MGMT Boston - W13, Q4 24 - 1H 2024 Recap
1H 2024 Recap - Highlighted Startups & Operators
Welcome to MGMT Boston where we try to help 1,100+ of you manage your awareness of top Boston startups and local up & coming operators putting in the work. Glad to have you here!
**On Jan 2nd we will share our 2H 2024 recap. Be advised!**
TLDR:
Featured 1H 2024 Startups
Q1: Merlin, BlueTrace, Osmo, bosWell, Tomorrow.io,
Vizit, Centaur Labs, Verve Motion, Duckbill, Circle, OneScreen, Copybara
Q2: Starburst, Neurable, Software Defined Automation, airSlate, Ayble Health, Occupier, Blink, Arcee, Lendbuzz, Lightmatter, VODA.ai, Day.ai
Thanks to all of the startups and all those who made introductions in 2024!
Featured 1H 2024 Operators
Q1: Parker Lawrence / Herald, Aaron Whittemore / Humatics, Lauren Viscariello / Candex, Joe Kiernan / Digital Fuel Capital, Micah Lanier / Jump, Craig Minoff / Kasa, Dean Walsh / TiE Boston, Kelly Peters / Tomorrow.io, Annie Lindseth / Connie Health, Henry Gleason / 10Beauty
Q2: Adam Fisk / Tech Superpowers, Bryan Dsouza / Aptiv, Noah Massucci / Robin, Erica Kangas / Scroobious, Brian Moseley / Boat Captain, Sara de Zarraga / RapidSOS, Hannah Leary / OneScreen, Shaili Gupta / xFact
Thanks to all of the operators and all those who made introductions in 2024!
Other Resources:
MGMT Boston Operators Club - a community and opportunity engine for 100+ Boston based up & coming venture backed operators
2024 Boston Tech Big Board - 2024 Companies to Watch (evolving list). 2025 coming soon!
NEW - Trusted Partners - top local partners I’ve worked with directly or would trust with my own resources
The Endeca Effect: Overview / Markets / People / Products / Conclusion / Bonus - Steve Papa Alumni Learnings
Q4 Startups Highlighted: Cyvl, Modulate, PredictAP, Clasp, Clockwork, RevenueBase, Cephable
Q4 Operators Highlighted: Laura Andre / Qunett, Dana Louie / InvoiceCloud, Sarah Clarkson / Vestmark, Brian Mongeau / Caveonix, Jenelle Kelly / SmarterX, Melinda Tellez / Clarify Health
2023 1H Recap / 2023 2H Recap / 2024 Q1 Recap / 2024 Q2 Recap / 2024 Q3 Recap
1H 2024 Recap: Startups
Merlin (profile): 2024 was a momentous year for Merlin with many milestones achieved! The most notable include signing agreements with the United States Air Force to integrate its advanced automation system, the Merlin Pilot, onto aircraft platforms such as the KC-135 as well as the C-130J. This year Merlin also announced that it kicked off the flight test campaign of its certification-ready aircraft. This is an important milestone as it shows meaningful progression towards achieving its Supplemental Type Certificate and it also lays key infrastructure for military programs and integrations
Shipped our new BlueTrace Inventory Management platform for seafood businesses: includes inventory control, sales orders and purchasing, shipping and receiving, and pick and pack
Closed our first 20 customers on the new Inventory Management platform in Q4 of 2024 - Shipped a deep Quickbooks integration to let seafood folks manage their books and accounting in a tool that does that super well!
