• Kapta Space secures $5 million in seed funding led by MetaVC Partners.
• The startup develops electronically steerable, radar-based imaging technology for space.
• Kapta aims to launch low-cost satellites for improved imaging and analytics.

Kapta Space, a space tech startup, emerged from stealth Friday with $5 million in seed funding. MetaVC Partners led the round, with participation from Entrada Ventures and Blue Collective.

Before this round, the Seattle-based startup raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding in 2023 from MetaVC and other venture firms, along with a $1.8 million grant from the Department of Defense in 2023.

The five-person company is developing an electronically steerable, radar-based imaging technology for space. Unlike conventional antennas that rely on mechanical steering to capture images, Kapta's antenna steers its beam electronically. This approach expands its field of view, enabling faster, more precise scanning of large areas. The system can also rapidly switch between modes to capture images at different resolutions, gathering more high-resolution images in less time than conventional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems, potentially lowering costs per image and providing a diverse set of data to its customers.

"We're taking something that's mature and productized for the counter-UAS radar sector," Adam Bily, Kapta cofounder and CTO, told Business Insider. "And we're applying it to some of the needs within the spaceborne radar, Earth observation, imaging, and tracking sectors."

Kapta's technology could improve radar data used across commercial industries. For example, mining companies rely on space-based radar data from high-end satellites, but these satellites pass over the same location on Earth's surface once every two weeks or so — too infrequent to meet their needs, Bily said. Kapta aims to launch a network of low-cost satellites that will work together to increase imaging and analytics while reducing the time between visits. Kapta's system also supports a three-dimensional imaging technique, which can allow mining companies to track changes in the Earth's surface.

The company's radar also has defense applications, such as tracking ground targets. In 2024, Kapta received a high-level security designation from the Department of Defense to enable future space missions at scale, CEO and cofounder Milton Perque said. Kapta is also working with one of the prime defense contractors on a radar mission, signaling interest from the government to partner with startups on such technology, Perque said.

Perque has worked on multi-function radar systems for over 25 years, most recently at Echodyne, a radar technology company. There, he met Adam Bily, who went on to work at Apple then Astranis Space Technologies, where he led the antenna team and helped develop communications satellites before cofounding Kapta.

While Northrop Grumman, a major defense contractor, has been developing SAR systems and other intelligence technologies for decades, startups are increasingly entering the radar technology market. Capella Space, a San Francisco-based startup, for example, makes satellite radar imagery technology for both commercial and governmental purposes.

With the new funding, Kapta hopes to bring on business development hires who can help navigate deals with government and commercial customers. They also aim to perform demonstrations of their technology in orbit.

"Space is becoming another warfighting domain," Perque said. "There are going to be lots of other missions that would be enabled by a low-cost, sophisticated sensor like this."

Afore Capital, a firm that claims to be the largest dedicated pre-seed investor, was founded on the idea that the first check into a new startup should be larger than what most accelerators and early-stage investors were offering. When Afore raised its third $150 million fund in 2022, the firm wrote checks ranging from $1 […]

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• Index raised over $2 million in seed funding led by Bain Capital Ventures and Blackbird Ventures.
• The company offers tools for product managers to track ideas and build roadmaps.
• The Australia-based startup's beta app is now open to all customers on its waitlist.

Australia-based startup Index, which makes a planning tool for product managers and software engineering teams, recently raised over $2 million in seed funding.

Bain Capital Ventures and Blackbird Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Australia and New Zealand, led the round. Bond Capital and Y Combinator also participated.

Index allows product managers and their teams to track ideas, manage feedback, and build roadmaps for their products using tools like virtual whiteboards and tables. It's compatible with Linear, an engineering delivery software. Index also connects to CRM platforms Hubspot and Attio, customer messaging software Intercom, revenue intelligence platform Gong, and others.

Index's customers tend to be product managers at B2B companies with 50 to 500 employees. After Index's launch on LinkedIn in November, product managers signed up in droves, creating a waitlist of at least 1,000 people who work at startups like Ramp, Index cofounder and CEO Simon Kubica told Business Insider. As of Tuesday, though, Index's beta app is now accessible to all customers who had pre-ordered Index and were on the company's waitlist.

Before starting Index, Kubica spent four years as a product manager at Atlassian, the Australian company known for developing project management tools like Jira, a popular software among teams at many tech companies.

