Bobby Brannigan

I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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An often overlooked truth in venture: founder health is company health. In our latest Warrior Guide, we partnered with Noah Shanok, founder and first CEO of Stitcher (acquired by SiriusXM), early StubHub exec (acquired by eBay), and Benchmark & NEA-backed entrepreneur, to share the parts of founder life we should talk about more. This guide isn’t a checklist. It’s lived experience, and it's brutal, honest, and practical. From near-burnout during a Series A raise to the daily work of recovering clarity, Noah shared strategies that go deeper than platitudes: 🫂 Building a trusted peer support circle ⏰ Creating routines that actually work in startup life 🧠 Recognizing when to ask for help (and why it’s a strength, not a weakness) If you’re leading a company and finding it harder to lead yourself some days, you’re not alone. This one’s for you! Read the full warrior guide at the link in the comments. Founders- what are the mental resilience habits you’ve built into your journey? We'd love to hear from you.

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Today we officially kick off our $2M pre seed round for Salubrum (Backed by Forum Ventures), supported by Forum Ventures, Coeus Collective Ventures, and Draper House Americas. Healthcare companies spend over $30B a year trying to acquire patients. The problem is not media. The problem is timing. Every time a patient approaches a healthcare decision a moment opens. Which doctor to see. Which procedure to pursue. Which treatment to start. For the companies involved in that decision, knowing that moment exists is incredibly valuable. Salubrum (Backed by Forum Ventures) is building the intelligence layer that maps those decision moments across the U.S. patient population. Our system aggregates large healthcare datasets covering 300M+ patient identities and uses them to predict when individuals are approaching important healthcare decisions. That signal can then be used by providers, pharma companies, payers, and other healthcare organizations trying to reach patients at the right time. Our first wedge is patient acquisition for healthcare providers and brands, but the underlying intelligence layer has much broader applications wherever patient behavior influences economic decisions. Over the past months we have quietly built the foundation. • Early pilots validating our patient intent scoring system • Distribution partnerships forming across healthcare platforms • Backed by Forum Ventures, Coeus Collective Ventures, Draper House Americas, NEXT Canada and Metta World Peace Starting tomorrow we will be meeting investors as part of the Forum Ventures showcase. If you are an investor interested in building with us get in touch. Calendly: https://lnkd.in/e5j-VvGC Investor Memo: https://lnkd.in/e5HyemAp

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Plaid is built to make it easier for businesses to build and scale financial products that people trust. That trust starts with knowing who you’re working with. As Plaid helps platforms onboard and support millions of businesses, verifying business identity accurately and efficiently is foundational. That’s why Plaid partners with Middesk to automate business verification during onboarding — confirming core business details, reducing manual review, and helping teams make confident risk decisions without slowing down the customer experience. Together, we help Plaid deliver faster onboarding, stronger compliance, and a more durable foundation for growth across the financial ecosystem they power. We’re proud to support Plaid as they help teams move fast while maintaining trust at scale. #KYB #KYC #AML #BEV #businessverification #financialservices #onboarding #compliance #smallbusiness #SMBs

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Agentic commerce is taking first steps. Demo of Stripe MCP in action from Jeff Weinstein. - open claude - connect stripe (via MCP) - prompt to create payment link done! All in <1 minute. Agentic commerce is very early, but you can already feel the demand building. Everyone I know uses LLMs for most of their product research now, just a matter of time before this all comes together. If folks have other demos, love to see below!

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🚀 Stop chasing investors blindly. Here's the 5-step system that gets startups funded: Define financial needs (12-18 months) Research aligned investors Build a killer pitch deck Systematize outreach Prep due diligence docs Most founders skip steps 1 & 5. Don't be like most founders.

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