usage-based Startups

Hourly Nerd is an online marketplace connecting elite business talent (MBAs, professors, industry experts) with companies needing specialized expertise on a project basis. Founded in 2013 by Rob Biedermann and two co-founders from Harvard Business School, the company takes a percentage (15-20%) of each project transaction and had grown to 21,000 experts serving 5,000+ customers including major clients like GE by 2015. With $10 million raised including a $750K seed from Mark Cuban and a $7.8M Series B, Hourly Nerd reached over $5M in ARR by 2015 with a 58-person Boston-based team.

Call Loop is a voice and text messaging platform founded in 2009 and soft-launched in 2011 by Chris Brisson and co-founders. The company operates on a usage-based model where customers buy credits in bulk or pay monthly depending on their use case. By 2015, Call Loop had generated $385,000 in top-line revenue and was on track to exceed $450,000 in 2016, serving 2,000-3,000 total customers and sending 300,000-400,000 text messages monthly.

AMP Live, founded by Eddie Vaca in 2014, is a live video distribution platform that connects broadcasters with audiences in real time. The company generated $1.3M in revenue in 2015 and was on track to reach ~$3.9M in 2016 by selling audience delivery services to major brands like Microsoft, Salesforce, Martha Stewart, and Home Depot. Eddie bootstrapped the company with a small $100K friends and family round and built it into an enterprise direct-sales operation using outbound sales tools.

Loot is a platform helping brands engage customers through incentivized user-generated content at scale, enabling micro-influencer marketing. Founded in 2012 by Nicholas Haas at age 22, the company grew from $200 in first-year revenue to over $500,000 by 2015, using a usage-based pricing model where brands pay a multiple of the rewards given to users. Nicholas also experimented with e-commerce through a side project called Startup Drugs, which generated mid-five figures in monthly revenue through Facebook ads.

Ad Quadrant is a performance marketing agency founded by serial entrepreneur Warren Jolly in April 2014. The company specializes in managing social advertising campaigns for brands, taking a percentage of ad spend (typically 20%) or fixed payout per action. In its first year (2014), Ad Quadrant generated $4 million in revenue through careful pre-planning and leveraging Warren's existing network, growing to $15 million in 2015 with 35+ customers and 33 employees.

Skillbridge was a curated marketplace connecting high-end management consultants with companies needing specialized expertise. Founded in 2013 and launched in 2014, the platform used intelligent matching algorithms to connect consultants based on demonstrated competencies rather than ratings. In March 2016, just under $500,000 in projects were posted on the platform, with an average project size of $5,000-$10,000, and the company was acquired by TopTal.

Netline is the largest B2B content syndication and lead generation platform, operating a network of over 15,000 publishers to match enterprise technology companies' thought leadership content with targeted audience segments. Founded after David Fortuno pitched himself to the company at age 26, the platform has processed over 30 million leads and currently generates $20 million in annual run rate revenue with 300-400 active client campaigns at any given time.

The Lice Place is a service-based franchise business that manually removes lice from hair without chemicals or pesticides. Cody Bradstreet purchased the first underperforming corporate location in Austin in October 2012 for approximately one year's Dell salary (from a base revenue of $50k), while maintaining her full-time job for two years. By 2015, she had grown the first location to $250k in revenue and opened a second location from scratch, now doing over $500k total annual revenue across both clinics with 11 employees.

Pear 3D is an augmented reality app that lets consumers visualize home furnishings in their actual spaces before purchasing. Founded by Andrew Commendoni in 2015, the company pivoted from a B2B architecture model to a B2C consumer model with manufacturer partnerships, generating revenue through CPM and CPC advertising. With over 2,000 products in their catalog from 15 major manufacturers and ~20,000 monthly object placements, they project $1.5M in annual revenue.

Concept Drop is a marketplace that connects businesses with vetted designers to create marketing materials (presentations, one-pagers) on-demand. Founded by Phil Alexander in 2012 as a side project, the company grew from a couple thousand dollars in first-year revenue to over $300k in 2015 and closed a $1.1M Series A in mid-2016, bringing total funding to $1.35M. The platform serves over 300 leading brands with a network of less than 100 vetted freelancers, targeting director-level and higher marketing teams at mid-market and enterprise companies.

