Halogen Ventures

Q1 2026 has been running full steam ahead! A TIME100 honoree, a company nearing $1B in sales, new company fundraises announced, and seven Inc. Female Founders 500 honorees, all from the Halogen portfolio. And Halogen crossed 100 investments in female-founded companies! Here's what our portfolio has been up to: 🏆 Metropolis Technologies named to the TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2026 & CEO Alex Israel was featured in Forbes! 💰 Babylist approaching $1B in sales and eyeing an IPO (per Bloomberg); CEO Natalie Gordon named a CNBC 2026 Changemaker 🚁 Skyfire | AI closed an $11M Seed round to scale autonomous drone operations ⚖️ Rasa Legal raised $5M, expanded into Pennsylvania, and was named Best New Legal Tech Startup in America 💧 Nyad closed an oversubscribed $1.3M Pre-Seed for AI-powered wastewater infrastructure 🚀 Venus Aerospace named a finalist for the 2025 Robert J. Collier Trophy 👩💼 7 Halogen founders named to the Inc. 2026 Female Founders 500: Felicia Curcuru (Binti), Kristie D'Ambrosio-Correll (Dacora Motors), Natalie Gordon (Babylist), Tiya Gordon (it's electric), Siran Cao (Mirza), Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby (Venus Aerospace), and Kara Egan (Teal Health) 🔌 it's electric expanded to D.C. and partnered with the City of Philadelphia on its first public curbside EV charging network (up to 1,000 chargers planned) 🚐 HopSkipDrive released its 7th Annual Safety Report — 99.70% incident-free across 20 states and 2,000+ school partners 📑 Trust & Will ranked #6 on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 💄 Live Tinted Founder Deepica Mutyala featured in Inc.  📣 YSE Beauty launched their new product Xtreme Glow and appointed Doreen Arbel as CEO! 🐶 Lil Luv Dog launched the first ever EWG-verified pet wipes and is featured in The Underbite!  🌟Welcome to the portfolio: Accelerate Wind, Skyfire | AI, Chippin, ESAI, and Score Love Thank you to every founder, investor, community member and friend who showed up at our events in San Diego, Seattle, NYC, and across Alabama this quarter. We look forward to another exciting quarter! Read the full Q1 recap from our Halogen Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gV5mBgjq Jesse Draper Ashley Balla Jennifer Kwan Mandelbaum Adriana Gadala-Maria Ochi Jolie Goldberg Julia Richter Sign up to get our latest updates at www.halogenvc.com #VentureCapital #HalogenVC #halogenventures

We are incredibly honored to be in good company in Alabama! From Birmingham to Dothan to Montgomery to Tuscaloosa, Alabama the Halogen team has sat with mayors and government officials, met with founders and leaders shaping this state’s future. Productive conversations with the people who are working to create change for the economic future and job creation in the State of Alabama. Every conversation confirms the same thing: Alabama is a fantastic place to build and grow a successful business! Alabama has the founders, the appetite, and the leadership to build billion-dollar businesses. We are proud to be in the room, boots on the ground and excited to continue to invest capital into the founders making it happen. Grateful for the time with Randall Woodfin, Mayor of Birmingham, Walt Maddox, Mayor of Tuscaloosa, Mark Saliba, Mayor of Dothan, and Alabama State Treasurer Young Boozer, Amanda Senn, Todd Greer and to our partners Innovate Alabama #halogenvc #halobama #alabama Jesse Draper Ashley Balla Jennifer Kwan Mandelbaum Adriana Gadala-Maria Ochi Jolie Goldberg Julia Richter

Meet Lyndsey Bunting, Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Onion. Blue Onion is a fintech company building tools for e-commerce finance and accounting teams, getting accounting out of the past and driving decisions for the future. They are trusted by leading brands including Supergoop!, BarkBox, and more. Lyndsey has always had a genuine love for finance and accounting. To her, it's the language of business. Finance and accounting teams are the backbone of every organization, yet they're often overlooked and under-supported by technology. So she built something that truly understands their world. From helping teams move out of the daily grind to a more strategic role, Blue Onion is giving e-commerce brands the financial infrastructure they've always needed. Swipe to hear her story. #HalogenVC #MeetOurPortfolio #BlueOnion #FounderStory #Fintech #WomenInFinance

Congrats to the Skyfire | AI team on closing an $11M seed round! SkyfireAI is a Drones-as-First-Responder autonomy and mission-orchestration platform that speeds emergency response with real-time aerial situational awareness. The Huntsville, Alabama-based company is building the software layer that lets a single operator manage what used to require an entire crew, from mission planning and autonomous deployment to coordinated multi-ship operations. They've worked with public safety agencies across the country and every branch of the military except Space Force. This round accelerates what they're building next. Congrats to Don Mathis, Matt Sloane, and the full SkyfireAI team. Full announcement below ⬇️ #SkyfireAI #Halobama #Innovation #AI #FirstResponders #halogenvc

