Joshua A. Stomel

Congratulations to these Techstars portfolio companies for being acquired or securing funding in July! 🌟Fumbi Network acquires DLTPAY (Techstars 2022), a Techstars-backed fintech application. 🌟 Eaton buys Resilient Power (Techstars 2020) as it leans into electric vehicles, energy storage. 🌟Empower Finance acquires NIRA (Techstars 2019) to accelerate credit access in India's underserved markets. ✅ London-based Yaspa(Techstars 2017) secures over €10M to provide payment and identity services for regulated gambling. ✅ Ghana’s Liquify (Techstars 2023) raises $1.5M to scale AI-powered trade finance solution for exporting SMEs. ✅ Charlottesville's Poppy Flowers (Techstars 2020) raises $1.7M in equity funding. ✅ Source Agriculture invests in Hydrosat (Techstars 2019) to revolutionize water efficiency and crop yields. ✅ CoreNest Capital announces new investments across 10 companies, including Orbit Fab (Techstars 2019), operating at the forefront of artificial intelligence, robotics, medtech, fintech, and Web3. ✅ Cariqa (Techstars 2024) raises €4M to simplify EV charging payments and pricing. ✅ Omega 3 Nutrition , Inc. (Techstars 2023), a Rockville-based health food company, closes an oversubscribed Series Seed round. ✅ H+Trace (Techstars 2024) raises $500K to help labs trace biological samples. ✅ Pharmacy AI agent Asepha (Techstars 2023) raises $4M to double staff and open New York office. ✅ Rwazi (Techstars 2022) raises $12M Series A to help companies with consumer insights and intelligence. ✅ H2Ok Innovations (Techstars 2020) raises $12M Series A to make manufacturing more precise for big-name customers. ✅ Kilsar (Techstars 2023), a dual-use AI software company specializing in tribal knowledge capture and maintenance training, raises $3.7M in seed funding. ✅ Kadence (Techstars 2014) raises $20M to transform how enterprises run the modern workplace. ✅ OpenLaw (Techstars 2024) raises $3.5M seed to rewire how people find lawyers. ✅ Accenture invests in YearOne (Techstars 2020) to accelerate digital product development. Check out what else is happening at Techstars. 👇 https://lnkd.in/gKA_MWdg

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Their CRM let 1 in 5 key tasks slip through the cracks. Now Atlas Fiduciary runs $220M in client assets with 98% task accuracy. Here’s how they ditched busywork for bulletproof workflows: Atlas Fiduciary serves high-net-worth clients across NJ and FL. They ran ops through their CRM + spreadsheets. Simple enough... until it wasn’t. → Compliance gaps surfaced during audits → Onboarding steps vanished into inboxes → Deadlines were missed—without anyone noticing 80% task accuracy might sound decent. But when 1 in 5 items involve regulatory risk? That’s how firms bleed trust and AUM. Here’s the hidden killer most firms ignore: Your CRM was built for contact management. Not workflows. Not processes. Not scale. And no amount of “reminders” or duct-taped checklists will fix that. Atlas rebuilt their entire back office with Process Street: → Dynamic workflows with conditional logic → Auto-routed tasks by role and priority → Audit trails built-in—no more chasing who-did-what → Zapier connections that actually worked They didn’t add a tool. They engineered a system. Now? → Task accuracy is 98% → Each team member saves 2.5 hours/week → Audits are clean, onboarding is airtight, no more firefighting And they did it without hiring a single new ops person. Meanwhile, your competitors are still duct-taping spreadsheets and Slack pings. You can keep hoping tasks don’t slip through. Or you can build something bulletproof. Want the actual workflow Atlas uses? Comment “Atlas” and I’ll send it.

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How will tariffs impact 2025 lower middle market M&A, diligence processes, multiples? We don't have a crystal ball either, but we interviewed a few lower middle market bankers who are actively working with affected business owners and we shared the writeup today on the Axial blog. + due diligence has changed rapidly and there are new checklists already built around this topic. Owners be ready for this. + LOIs are breaking / getting pushed out. Hopefully yesterday's announcement at least provides clarity. Markets prefer "bad news" to open-ended uncertainty. + Government Services is out of favor. Careful contrarians, this is your moment. Full write-up link is in the comments.