Signed our new Head of Sales hire, Rob Flynn formerly of LinkSquares,who will join us in Jan 2025
Printed over 8 million seafood/shellfish tags and labels, enough to stretch to South Carolina and back
Osmo (profile):
In October Osmo announced “the launch of three new scent molecules (Glossine, Fractaline & Quasarine) developed through its proprietary artificial intelligence technology. These new ingredients are now available for purchase and use in the U.S. and E.U. markets, offering perfumers a fresh and expanded palette for creating innovative fragrances” (src)
bosWell (profile):
Co-Founder & CEO Bryan Wang was nominated for the 2024 GenUnity Changemaker Award and bosWell continues to grow their team into 2025
Tomorrow.io (profile):
2024 was a truly monumental year for Tomorrow.io. From launching the world's first Resilience Platform™ and being named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies to advancing our satellite constellation with groundbreaking microwave sounder technology and securing a pioneering NOAA contract for commercial weather data innovation, we have redefined the boundaries of global resilience. As we close the year with near-hourly global weather monitoring on the horizon, 2025 is poised to be a landmark year, driven by our commitment to powering cutting-edge technologies and shaping a more resilient future
Vizit (profile):
This fall Vizit announced a $25M Series B fundraise led by Industry Ventures and MGMT Boston had Founder & CEO Jehan Hamedi on The Lantern to discuss. Jehan was also recognized on Senior Executive Media's 2025 AI Founders to Watch list. Presented in collaboration with Forbes Technology Council, this list highlights visionary leaders driving digital innovation and transforming industries. Jehan (and his team’s) pioneering work at Vizit continues to shape the future of visual content strategy
Centaur Labs (profile):
Centaur Labs raised an oversubscribed $16M+ Series B fundraising round in October led by SignalFire with continued support from Matrix, Accel, Susa Ventures, Omega Venture Partners, Y Combinator and new backing from Alumni Ventures and Samsung Next. They also announced the alpha release of their on-demand expert data labeling product. This new offering delivers the fastest data labeling in the industry, with capabilities to serve urgent use cases in as little as 1 hour (more detail here). The team continues to double revenue (or more) year over year
Verve Motion (profile):
Verve Motion has been named 2024 Robotics Company of the Year at the NEVYs and one of the Top Tech Startups of 2024 by Food Logistics and Supply & Demand Chain Executive. This recognition celebrates standout technologies making a real difference in the supply chain and logistics industry (more here)
Duckbill (profile):
This year has been a whirlwind. From celebrating 2 years of Duckbill to sharing our story on CBS Mornings, being named Fast Company’s Next Big Thing in Tech, 5/5 app reviews, and so much more. We have tackled thousands upon thousands of life’s challenging tasks for our members this year. We helped turn to-do’s into all dones thanks to our amazing team of copilots and with the help of our AI helper, Bill.
Sign up and use code DBMGMT50 to get 50% off your first 2 months with Duckbill!
Circle (profile):
Circle was named the 2024 tech powerhouse of the year at the NEVYs and announced a Strategic partnership with Binance in December to drive wider stablecoin adoption
OneScreen (profile):
This OOH advertising analytics platform has grown to leverage 100+ data sources and access to 1.2 million pieces of OOH inventory in 2024 to find the right combination of assets to bring your brand to life in the real world. A recent OOH plan for Sleep Week resulted in 222% Order Conversion Lift, 125% Homepage Visits Increase, and 82% Improvement in Purchase Intent
Copybara (profile):
We're proud of Capybara's progress in 2024. Earlier this year we launched our Copy Optimization product that uses AI and machine learning to improve landing page performance. With only a simple script tag, Marketers can continuously optimize and learn about the best copy for their landing pages. Our technology has delivered meaningful results across different industries: we achieved a 21% performance lift for a life insurance client through customized landing pages, ran consistent monthly experiments for a lead generation company where 60% of tests found winning variants, and helped an online retailer improve their Meta ad conversion rate by 17%.
Building on this momentum, we're now expanding our capabilities to synchronize messaging between ads and landing pages, eliminating the need for multiple landing page variations and enabling marketers to test messaging more efficiently while maintaining a consistent customer experience.
Starburst (profile):
The Starburst team appointed two executives to lead their domestic & international efforts in EMEA (Steve Williamson) and Americas & APAC (Deron Miller), announced 100GB/second streaming ingest from Apache Kafka to Apache Iceberg Tables, and customer Arity achieved 10x faster data processing, reducing analytics costs by 66%
Neurable (profile):
The MW75 Neuro has been named Digital Trends’ Most Innovative Headphones of 2024 and are due to ship in January of 2025!