At Atlassian, Kubica led multiple teams and product strategy, but he found it difficult to oversee his products while using "a mix of spreadsheets, documents, whiteboard tools, and essentially trying to stitch together" product workflows, Kubica said. "Atlassian is the preeminent collaboration tools maker, but I found that exceptionally hard to do."

Kubica then contacted his friend, Christian Iacullo, to see if he also found it difficult to manage products across various tools at his job. At the time, Iacullo was a software engineer at Canva, where he worked on the company's developer platform and education product, according to his LinkedIn. Before Canva, Iacullo had also worked at Atlassian. "Christian was kind of my first user research call," Kubica said.

Shortly after the call, the duo began brainstorming ways to simplify product planning. Soon after, they applied and were accepted to Y Combinator's winter 2023 cohort. Iacullo is now Index's cofounder and CTO.

The product management tools industry is crowded. A handful of these include public companies like Monday.com and Atlassian, which both saw recent share price spikes after reporting quarterly earnings.

Privately held competitors include Productboard, which last raised $125 million in Series D funding in January 2022. Productboard allows teams to road map products and integrates with workplace productivity tools such as Jira and Slack. There are also earlier-stage competitors in the space, such as Fibery, another product management platform, which has raised $8.3 million in funding.

Index will use the new funding to accelerate hiring in engineering and other roles across the company, Kubica said. In addition to Kubica and Iacullo, Index employs two software engineers. "We did our viral social media launch in November," Kubica said. "That really blew up, and so now we want to pour fuel on the fire and go faster."

Mast enables reforestation without landowners needing to wait decades to harvest timber or claim carbon credits.

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• Hangout, a new social music platform, launched in November.
• The platform now has over 1.1 million users, who are able to stream over 100 million songs.
• In August, the company closed its $8.2 million seed investment. Here's the pitch deck it used.

Joseph Perla thinks the way we listen to music is due for a shake-up.

Spotify, the largest music streaming service, has been focused on AI and podcasting. And TikTok, a breakthrough platform for music discovery and marketing, could still be banned in the US.

Perla, CEO of social music platform Hangout, wants to make the music listening experience more human.

"I'm building a whole new kind of social platform that's focused on connection and unity and harmony," Perla told Business Insider. "And I'm doing that with music."

Hangout, which launched in November, lets people connect around music on both web and mobile through listening rooms where users can queue songs, chat, and discover new music. Hangout has surpassed 1.1 million registered users since launching, according to the company.

It's not the first time Perla has built a music product. He was the VP of technology of Turntable.fm, a similar music service where users could collaboratively play music in chat rooms. Turntable's original iteration ran from 2011 to 2013. It was relaunched by CEO Billy Chasen in 2021 with backing from Andreessen Horowitz. Chasen's version has since rebranded to Deepcut.fm.

When building Hangout, Perla said it was crucial to secure rights to music off the bat. Through partnerships with labels like Sony Music, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Merlin (a digital rights agency that covers independent labels), Hangout is able to host over 100 million full-length tracks on the platform. Users can also connect their Spotify, Apple Music, or Soundcloud accounts.

"That means that we have content for everybody's taste, everybody's genre," Perla said. "As we scale up the platform to more and more users, we will have a Hangout for you that fits your exact taste, that has five other people that love exactly that kind of thing that you like."

Hangout has both public and private rooms where users can listen to music, but private hangouts do require a paid subscription. The company is using a freemium model for monetization early on, with paid subscriptions running between $5 and $50 a month.

Perla said Hangout also wants to be a hub for music marketing as artists prepare to launch albums and tours. It has already hosted listening parties and AMAs with musicians, such as Empire of the Sun, Greta Van Fleet, and Cage the Elephant.

Hangout's launch comes at a time when consumers are craving new social networking platforms.

"We don't want to be the everything platform, but we think what we've made a much healthier way of having a social experience," Perla said.

Other social music apps have also gained traction in the past few years, like group-listening platforms Stationhead and social music feed Airbuds. Spotify itself has made a play in social listening, launching a feature called Jam in 2023 that lets groups sync their listening. It has collaborative playlists, too.

In August, Hangout announced that it had closed a $8.2 million seed round from investors such as Founders Fund, Elizabeth Street Ventures, and 468 Capital.

Read the 26-page pitch deck Hangout used to raise capital:

Note: Hangout has redacted details and amended some pages so that the document could be shared externally.

Hangout's pitch deck was used in 2024.

It starts by stepping back in time to the 2000s.

