savvy. 🧮 - The team represents the seller 100%. They leverage technology to enhance efficiency, but their philosophy has been to start by doing things manually to deeply understand the process. Learn more about Baton's inspiring journey and how it's disrupting the market in our latest interview below. #SmallBusiness #Investing #Startups #VentureCapital #Marketplaces https://lnkd.in/e4sWSXRV

With $7.4T worth of private businesses owned by baby boomers, the rule of thumb is 70% of those will not go to descendants because their kids want to enter different professions, as lawyers, doctors, in tech, etc, which is great. This is also true with Gen X, which is right after Baby Boomers. Where there's $7.4T in baby boomer, there's $6.9T for Gen X, which is almost as big and in some ways will continue to grow as baby boomers retire. Both generations will look to sell their businesses in an easier way than the word of mouth process primarily being used currently. Now meet Chat Joglekar, Co-founder & CEO of Baton, a revolutionary marketplace transforming small business acquisitions by providing free valuations and transparency between buyers and sellers. 💼 In our interview with Chat, we have a few takeaways: - Baton envisions becoming the go-to platform for small business owners and establishing them as a significant asset class. 📈 - The platform tackles challenges like price discovery and working with partners to digitize financials for businesses that may not be digitally savvy. 🧮 - The team represents the seller 100%. They leverage technology to enhance efficiency, but their philosophy has been to start by doing things manually to deeply understand the process. Learn more about Baton's inspiring journey and how it's disrupting the market in our latest interview below. #SmallBusiness #Investing #Startups #VentureCapital #Marketplaces https://lnkd.in/e4sWSXRV

The Black Angel Group is proud to announce our investment in Sona (getsona.com), an AI-driven platform revolutionizing frontline workforce management, which closed a $27.5M Series A! We were drawn to Sona for several key reasons: 🌎 Experienced Team: Sona is led by a former founder who successfully exited a $3.5 billion company. The team and its investors have experience scaling companies globally, which will be helpful as Sona expands into North America. 💾 Market Opportunity: Sona is targeting the enterprise-scale frontline workforce management market, where a significant portion of the workforce, about 56% in the UK, US, and EU still grapples with outdated management tools like paper, spreadsheets, and legacy systems. These antiquated systems lead to a considerable mismanagement of labor, costing employers between 25% and 50% of their revenue in some cases. This presents a significant opportunity for Sona to become a market leader in the workforce software management space targeting a large and underserved segment of frontline enterprises. 💡 Product Innovation: Sona is changing the way frontline enterprises manage their workforce by providing an all-in-one, AI-driven solution. Their push to capture core backend systems helps Sona land and expand, ultimately creating a long range data advantage. A huge shoutout to Asif Moosani for bringing us this exciting opportunity. Our collective of angel investors are excited to join Felicis, Northzone, Gradient Ventures, Speedinvest, and Antler in backing the team as they tackle this underserved market and bring much-needed innovation to the frontline workforce management landscape. Watch this space! #venturecapital #startup #WorkforceManagement #AI #Investment #FutureOfWork #Innovation #Tech

As the Program Coordinator at Google for Startups US and the Founding Director of LaunchPad at Morehouse College, Kylan Kester is a pivotal figure in Atlanta's innovation and entrepreneurship scene. Kylan promised to pay it forward when a gift from Robert F. Smith wiped out his student debt and that of the Morehouse College class of 2019.   Beyond Google, Kylan serves as a board member at Startup Atlanta and invests in the future as an Angel Investor with Black Angel Group. His work spans across enterprises, universities, nonprofits, and startups, making a significant impact wherever he goes. Kylan's story is more than just about career success—it's about commitment, passion, and the ripple effect of generosity. If you were to look up "Community Builder" in the dictionary, his picture would be right there. Ready to be a part of a community that inspires? Join us atlblacktech.org #AtlantaBlackTech

We're thrilled to be investing in Midi Health as part of their $60M Series B round! A huge congrats to the Midi team, including Co-Founder and CEO Joanna Strober, Co-Founder and COO Sharon Meers, and Chief Medical Officer Kathleen Jordan, MD, on the incredible work and their announcement! Midi was founded on the belief that *all* women should have access to insurance-covered, expert care for peri/menopause. The company provides specialty care for 36+ common symptoms of perimenopause and menopause including hormonal imbalances and weight management. With this investment, Midi is poised to expand and grow, continuing to close the care gap for women navigating perimenopause, menopause, and related health challenges. A few things we loved about Midi: 📈 Large, Underserved Market: Women in midlife, especially those experiencing perimenopause and menopause, represent a massive and often neglected market. Midi's specific focus addresses a clear need and helps to reduce barriers to care, including drastically reducing wait times for impacted patients. ⚕ Diversified Patient Acquisition Channels: By using direct-to-consumer marketing, employer benefits, and healthcare provider referrals, Midi has created a strong multi-pronged approach to reach women in need of care. 🤝 Defensible Position: Midi is available in all 50 states given strong partnerships with insurance companies and a multi-channel approach for attracting patients, creating a strong position in a competitive healthcare landscape. We're excited to be co-investing alongside Emerson Collective, GV (Google Ventures), Memorial Hermann Health System, SemperVirens Venture Capital , Felicis, Icon Ventures, GingerBread Capital, Able Partners, G9 Ventures and Operator Collective 🔆 We join a syndicate of primarily female-led investors including f7 Ventures, SteelSky Ventures, Muse Capital, Susan Wojcicki, Avestria Ventures and K50 Ventures. https://lnkd.in/eyJqGHmA #WomenInHealth #SeriesB #HealthTechRevolution #menopause #midlifehealth 

