Newark Venture Partners Extends Deadline For Applications For Fall Cohort Of NVP Labs

Applications will now close on August 14th! 

To be honest, we are blown away by some of the accolades Newark Venture Partners has gotten from its accelerator and portfolio companies for the way the company connects startups to expertise from its investor companies.

Audible, Prudential Financial, RWJBarnabas Health, Panasonic, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, Dun & Bradstreet and TDBank are not just investors, they are there to give the startups a helping hand, and they lend experienced professionals to the startups to help them work on things like sales strategies, opening up markets and advanced marketing. The partners and investors also help with connections to try to get the young companies a foot in the door of potential customers and can help these startups conduct pilots.

We’ll just mention one of the “success” stories from a Fall 2018 NVP Labs graduate. According to Tom Wisniewski, NVP managing director, Hyr came in to the labs with a labor marketplace for shift workers in two cities, $400,000 annual recurring revenue and had previously graduated from an accelerator. The startup was “clearly the kind of ‘post accelerator team’ NVP Labs targets,” Wisniewski said.

The team was a husband and wife from Canada, looking to launch and grow in the New York area. However, prior to the program, they were struggling to scale sales and close a real seed round. They worked closely with Kevin Petry, NVP’s “Head of Growth” who is a former Groupon executive and his sales expert team. “We helped them close a $1.3M seed round led by Flybridge (Boston) with NVP contributing an additional $400,000 that closed before demo day. NVP also helped the founders restructured their sales and tech development operations.”

“They put the sales and marketing scaffolding around a company that already has legs.” Philip Kennard

Here’s another story by an NVP portfolio company. Many of you know Futurestay an online New Jersey vacation home rental management startup that has been at it since 2012.  “NVP isn’t a traditional accelerator,” CEO Philip Kennard told the crowd at a Startup Grind meeting in Princeton last month. “They put the sales and marketing scaffolding around a company that already has legs.” Kennard became acquainted with them because one of his investors from New York Angels, was Tom Wisniewski. “Our business model fit in very well with what Newark Venture Partners does.”

“A year and a half ago we were doing some revamping, and we still had a minimum viable product vibe on our website. However, the brand and product had evolved a lot.” He told the crowd that “sometimes your product is evolving very quickly, but you just don’t have the time to redo your website, because everyone is busy doing stuff, selling stuff.” Futurestay wanted to redo its brand, the website and the messaging. “We talked to NVP about that and asked them if there was someone they could recommend. They said, sure, we’ll pull in the Senior Director of Brand from Audible. And so she sits down with us and takes hours,” brainstorming, and helping them take a direction. “That’s the kind of resources they put together for you.”

So if you are that post-accelerator B2B startup with a team in place, recurring monthly revenue of somewhere between $10,000 and $40,000, and especially if you are in these areas: Future of Work, HRTech, HealthTech, FinTech, Marketplaces or Voice, consider applying to NVP Labs by August 14. The program starts September 12. Application Link: https://apply.newarkventurepartners.com/ Or email your deck directly to allison@newark.vc. 

From NVP Labs recruiting announcement:

“NVP Labs is a “Bridge-to-Seed” program providing “post-accelerator” stage startups with the funding and expertise needed to hit Seed/ A round MRR milestones faster. 

Newark Venture Partners is a $45M fund, funded by top corporates based in the Newark area who are committed to supporting the portfolio’s growth (LPs include Audible/Amazon, Panasonic, RWJBarnabas Health, Prudential Financial, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, Dun & Bradstreet, and TDBank). 

NVP Labs offers:

1) Funding: $200,000 funding ($100k at Program Start, minimum $100k addition for next raise). 

2) Follow-on Funding: NVP Fund looks to double down and follow-on invest $500k to $1M in successful Labs alums.   

3 ) Sales/ Go-To-Market: Start-ups participate in our in-house go-to-market program.  Full time Head of Growth works 1:1 with founders to critically assess and improve all aspects of start-up marketing/ sales. 

4) 1-1 Mentorship and access to our network of more than 250 specialists 

5) Weekly meetings with Managing Partners to discuss strategy and fundraising. Introductions to relevant corporate partners 

6) Free coworking space—forever—in our 25,000+ square foot floor in the Audible Headquarters building