A St. Petersburg investment firm focused on early-stage startups has teamed up with Boston-based heavy hitters in its latest funding.
Seedfunders, founded by Dave Chitester who also helped found Florida Funders, completed its latest investment into Boston-based startup Guidesly. DRIVE by DraftKings, a well-known multistage venture capital firm with a focus on sportstech and entertainment, joined the pre-seed round along with Howard H. Stevenson, who is a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School.
Boston-based angel investors Janet Holian (CMO of DraftKings), Ezra Kucharz (chief business officer of DraftKings), Ian Levine (Launchpad Ventures), David Lord (founder and CEO of Guidesly), Bruce Twickler (founder of Andover.net), and Ralph Folz (former CEO of WorldStream) also participated.
"Guidesly brings together many compelling elements that led us to invest," Eileen Shapiro, partner of Seedfunders, said in a statement. "Their combination of a proven CEO and experienced team focused on delivering on a market with large, untapped potential is very attractive."
Guidesly is a platform connecting those who enjoy fishing with U.S. fishing guide experts. The funding will go toward further developing and marketing Guidesly's mobile app and platform.
The company is the latest to join Seedfunders' growing portfolio, which includes early-stage startups such as telehealth company RxLive, data collection and AI company TSO Life, and wellness-focused vacation platform Vacayou. Seedfunders was founded in 2017 and has made over two dozen investments in the last two years. There are now Seedfunder branches in Orlando and Miami, and last stated in June 2020 it had a network of 44 investors.
It also launched the Seedfunders Opportunity Fund in June, which will invest specifically in Black-owned, tech-enabled startups as a replacement for the "friends and family" round common in the industry.