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This is an excellent report on the #VC activity in Florida for the first half of 2025, put together by our partner,s eMerge Americas. 💡 5 Takeaways from the eMerge Americas 1H 2025 Florida VC Insights Report: 1. Startups across Florida raised $2.85B across 270 deals, putting 2025 on pace for the strongest year since 2022. 2. AI dominates, 33% of all funded startups are AI-focused, with $830M raised in South Florida alone. 3. Cybersecurity and defense tech are booming, with Tampa emerging as “Cyber Bay” and major new AI-cyber programs launching. 4. Fintech, climatetech & Web3 continue to shine, with record funding and renewed investor confidence in Miami. 5. ��If you’re not investing in AI, you’re asleep at the wheel,” says Me! https://lnkd.in/eVb-eYA9

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Scaling isn't hard. Scaling without culture is. Most founders obsess over growth metrics. ARR. Headcount. Funding rounds. But they forget the invisible foundation that holds everything together. Culture isn't ping pong tables and free snacks. Culture is belonging. And belonging comes from one thing: Cadence. The Monday email you send to your team. The weekly culture call where someone shares a book they love. The consistent appreciation you show for the janitor and the COO equally. Every Monday. Every week. Every interaction. When systems break (and they will), culture forgives. When you write that email on a bad day... Culture gives you the benefit of the doubt. When market conditions shift... Culture rallies around the vision. Here's the truth most leadership gurus won't tell you: You can't define culture before it happens. You can only build it through the daily cadence of communication and care. I write my top 10 wins every Friday. We used to have 30-minute culture calls every week. Someone would share one thing they loved. Could be a book, a story, a Wikipedia page. Simple? Yes. Easy? No. Transformative? Absolutely. While your competitors chase vanity metrics... You're building something that scales infinitely: People who believe in the mission more than the paycheck.

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This week at Aidora 🚀   𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁. 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. Coordinating leave pay is messy. Estimating gross pay during a leave means accounting for: → Changing salaries   → Company coverage rates   → State & insurance reimbursements   → Work schedules   → Partial policy weeks We’ve been automating this for a while.   Now we’re making it explainable. HR teams can now see: ✅ How coverage periods intersect with pay periods   ✅ What % coverage applied (and when)   ✅ What salary was used for each time window   ✅ How the gross pay was calculated — week by week, policy by policy HR shouldn’t have to reverse-engineer their own tools.   With this launch, they won’t have to. 🎥Quick preview in the video. DM us for a full demo. More next week 👀  #ThisWeekAtAidora #HRTech #PeopleOps #LeaveManagement #AidoraProduct #ProductThinking #FutureOfWork

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IRYS Insurtech announces $12.5 million seed round, led by Markd, with participation from DeepWork Capital, Florida Opportunity Fund, Ansay & Associates, Hico Ventures and JMG Capital. "For 15 years I ran agencies on tech that didn’t care if it was usable. The industry’s been trapped in contracts, broken platforms, and empty promises. It’s eroded the trust agents fight to build every day with their clients. Irys is how we fix that. I’ve lived it — clients waiting years for updates, employees juggling five logins to finish one task, leaders staring at reports they couldn’t trust. We’re already supporting agencies and MGAs representing nearly $1 billion in active premium, proof that this shift is well under way." Margeaux Giles

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Why I’m Not Creating a BizBuySell Competitor Here’s why: 1. Cody Sanchez is Already Building BizScout Cody Sanchez, with millions of followers, is already launching BizScout, a direct competitor to BizBuySell. That means any new player would be fighting an uphill battle against both an established giant and a well-funded newcomer. 2. The Future Isn’t a Marketplace—It’s AI-Powered Deal Sourcing Marketplaces like BizBuySell are shotguns—they spray a bunch of listings, and you sift through them. That’s not where this is going. The future is AI + agents that act as laser-guided deal finders. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of listings, you’ll just tell AI:���� “Find businesses with $500K - $1M EBITDA, at least 10 years old, in X industry, on or off market.”And it will deliver qualified leads directly—no wasted time, no irrelevant listings. That’s where business buying is headed. Not another marketplace—a smarter, more precise way to find deals.

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Episode 42 of DualSource Discourse is live! 🎙️ This is a cornucopia episode where Sarah Scudder - ITAM Nerd and I discuss a wide ranging set of topics The episode covers: * Oro's Acquisition of ProcureTech: A surprise move that raised concerns about vendor neutrality and platform trust 🫢 * The surge in AI Investment Surge: Perplexity's rumored $1B raise highlights growing concentration of funding around major players 💵 💶 💷 💴 * Procurement Podcasts Take Off: A surge in content creation, with reflections on format fatigue and what makes a show stick 📻 * Cybersecurity in Multi-Cloud Environments: Google’s acquisition of Wiz and the importance of securing across diverse cloud infrastructures 🔐 Plus much more! Check it out now! 🎧 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gKvkN7QB Kearney Lance Younger Shakil Nathoo Amanda Prochaska Shachi Rai Gupta S. Michael Cadieux Mark Raffan #DualSourceDiscourse #procurement #makingprocurementcool #supplychain #procuretech #PodcastEpisode

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If a buyer seems interested in acquiring your startup but hasn’t made an offer yet just ask: “What else do you need to see to move toward an LOI?” It’s an easy question that gets them to be direct. Either they’re serious and need something specific Or they’re not ready, and you can move on. Sometimes the best way to move an acquisition forward is to just ask.