Software Defined Automation (profile):
Software Defined Automation and Mitsubishi Electric Europe at SPS 2024 announced Software Defined Automation’s Industrial DevOps solution now supports Mitsubishi Electric’s engineering software, GX Works3. Automated Backup, code Version Control, and Browser-based Engineering for GX Works3 are available today and enable automation engineers to make changes, save, deploy, and backup their PLCs from anywhere using a web browser. Also, CEO & Founder Josef Waltl moved to Boston this fall to further enable SDA’s U.S. expansion. We’re glad you’re here Josef!
airSlate (profile):
airSlate recently announced a new partnership with Aquiva Labs, a global leader in Salesforce consulting and app development. For nearly a decade, Aquiva built a reputation optimizing Salesforce environments and developing apps for industries spanning healthcare, travel, finance, and high-tech (with clients like, Asana and BetterUp, to name a few). Joining forces enables airSlate to create new solutions that automate complex tasks, maximize Salesforce's potential, and get teams back to focusing on their zone of genius with a presence across Europe, the USA, and Latin America
Ayble Health (profile):
Ayble was recently featured as a top app for IBD (irritable bowl disease) in TIME. They were nominated as 2024 Emerging Healthtech Company of the Year at the NEVYs and also announced an innovative partnership with the Cleveland Clinic, integrating their AI-powered platform to enhance care for Cleveland Clinic’s GI patients
Occupier (profile):
Occupier is proud to be awarded with new G2 badges in their Winter 2025 report for Easiest Setup, Best Relationship, Easiest To Use and Users Most Likely to Recommend. As of the end of 2024, Occupier customers who had been using the platform for 12 months were 100% audit compliance ready, 90% manual task time saved, and achieved 78% leasing software adoption
Blink (profile):
This year has been transformational for Blink, the leading mobile-first employee experience platform redefining how organizations engage and empower their frontline workforces:
🚀 Growing our ARR momentum: We’ve continued to drive 60% ARR growth year over year, fueled by significant wins in key industries such as retail, food service, and hospitality that will bring hundreds of thousands of new employees onto our platform
🤝 Expanding across the globe: We welcomed household names to the Blink family as well as expanded agreements with longstanding customers to deepen our partnerships
💚 Winning hearts and trust: Our customer retention rate soared to 98% as we continued to deliver on our promise of transforming the employee experience. 🤳 Leading the industry with social features: Blink launched game-changing features this year, including Stories, Communities, and image-first Feeds and Polls, empowering organizations to connect with their employees in new and engaging ways
🌱 Investing in our people: With plans to grow our headcount in 2025 — including doubling our Boston headcount — we’re building the team that will propel us into our next phase of growth and innovation
Arcee (profile):
Arcee was named a Harmonic 30 startups under 30 months honoree. They have started to introduce their SLM-powered (small language model) agentic AI workflows in Q4, with the preview launch of their new platform, Arcee Orchestra. Orchestra (and its routing model) is AI that actually gets things done and is flexible enough to adapt to the unique needs of all teams across all industries
Lendbuzz (profile):
In August Lendbuzz secured a new $400M forward flow program with Viola Credit, a global alternative asset manager specialized in providing asset based lending solutions to innovative technology enabled lenders (src) and in October closed a $262M securitization (“LBZZ 2024-3”) collateralized by a pool of auto loans made to obligors and secured by new and used automobiles, light duty trucks, and vans (src)
Lightmatter (profile):
The team announced a $400M Series D fundraise, valuing the company at $4.4B with total capital raised to date at $850M led by T. Rowe Price (src). With this financing, Lightmatter will ready Passage™ for mass deployment in partner data centers, enabling the scaling required for sustained AI innovation
VODA.ai (profile):
VODA is excited, grateful, and proud to announce that we are the third-time Best Smart Water Solution award winners at this year’s Smart Water Summit!
