Some Thoughts

Venture investors spend a lot of time talking about TAM, a company’s “Total Addressable Market” of customers that could eventually adopt the product if everything goes according to plan. VCs make a big deal about having lofty TAM expectations, often using a $1B TAM as the minimum requirement for a potential new venture. Although it’s true that startups must target a large market opportunity to achieve a venture-scale outcome, investors’ fixation on finding massive TAMs can sometimes overshadow a more important business fundamental for scaling an early-stage company. ‍

Around the world, more and more couples are struggling to get pregnant due to increasing rates of infertility. Despite excess demand for fertility treatments, services like IVF remain incredibly expensive and inaccessible to the majority of the people. Interplay is proud to support the disruption of the fertility market as investors in Fertilidad Integral, a Mexico-based startup building the first comprehensive and affordable fertility platform in LatAm.

Max Retail is solving the issue of excess inventory for SMB, multi-brand retailers with a platform that enables these businesses to efficiently sell excess inventory directly to end-consumers via its innovative zero-inventory technology platform.

Our team sat down with Todd Saunders, CEO of Broadlume, and Chetan Narain, co-founder and CTO of Pepper, two founders operating in different sectors within the vertical software space. Despite their divergent industries, common strategies and outlooks emerge. The blog highlights key takeaways from the conversation, including the role of software in expanding market share, the importance of industry-specific data, the impact of AI adoption, and the necessity of prioritizing customer retention.

At Interplay, we’re committed to investing in founders who deeply understand their market, the customer they’re building for, and why now is the best time to introduce their product. Emily Luk, Co-Founder and CEO of Interplay portfolio company Plenty, is keenly aware of the importance of market timing and is building her company around specific demographic and technological shifts that she believes will shape the next 10 years of consumer fintech. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Emily to discuss this topic and her journey as a founder. Please enjoy this interview and feel free to reach out to our team with any questions about the business.

We're excited to announce the closing of our third fund with $45M in capital commitments. A big thanks to everyone who helped make this happen, from our amazing LPs to our talented team.

At Interplay, we’re extremely bullish on the tailwinds driving eCommerce adoption, leading us to invest in companies building B2B eCommerce solutions such as Provi, LeafLink, Chiper, and more. Most recently, we're proud to announce our investment in Pepper, a complete eCommerce solution for foodservice distributors, built to arm them with the tools they need to thrive in a more technology-driven future.

We're proud to announce our investment in Autolab, a company revolutionizing the auto repair and maintenance industry in Latin America with a network of technology-empowered workshops that help fleets gain productivity and reduce repair costs. Recently, we had the pleasure of interviewing founder & CEO Salvador Zepeda to get his perspective on building Autolab and positioning the company as the go-to software for independent repair shops.

StellarFi is an Austin-based public benefit corporation and credit builder disrupting the traditional credit system in the United States by reporting all bill payments as credit transactions directly to major credit bureaus. We're thrilled to be involved in their $15M Series A funding round. Here's a little bit more about the company and why we're excited about what StellarFi is building.

As another year comes to an end, the time to reflect is upon us. Reflection is a crucial part of growth. Without it, the years meld together and the bigger picture can become blurred. It's important to take time to zoom out and make sure the vision is clear. For us, that vision has never been more clear. Here's a look back at some of the highlights from 2022.

Christian Mark is the latest partner to join the Interplay ecosystem and will be overseeing Investor Relations across all verticals. Get to know him - and his vision for our investor relations program - a bit more.

Noble is a financial technology startup that empowers any company to quickly build, launch and scale credit products through an intuitive no-code credit decisioning engine powered by its credit underwriting API infrastructure.