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Startup Funding Updates This Week • Welcome Tech (LA) – Immigrant workforce platform, raised $7.5M from TTV Capital, Mubadala Capital, Westbound Equity Partners, CityRock Ventures Partners, Next Legacy Partners, BTN Ventures. • Heave (Tampa, FL) – Heavy equipment mechanic marketplace, raised $7M Series A led by Outsiders Fund, with FJ Labs, Long Journey Ventures, Slow Ventures. • InstaLILY AI (NYC) – AI teammates for operations, raised $25M Series A led by Insight Partners, with Perceptive Ventures, Marvin Ventures. • Central (SF) – Autonomous back-office for startups, raised $8.6M Seed led by First Round Capital, with Y Combinator, Ritual Capital, Multimodal Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Surgepoint Capital + angel founders (Kulveer Taggar, JJ Fliegelman, Richard Aberman). • Artificial Societies (London) – AI simulating human societies, raised $5.35M (seed + pre-seed) led by Point72 Ventures + angels (DeepMind, Strava, Sequoia Scout). • Bench IQ (Toronto) – AI judicial intelligence, raised $5.3M Seed led by Battery Ventures, Inovia Capital, with CIBC Innovation Banking, MVP Ventures, Maple VC, Haystack VC. • Farang (Stockholm) – AI research lab, raised €1.5M Seed from Voima Ventures, Amadeus APEX Technology Fund + angels (Tero Ojanpera, Nilay Oza, Niraj Aswani). • Yottar (Exmouth, UK) – Energy tech, raised $1M pre-seed led by Haatch, with Cape Capital. • Sequifi (Lehi, UT) – Real-time pay engine, raised $6.7M Seed led by Cervin Ventures, with Frazier Group, Tokyo Black. • Holiwise (London) – AI-powered travel platform, raised €1.45M pre-seed from angels (Bobby Previti, Ulf Nilsson, Sabri El Jailani, Filippo Zorzoli, Houman Ashrafzadeh). • Therna Biosciences (SF) – RNA medicines, raised $10M Seed led by AIX Ventures, Pear VC, Fusion Fund. • Sarborg (Wilmington, DE) – Algorithmic decision-making & cybernetics, raised $10M Seed from Corvus Capital. • PodUp (Rexburg, ID) – Podcasting platform, raised $5.8M across two rounds from North Texas Angels, Harvard Business School Alumni Angels, others. • Axenya (São Paulo) – Corporate healthcare orchestration, raised $12M Series A led by Canary, co-led by Indicator Capital, joined by Zentynel. • Darwin AI (São Paulo) – AI workers for sales & support, raised $4.5M seed extension led by Base10 Partners (total $7M). #fundraising #vc #startups #startup #entrepreneur

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🚀 Meet PACT, simplifying SBA-backed acquisitions with investors. Think YC’s SAFE, but built for Main Street M&A. 📘 What is PACT and why we built it PACT (Partnership Acquisition Commonsense Terms) is a free, balanced starting point for the agreements used in SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors. For too long, SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors have been the wild west: every deal is different, inefficient, and confusing, especially for first-time searchers raising capital. PACT gives everyone a common baseline so reviews are faster, expectations are clear, and operators can focus on acquiring the business. 🧩 SAFE for ETA Y Combinator’s SAFE gave startups a shared template that made early investing easier to execute. PACT brings that same idea to ETA. It teaches the key concepts in plain English, aligns searchers and investors on the economics, and sets a fair place to start. Our goal is for PACT to become the default baseline for investor-backed small business acquisitions using SBA loans. 🤝 Who contributed 🏛️ Legal input from top SMB M&A attorneys: Joseph Spina (Cullen and Dykman LLP), Mark Dittrich (Groundswell Advisors, LLP), and Eric Hsu (Clear Focus Law, PLLC) provided feedback on drafts. 💼 Early investor adopters: Jordan F. (Shareholder Ventures), Grant Hensel (Entrepreneurial Capital), Jason Ehrlich (Fruition Capital), Sean Smith (Search Fund Ventures), Adam Kaplan (ETA Funding Partners), Jacob Hall (Kando Capital), Tony Cappaert (Workbench Capital) and Adam Markley (PROX Search Capital) have adopted PACT on new deals. 🎓 Community support: Chelsea Wood and Walker Deibel at the Acquisition Lab and Buy Then Build have committed to start educating the community on how investor deals work using PACT. 👉 What to do next 🔍 Searchers: download the docs and ask your lawyer to start from PACT. ⚖️ SMB M&A Law firms: review the templates and send feedback so the next version is better. 💸 SMB investors: adopt PACT as your starting point and share redlines from real deals. This is a community-led standard, and we will keep versioning PACT as feedback comes in from all sides. 📝 Thanks: Special thanks to Joseph Spina for leading the legal drafting with me and helping shape a true middle ground. 🔗 Download PACT and see the key terms: ETAPACT.com (link in the comments) Let’s make investor-backed acquisitions clearer, faster, and fairer for everyone. 🚨 DISCLAIMER: PACT is not legal advice. Searchers must engage experienced SMB M&A counsel to review and tailor these documents to their deal.