Day.ai (profile):
After their public launch & Seed fundraising announcement led by Sequoia Capital, Day.ai continues to build and release new features like People (a relationship-focused meeting assistant), Pipelines (automatically-organized CRM), and Pages (customer-centric knowledge base)
1H 2024 Recap: Operators
Parker Lawrence, Software Engineer at Herald (LinkedIn/profile):
Parker continues to build software at leading insurtech Herald. The team continues to add resources following their $10M Series A announcement this fall. With 80+ insurance products from over 35 carrier partners — covering Cyber, Management Liability, BOP, GL, Workers Compensation, and more — Herald's unified API is helping brokerages eliminate manual data entry, speed up transactions, and work seamlessly within their preferred systems (AMS, CRM, or custom-built platforms)
Aaron Whittemore, President, Mobility at Humatics (LinkedIn/profile):
2024 has been a whirlwind, exercising every muscle I have as a startup leader. We're hustling to launch our first SaaS infrastructure monitoring product by year-end. Going 0-1 required intense prioritization, precise scoping, and in-depth iterative customer discovery. We successfully executed another pilot with New Jersey Transit, scaling from ~12 to ~70 miles of track, proving our system's scalability, maturing our infrastructure, and deepening this key customer relationship. On the GTM front, I focused on building product and brand awareness which paid off when we were recognized as a 2024 'Project of the Year' by an industry publication for our early work with New Jersey. This year took me across the globe—meeting potential customers, presenting at conferences, and ultimately securing a representation agreement with a Japanese distributor (a dream come true for any train nerd!). Most importantly, I've had the privilege of leading a brilliant, resourceful team. My role? Stay out of their way, remove obstacles, and let them create real value. Looking forward to 2025!
Lauren Viscariello, Associate General Counsel at Candex (LinkedIn/profile):
Lauren is heads down building out the legal function at Candex, including adding a new UK / EMEA based resource
Joe Kiernan, VP Portfolio Strategy and Operations at Digital Fuel Capital (LinkedIn/profile):
After serving as the VP Product and SVP AI and Emerging Tech at Perch, Joe landed at Digital Fuel Capital after the acquisition of Perch by Razor Group. There, he serves as the VP Portfolio Strategy and Operations, exploring and experimenting in consumer products at the frontier of technology, data, and getting things done
Micah Lanier, Principal Product Manager, Data at Jump (LinkedIn/profile):
Micah continues to lead Product & Data initiatives at Jump. Jump was named, for the second year in a row, one of the Best Places to Work in Sports by Sports Business Journal. This recognition is a testament to the incredible team that makes Jump such a special place to grow
Craig Minoff, Chief Product Officer & Head of Company Operations at Kasa (LinkedIn/profile):
Craig recently became the Chief Product Officer & Head of Company Operations at Kasa, the industry-standard brand and operator of flexible accommodations. Previously he served as the VP, Product Management & Company Operations.
Dean Walsh, Senior Program Manager at TiE Boston (LinkedIn/profile):
Dean kicked off applications for Cohort 11 of TiE ScaleUp this fall and the 6 month TiE Scale Up program, with a new crop of promising startups, will plan to begin again in January
Kelly Peters, VP Marketing at Tomorrow.io (LinkedIn/profile):
Kelly was promoted to VP of Marketing in December! She leads a dynamic team of growth-focused marketers, driving high-impact campaigns across a blend of channels (email, social media, SEO, content marketing) to engage their target audience, foster brand loyalty, and propel Tomorrow.io's growth 🚀
Annie Lindseth, Chief of Staff at Connie Health (LinkedIn/profile):
Annie is heads down as she approaches one year as Chief of Staff at Connie Health. In the fall, Connie announced the acquisition of Keen Insurance Services, positioning Connie Health as a leading force in the Medicare navigation market
Henry Gleason, Program Manager at 10Beauty (LinkedIn/profile):
This year Henry took a new role at emerging robotics startup 10Beauty as Program Manager after almost 6 years at iRobot. They’re preparing to launch their fully automated manicure machine in 2025
Adam Fisk, Director of IT Services at Tech Superpowers (LinkedIn/profile):