It’s a big day for Midi Health news 📣 📣 📣, and thanks for the coverage by Sarah Kessler in the The New York Times! Midi is announcing the close of a $60M Series B funding round led by Emerson Collective.  Additional investors include GV (Google Ventures) along with Memorial Hermann Health System, SemperVirens Venture Capital , Felicis, Icon Ventures, Black Angel Group, GingerBread Capital, Able Partners, G9 Ventures and Operator Collective 🔆. They join our outstanding syndicate of primarily female-led investors, including f7 Ventures, SteelSky Ventures, Avestria Ventures, Muse Capital, 1843 Capital, Anne Wojcicki, Susan Wojcicki, and K50 Ventures. This new funding will allow Midi to build on our exponential growth to date. We’ll further expand the insurance coverage already established in all 50 states; more than double our clinical workforce as part of our mission to cultivate a new generation of women’s midlife care specialists; diversify service lines, amplify the conversation around midlife women’s healthcare, and scale to care for 1 million+ women per year by 2029.   We’re incredibly grateful to the entire Midi team, our clinicians, patients, partners, and—especially today—our investors, new and existing (below, a core group joined us wearing t-shirts that say it all: Menopause Is Hot!). To read more, see the press release linked in our comment👇 📣 Shoutout to: Fern Mandelbaum from Emerson Collective, Frederique Dame, Cathy Friedman from GV, Allison Baum Gates, Victoria Treyger, Mallun Yen, Candice Morgan, Jaja Liao, Casey Albert, Joanna Lichter, Able Partners, Amanda Eilian, Alison Ryu, Lisa Jacobs Blau, Muse Capital, Assia Grazioli-Venier, Rachel Springate, Avestria Ventures, G9 Ventures, Operator Collective, Tracy Chadwell, SteelSky Ventures, f7 ventures, Maria D. Toler, Allison Mnookin, K50 Ventures, Debby Meredith, Amy Goodfriend, Robbie Kellman Baxter, and Thomas Mawhinney. 💙 #MenopauseIsHot #JoinMidi #MidiHealth #WomensHealth #FemTech #MenopauseAwareness #womenshealthnews #healthtech #startup #funding

We are thrilled to announce today our $60M Series B funding round led by Emerson Collective.  This funding will change the trajectory of Midi Health, but before I talk about where we’re going, I want to talk about where we started. “Care at the core” has been our mantra at Midi from the moment we kicked off our pilot in 2021 with just a few dozen patients. Those early patients were struggling with the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, along with numerous other health challenges, yet they were unable to find support in the traditional medical system. Our patients then called our care “empathetic,” “brilliant” and “life changing.” They said they felt seen, heard, and most importantly, they felt better after suffering for far too long. We’ve expanded to see thousands of women a week, in all 50 states with major national insurance coverage. But what I’m proudest of, through this period of exponential growth, is the excellence of our care. Our patients report dramatic improvement of insomnia; hot flashes and night sweats; moodiness, anxiety and depression; brain fog, joint pain and memory lapses; sexual dysfunction, and many more symptoms. Thank you to Emerson Collective for leading our round, and to GV (Google Ventures), along with Memorial Hermann Health System, SemperVirens Venture Capital , Felicis, Icon Ventures, Black Angel Group, GingerBread Capital, Able Partners, G9 Ventures and Operator Collective 🔆. They join a syndicate of primarily female-led investors including f7 Ventures, SteelSky Ventures, Muse Capital, Susan Wojcicki, Avestria Ventures and K50 Ventures. I also want to extend special thanks to our clinicians for bringing not just deep knowledge, but also empathy and compassion, to every patient visit. Most of all, I want to thank our patients for trusting Midi with their care, and sharing with others how much better they feel. Hear from them in the video below! This visionary group has joined us in our mission to change the experience of midlife for this generation- including Fern Mandelbaum, Frederique Dame, Cathy Friedman, Allison Baum Gates, Victoria Treyger, Mallun Yen, Candice Morgan, Jaja Liao, Casey Albert, Amanda Eilian, Lisa Jacobs Blau, Assia Grazioli-Venier, Rachel Springate, Tracy Chadwell, Maria D. Toler, Allison Mnookin, Robbie Kellman Baxter, plus Gus Tai, Thomas Mawhinney, Peter Moran and Josh Cohen (yes, we’ve got a few fantastic men onboard!). Excited for what’s next! #menopauseishot