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You don’t need a billion-dollar budget to build modern logistics. 🚚 We just mapped a cohort of bootstrapped transportation & delivery staffing companies transforming how freight, drivers, and labor get matched in real time. 🔍 The big trends: ⚡ Last-mile is everything — and speed is a competitive advantage 📦 Drivers want flexibility, transparency, and instant pay 🏗️ Shippers and movers need scalable labor without administrative drag 📱 Platforms are winning by simplifying compliance and delivering W-2-grade UX Here’s how the sector breaks down: 📦 Delivery – These platforms help businesses and consumers move goods quickly, reliably, and on demand: ACERTUS, Courial, Draiver, F|STAFF On Demand Truck Drivers, Relay On Demand, TQM Group, iDrop 🚛 Last-Mile Delivery – Local delivery pros helping retailers and logistics providers close the loop: BLUSVN Technologies 📦 Moving Services – Tech-enabled labor for heavy lifting, loading, and on-demand moves: Laborjack, Moving Muscle LLC 🚗 Rideshare – Platforms offering independent drivers access to flexible, route-based work: Aryv, Lanefinder, Maxim Order Service, Para - For Drivers 👇 See the full bootstrapped breakdown: https://lnkd.in/gq2m6CZh

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Guess what the "slow payments tax" is for the construction industry? $280B per year! 🤯 General contractors need to get paid, and pay subs asap – this is an obvious scenario where real-time payments like RTP, FedNow, and Push to Card unlock value for all stakeholders. Imagine that magnitude of value going back into the economy and driving growth. And that's just one industry!

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🚀 We’re proud to share that kennek is now an Associate Member of the Bridging & Development Lenders Association (BDLA), a key milestone in our mission to make lenders’ lives easier through technology and data. At kennek, we’ve built a complete lending software dedicated to the needs of bridging and development lenders in the UK. Our platform simplifies and unifies the entire lending lifecycle — from origination and underwriting through to servicing, monitoring and reporting — all in one centralised, cloud-based system. Becoming part of the BDLA community strengthens our collaboration with the industry we serve. It’s an opportunity to engage with leading lenders, share insights from our annual white papers and market surveys, and continue helping lenders scale efficiently, improve compliance, and achieve operational excellence. We look forward to contributing to BDLA’s ecosystem, exchanging ideas on strategic topics, supporting innovation, and enabling the sector to thrive through smarter technology. Thanks to the BDLA team led by Victor Jannels CertPFS CeMAP CPSP, their members and our customers for their trust. Let’s meet at the BDLA Annual Conference tomorrow in London. Together, we can build the future of bridging and development lending. #lending #fintech #bridgingfinance #developmentfinance #specialistfinance #privatecredit

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Home services M&A insight most miss: Lead quality directly impacts EBITDA multiples. Our data across 50+ contractors: - HomeAdvisor leads: 8-15% close rate - Exclusive pipeline leads: 35-45% close rate TEK Construction case study: - 6 months: 610 qualified leads - Cost: $39.69/lead (industry: $100-150) - ROI potential: 38:1 to 57:1 For portfolio companies doing $2-10M annually, this system difference means: - 2-3x higher conversion rates - 40-60% lower acquisition costs - Predictable pipeline for crew planning The roll-up opportunity? Deploy this system across 10-20 locations. Scale exclusive territories, not shared lead dependency. What acquisition targets in your portfolio are still stuck on pay-per-lead platforms?

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