Adam continues to lead the growing IT Services team and work with customers like Cohere Health, the Celtics, Matrix Partners, Companyon Ventures, Sublime Systems, and more to help these businesses with their IT & cybersecurity needs. In 2024 Tech Superpowers officially became a Certified B Corporation, furthering their commitment to using business as a force for good
Bryan Dsouza, Head of Marketing at Aptiv (LinkedIn/profile):
Bryan has been busy developing Marketing and Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies that make Aptiv the preferred technology partner for AI/ML products focused on the future of mobility
Noah Massucci, Director, Sales Engineering & Customer Onboarding at Robin (LinkedIn/profile):
Noah is heads down building the future of the workplace at Robin, leading his Sales Engineering & Customer Onboarding teams
Erica Kangas, Head of Engineering at Scroobious (LinkedIn/profile):
🟠 Our team at Scroobious launched our Vendor Marketplace to connect founders with startup-friendly service providers! Every founder has a unique set of needs and getting to connect founders with critical partners to help them grow has been such a gratifying initiative 🙌
We've also been so fortunate to be welcoming friends new and old into a range of in-the-works projects and initiatives to increase our impact in helping founders secure capital and develop the relationships they need to grow their businesses. We're really leaning into our belief that forming and cultivating relationships are at the heart of building strong businesses, by ensuring that our work embodies a human-centric approach.
🔵 August marked the end of the 2024 Fellowship cohort at Hack.Diversity, where we had a chance to celebrate the hard work and achievements of this year's Hack Fellows - what an amazing group 👏 Looking ahead, we just wrapped up interviews for next year's cohort, so I got a sneak peek into who might be joining next year's Fellowship and I couldn't be more excited. If you are looking to hire summer engineering or data analytics interns for 2025, I highly recommend connecting with the Hack team!
🔴 In September, Resilient Coders celebrated it's 10 YEAR Anniversary! I had the opportunity to witness the culmination through the awards and recognition of so many community champions and movers, and it was inspiring to reflect on how far this organization has come and the massive impact it's made. To follow up, I got to meet some of the recent RC graduates through mock interviews and their final Demo Day presentations. If you're hiring early career engineers, these students are in the final stretch of their program and I highly recommend getting in touch with the Resilient Coders team to connect with these talented engineers.
While I anticipate 2025 to be a challenging year for those who envision and are working to enable a more inclusive and accessible economy, there are also so many things to look forward to and I'm excited for the collective efforts and collaborations this new year will bring!
Brian Moseley, Co-Owner & Partner at SailTime Boston (LinkedIn/profile):
After 4 years in Enterprise Sales & Partnerships at Semrush, Brian has been taking some time off from his GTM technology career and sailing the high seas as Chief boat captain, co-owner, and partner at SailTime Boston. If you’re interested in sailing school, membership, or fractional boat ownership locally you should reach out!
Sara de Zarraga, VP New Horizons at RapidSOS (LinkedIn/profile):
Sara has been busy leading the development of opportunities at RapidSOS for the next horizon of the business as they expand into new markets and new products. RapidSOS is an intelligent safety platform using AI to structure critical life-saving data from hundreds of millions of connected devices into 16,000+ public safety agencies in six countries. In 2023 RapidSOS supported 170 million+ emergencies with 3.3 billion emergency data payloads. Her role is a combination between Product and Growth leadership
Hannah Leary, Strategic Account Manager at OneScreen (LinkedIn/profile):
As OneScreen’s Founding AE, Hannah defined and executed new business sales strategy and processes, bringing on 33 new customers across multiple industries and segments. This fall, Hannah has taken on a Strategic Account Management role to help OneScreen continue to scale
Shaili Gupta, Head of Product at xFact (LinkedIn/profile):
Shaili recently took on a new role at xFact as their Head of Product, after 8+ years of increasing their strategy practice revenues through a new strategic vision and roadmap, backed up with next-gen tools and processes, strategic partnerships, and a powerfully emphasis on the customer experience
Any feedback for me? One thing you liked? One thing you didn’t? Local startups or operators to highlight? Just reply to this e-mail!
See you next week!
-Matt