Metropolis Technologies Co Founder and CEO, Alex Israel is featured in Forbes! Metropolis uses AI to make the physical world smarter, from parking and retail to hospitality and mobility. They are calling this Recognition Economy: a world where technology recognizes you, moves with you, and removes the friction that slows everyday life down. Metropolis raised $1.6Billion in 2025 and is the largest parking lot network in the U.S, handling $5Billion annual checkout-free payments for 20 million members and counting. We've been cheering this team on since the early days! Excited to see the continued growth and innovation from this incredible team! Full Forbes feature here: https://lnkd.in/g2F8t5UM #Metropolis #FutureOfFamily #RecognitionEconomy #Innovation #AI

What a day in Dothan, Alabama! Halogen Ventures hosted the first ‘Wiregrass Pitch & Connect’ at the newly opened Wiregrass Innovation Center in partnership with HudsonAlpha Wiregrass and BIO Alabama. 11 startups pitched live to a room of investors, operators, and ecosystem partners. A huge thank you to our judging panel for bringing together national and local VC and innovation leaders: Jesse Draper, Ashley Balla, and Jennifer Kwan Mandelbaum from Halogen Ventures, Dr. Dillon Fritz, PhD from HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, Bradley Cain from Heersink Partners, LLC, and Haley Medved Kendrick, PhD from gener8tor. Thank you to Dean M. Mitchell and Barb Malchow from HudsonAlpha Wiregrass for putting on this entire event, and to Mayor Mark Saliba and Charlie Pond from Innovate Alabama for joining us. And to every founder who took the stage to share their company, we see you! This marks Halogen's fourth pitch competition across Alabama in the past year. We left Dothan feeling so welcomed, inspired and proud. The future of innovation is happening right here in Alabama. Jesse Draper Ashley Balla Jennifer Kwan Mandelbaum Adriana Gadala-Maria Ochi Jolie Goldberg Julia Richter

Halogen Ventures hosted an incredible State of Women Breakfast in Birmingham, Alabama. A packed house of brilliant, driven women came together to talk business, leadership, and the very real impact and change women are making across industries. A huge thank you to the incredible Tricia Wallwork, CEO of Milo's Tea Company, Inc. for joining us for a fireside chat. Tricia has led one of the most remarkable growth stories in business, growing Milo’s from a beloved Birmingham family business, founded in 1946, into the #1 tea brand in America, now valued at $1.7 billion!!! Thank you to everyone who joined us today! We are inspired by all of you. Jesse Draper Ashley Balla Jennifer Kwan Mandelbaum Adriana Gadala-Maria Ochi Jolie Goldberg Julia Richter

We have made over 100 investments in female founded businesses. Full stop. 6 are unicorns to date. And many more are on their way! We were very much underestimated in the beginning but people are paying attention now. To all of you out there raising funds, just keep working towards your goals. Put one step in front of the next. And don't get me wrong, we still have a lot to do. I am not going to sugarcoat this announcement. I had SO many of those early meetings with potential investors who spent 2+ hours with me and then said 'This is too small a market, women aren't starting companies' and then almost in the same sentence asked me to meet with their daughters as a mentor, and funny enough, their portfolios don't reflect that same conviction, or track record. Don't get me wrong, I love meeting with daughters but it always felt ironic if they weren't investing and didn't believe in the mission. I want to remind everyone right now that everything is better with equality at the forefront. Businesses, politics, education, healthcare. Everything. I'm so proud of my team and most of all our insanely incredible founders who are the real rockstars here! Here's to the next 100! #halogenvc #jesseDraper Ashley Balla Jennifer Kwan Mandelbaum Adriana Gadala-Maria Ochi Jolie Goldberg Julia Richter #venturecapital #femalefounders #womeninbusiness

Halogen Ventures is heading to Dothan, Alabama on April 16 for the inaugural Wiregrass Pitch Competition at the newly opened Wiregrass Innovation Center. Entrepreneurs will pitch live to a room of investors, operators, and ecosystem partners. This event is presented in partnership with BIO Alabama and the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. It’s an event you won’t want to miss! We’d love to see you there! RSVP here: https://luma.com/5fj94cdb Jesse Draper Ashley Balla Jennifer Kwan Mandelbaum Adriana Gadala-Maria Ochi Jolie Goldberg Julia Richter

Our portfolio company Trust & Will just released their 2026 Estate Planning Report and the findings are worth a read! Trust & Will makes it simple and affordable for families to create wills, trusts, and the documents that protect the people they love. Check out the full report below.👇🏼