Below is an excerpt from the DC Inno Beat, a daily newsletter covering technology, startups and innovation in the district. To have the Beat hit your inbox every afternoon, sign up here.
Hatch Apps, a DC-based Y Combinator Fellowship company that automates software development, has received a $300K investment from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest fund.
The startup provides businesses and organizations with a suite of tools and services to develop native iOS, Android and web apps for a fraction of the time and cost than working with a traditional dev shop.
Explained Rise of the Rest Fund Managing Partner JD Vance, “Hatch Apps is a tool that offers more convenience and control for businesses interested in building high quality software. It is another great example of a company outside of Silicon Valley seeking to transform an existing market.”
The investment brings Hatch’s total funding to $2.175M, with other funding coming Real Time Cases CEO Jacob Schaufeld and Morgan Stanley (through their Multicultural Innovation Lab).
The Rise of the Rest investment makes a ton of sense to me. Not only is Hatch a promising early-stage business operating outside of the Valley, NYC and Boston - which is the fund’s core requirement and tenant - but its model and value-add aligns perfectly with the fund’s mission.
Rise of the Rest exists to fund and champion innovation that’s happening throughout the country. And, yes, these startups need funding, especially if you’re building between the coasts. But VC is lighter fluid, not a fire. Sure, it may help a business scale in the short-term, but if it’s not deployed on top of sound technical infrastructure, a happy, healthy client base, a great idea/product/market/team, then the flame’s going to burn out.
As I travel around the U.S. speaking with stakeholders (founders, executives, policer-makers, etc.) in cities about bringing an Inno to market, everyone says that the “one thing their ecosystem is missing is more VC.” But I’m not so sure that's the case. If it’s a disadvantage for everyone, then it’s not really a disadvantage, is it? It’s just a fact associated with starting a business. More VC will for sure help but it's not going to magically transform an ecosystem.
What Hatch is doing - along with countless other cloud-based B2B platforms - is helping democratize the ability to build at scale. That's transformational. It’s always going to be difficult to compete with the coasts for talent. But if companies like Hatch can make access to fast, affordable, quality software development universal, then that’s not just lighter fluid for an ecosystem, it’s the log you need to start a sustainable fire.
And once you have that, the fluid will come. It's a no-brainer why Rise would want to be involved.