Geekatoo was a nationwide tech support marketplace founded by Kevin Davis in 2010 after a frustrating Geek Squad experience. Starting with a bidding model, the company pivoted to fixed pricing and eventually built a network of over 7,000 providers nationwide, generating $275-300k MRR at the time of acquisition. Growth accelerated significantly after focusing on B2B partnerships with hardware manufacturers and real estate companies rather than direct consumer acquisition.

Nexosis is an AI/ML API platform founded in 2015 that helps developers and enterprises build accurate forecasting and impact analysis applications without deep data science knowledge. The company monetizes through a freemium developer model (charging $0.10 per 1,000 predictions) and enterprise consumption-based plans averaging $10,000/month, currently serving 100+ enterprise customers with over 1 million predictions per month and doubling month-over-month growth.

CleverTap is a mobile analytics and user engagement platform founded by Sunil Thomas and two co-founders in 2013. The company combines analytics with real-time user engagement (push notifications, email, in-app messaging) and raised $9.6M total ($1.6M seed, $8M Series A) from Sequoia and Excel. By May 2017, CleverTap reached $400K MRR and $5M ARR from 200 paying customers, growing from $1.5M revenue in 2016 through content marketing and direct sales.

Miracle is a SaaS platform launched in 2012 that enables large retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, and Urban Outfitters to operate their own third-party vendor marketplaces on their websites. The company has raised $22M in equity funding and serves over 125 customers across 25 countries, using a percentage-based pricing model tied to incremental revenue generated through the marketplace. Adrian Nossenbaum bootstrapped the initial development with proceeds from his previous exit (Split Games to Fnac) and built a 160-person team focused on enterprise B2B sales with a sub-one-year payback period target.

Livepeer is a decentralized video transcoding and live streaming platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. It solves the problem of centralized video streaming services failing in censorship-prone environments by allowing users to earn tokens as miners and stake in the network. The platform incentivizes participation through token economics, where participants benefit from network growth similar to early Bitcoin or Ethereum adopters.

UAPI is a mobile app discovery platform that connects app advertisers (like King/Candy Crush, Uber, Lyft) with high-quality users through 4,500 publisher partners including Cheetah Mobile and Pandora. Founded in late 2011 by Moshe Vaknin, the company grew from $250K in revenue (first year) to $80M net revenue by 2016 by processing over $320M in total ad volume and taking a 30% commission while returning 70% to publishers. The company is profitable, has raised $20M in capital, employs 130 people across 10 global offices, and is positioned for potential IPO.

Christoph Jentzsch, a theoretical physicist and early Ethereum contributor, co-founded Sloc.it in 2015 to enable decentralized sharing economy through blockchain and IoT integration. After learning hard lessons from the failed DAO project, he pivoted to building software that sits on top of IoT devices (like smart locks and EV charging stations), allowing asset owners to receive payments via smart contracts. The company raised $2M in seed funding in early 2017 and deployed its solution on over 1,000 EV charging stations.

First Blood is a gaming platform built on blockchain that allows amateur gamers to compete against each other for money. The company conducted one of the fastest ICOs in crypto history in September 2016, raising approximately $5 million in under 5 minutes by selling 465,000 ether at $11 per token. The team liquidated 80% of the raised ether (372,250 tokens) immediately to fund operations, converting roughly $4 million into USD for salaries, marketing, and platform development.

June Group is an ad tech platform founded by Mitchell Rich in 2005 that connects brands with consumers through non-interruptive video advertising in mobile apps. The company bootstrapped profitably for 10 years before raising $28 million in mezzanine debt and a private equity investment in 2015, growing to 75 employees with consistent 10-25% year-over-year growth while maintaining profitability.

Widespace is a mobile ad tech platform founded by Patrick Figerland in 2007 that evolved from selling media to building enterprise SaaS technology. The company processes approximately $36-40 million in annual ad spend through its system, serving ~1,000 advertisers (including 75% of top 50 global advertisers like Procter & Gamble) and 500+ publications, generating ~$17 million in gross profit in 2016 with 130 employees. After raising $30 million in VC funding, Widespace shifted to a high-margin technology model charging usage-based fees (typically 50% of spend for demand-side, with supply-side cuts as well) rather than media margins.