Sure the latest initiatives from the Teslas, Apples and Googles of the industry tend to dominate the tech news space — and with good reason. Still, the tech titans aren’t the only ones bringing innovation to the sector.
In an effort to highlight up-and-coming startups, Built In has launched The Future 5 across 11 major U.S. tech hubs. Each quarter, we will feature five tech startups, nonprofits or entrepreneurs in each of these hubs who just might be working on the next big thing. You can check out last quarter’s Boston round-up here.
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With MIT graduating some of the future’s best and brightest tech professionals, it’s no wonder Boston ranks as the fifth most popular city for startups to place their headquarters. Major companies like Drizly, Circle and Hopper all got their start right here in The City on a Hill.
The Boston area continues to churn out innovative new companies. This quarter, we sat down with five promising startups who have yet to raise a Series A round but are innovating in their fields. These companies are pioneering in the world of Web3, expanding the capabilities of recruiting software, providing a feeling of normalcy to breast cancer survivors and much more. Read more about these businesses in this quarter’s Future 5 round-up.
Built In's Future 5 Up-And-Coming Boston Startups, Q3 2022
- Formless (Web3)
- Jamyr (HR Tech)
- Kins (Healthtech)
- Perkies (E-Commerce)
- Salesroom (Sales Tech)
Formless is building a blockchain platform to empower musicians to have more ownership over their work. The startup aims is to give artists more financial control of their songs and music videos by making them decentralized possessions on the blockchain.
“I believe that the business decisions around each individual piece of content should be made by the artist,” Formless co-founder and CEO Brandon Tory told Built In via email. “And the only scalable way to do that is to not treat songs as files but to treat songs as programs. Programs control the way that money moves on the internet. ... Many people think of blockchains as public, distributed databases but it turns out there’s another interesting feature. Blockchains can be used to execute programs called smart contracts. This was the natural intersection of Formless and Web3.”
Formless launched a pre-beta version of its platform earlier this year on the Ethereum and Polygon testnet blockchains. Looking forward, the company hopes to expand its team and launch its beta version later this year.
Jamyr is a video-first recruitment and HR platform. HR professionals can use Jamyr to film and edit recruitment videos as well as add customizable playbooks and integrate content with company communication channels.
The idea for the company came from co-founders Jen Paxton and Brian Mooney’s own experience as former HR recruiters. Mooney decided to use video while recruiting medical professonals to work for a nonprofit, and after success there, he decided to create his own company with Paxton’s help.
“Ultimately, the product is great. I believe in Brian and his vision and what we’re able to do together,” Paxton told Built In via email.
The company launched last year and in June raised $200,000 in funding after graduating from the TinySeed accelerator program. Jamyr plans to use its capital to build out its platform’s features, adding automated video editing.
Kins hopes to bring physical therapy (PT) into the modern era by combining technology and patient-focused care to deliver better recovery outcomes for patients. The company offers a hybrid approach to PT by allowing patients to choose telehealth, in person appointments or a combination of both.
“This is an entire industry that has been left behind by digital transformation and innovation. Covid-19 opened all of our eyes to new ways of working and we’re applying those lessons to re-invent the care delivery model in physical therapy,” Kins CEO Dan Smith told Built In via email.
While the company’s services are only available in Boston and New York City right now, Kins plans to use its recent $7.2 million funding to expand to other markets as well as further develop its platform. Kins is also actively hiring to expand its 20-member team.
Perkies is an e-commerce apparel brand that makes reusable adhesive undergarments. Originally the startup only sold adhesive bras, but now it offers an array of undergarments, including nipple covers and nipple enhancement products called Perkies Nips, which have become popular among breast cancer survivors.
“One thing I did learn is that a lot of women who undergo mastectomies don’t have a nipple after surgery,” Perkies CEO and founder Rosie Mangiarotti told Built In. “You can get reconstructive surgery after, but not everyone opts for that. And in order to get a new nipple, a lot of women opt for a permanent tattoo, but not everyone wants that either. So I found a niche with Perkies Nips products within the breast cancer community.”
So far, the company has raised $150,000 in outside funding with plans to close a pre-seed round soon in order to fuel its continued growth. Mangiarotti said she’s not concerned with raising a ton of capital because she doesn’t want to put herself or company in a precarious position of over-promising. She said she’s more interested in expanding the company’s philanthropic and social mission.
Salesroom is a video platform aimed at making virtual sales meetings feel more like real-world interactions with improved outcomes. The platform doesn’t just offer video calls, though. Salesroom’s platform includes personalized meeting rooms, live guidance features and tools to help track buyer data insights in real-time.
“Our vision is to build a video platform that combines the intimacy of face-to-face meetings with the efficiency of virtual communication,” Salesroom co-founder and CEO Roy Solomon told Built In. “I believe that video is going to take the business world by storm, just like it happened in consumer tech with YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok. Our largest aspiration is that Salesroom can help facilitate this shift towards more productive and enjoyable video interactions.”
The company raised $8.5 million in a seed funding round led by Craft Ventures in June. So far, the capital has been put toward investments in its product and video infrastructure as well as building integration capabilities with other sales platforms.
Salesroom has also been busy creating content about virtual sales to help salespeople understand how the pandemic shifted the industry and adjust to its new normal. The company also plans to grow its engineering, design and go-to-market teams soon.
Miranda Perez contributed reporting to this article.