"In the 2000s there was pent up demand for on-demand solo streaming," the slide reads. It then lists several services that were popular at the time: Napster, Pirate Bay, Kazaa, LimeWire, eDonkey, Morpheus, and SoulSeek.

Then came Spotify.

The slide says that Spotify "captured the opportunity."

Hangout also references another music app called Groovy.

"Over a decade later, Groovy proved there was pent up demand for social listening," the slide says.

The pitch deck page says that Groovy had 250 million users.

Then Groovy shut down.

"Due to piracy, Groovy app abruptly shut down by the music industry in 2022," the page reads.

Hangout introduces its product-market fit: group streaming.

"We will capture latent demand for group streaming," the slide says. It also lists several music apps that were shut down, including Perla's previous venture, Turntable.

Hangout has established relationships with some of the largest music labels.

"Nobody social licensed all the music … until us," the slide reads. It also says that Hangout has over 100 million full tracks on its platform.

It cites TikTok's music app, too.

"Even TikTok couldn't get global licenses for its new music service," the slide reads.

TikTok shut down its music streaming app in 2024 and never launched it in the US.

Hangout describes itself as a social platform.

"We are building the next generation social goliath," the slide reads, adding that social platforms primarily have not had "music at the core."

The slide includes an axis of social and entertainment platforms, including Discord, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Hulu.

Hangout also has an enterprise application.

Hangout@Work is the startup's enterprise offering. It pitches the product as "the soundtrack to a stronger team at work."

The slide includes testimonials as well.

Hangout introduces Joseph Perla, its founder and CEO.

Perla includes his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his career highlights. He worked at Turntable, Facebook, and Lyft.

It also lists its team and advisors.

Then the deck goes into product screenshots.

Hangout also has a Discord integration.

The pitch deck highlights the platform's Gen-Z users.

And it includes feedback from a user about using Hangout at work.

It also includes a chart about its "net promoter score."

In this slide, Hangout ranks itself against other social and streaming platforms, including Instagram and Spotify. NPS scores are used to gauge customer loyalty.

Then the deck goes into its partnerships and marketing strategy.

Here's what it lists about its partnerships with the music industry:

• Live online events every week featuring artist album releases, tour promotions, merch sales, etc
• Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and Merlin association of hundreds of labels
• thousands of artists
• hundreds of millions of superfans
• billions of social media followers
• billions of $ in marketing budgets

It will use LinkedIn to promote its Hangout@Work product.

Here's what the slide lists:

• Founder-Led Social Selling → Engage directly with HR leaders, team managers, and founders through authentic posts
• Viral Team Culture Content → Share engaging videos, polls, and memes around music at work to drive organic
• Employee Advocacy → Encourage early adopters to share their team's Hangout experience on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Cold Outreach + Warm Engagement → Leverage Twitter DMs and LinkedIn

As it wraps up its deck, Hangout looks out to the months ahead.

"What will we get after launch in the first 12 months?" the slide desk asks.

Here's the "expected 2025 traction" it lists:

• 10 million MAU
• 10,000 companies onboarded for Hangout@Work

• 1-3 million SaaS licenses

  • Only 50,000 to

    break-even

• $10-90M/year in revenue

It also lays out a global growth road map.

Hangout launched its product in 2024 and plans to launch its avatar store in 2025. It also plans to raise a Series A investment round in 2025, while eyeing an IPO down the road.

The deck concludes with "potential final outcomes."

It lists two scenarios:

Target Case

• 1-5 billion users
• $30-200 billion/year in revenue
• 2 million paid corporates
• $100-800 billion valuation
• Comps: TikTok, Netflix, Meta

Moderate Case

• 100 million users
• $1-10 billion/year in revenue
• 200,000 paid corporates for Hangout@Work
• $5-50 billion valuation
• Comps: Discord, Spotify, Apple Music, Slack

Hangout concludes its pitch deck with contact information for Perla and a thank you.

As a university student, Dalton Signor was troubled by how many people around him smoked or vaped, including his grandmother and 14-year-old sister. Signor (pictured center) felt that existing smoking-cessation medicines, whether patches, gums, or lozenges, are not very effective because they take too long to start working. “They take about 30 minutes to provide […]

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Once a startup has raised its seed round, the perennial question becomes how much should the founders pay themselves and their first few employees? Kruze Consulting, a CPA firm that specializes in venture-backed startups, recently analyzed average salary ranges for over 450 seed-stage startups and shared that data with TechCrunch. The following averages are based […]

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