January 2020 
INVESTMENT REPORT
 
The month’s top blitzscaling candidates:

Shared Economy Storage Market Rental Home Investment Market

Blitscaling Score: 79 Blitzscaling Score: 82

Analysis & Scores 

January was an active month. We counted 63 deals this month for a total of $2.5 billion by the top US 
VCs across stages. 27, or just over a third are located in California. Five of them scored above 70 on 
our Blitzscaling Scoring Model. The largest deals announced were: 

Loft (Bazil real estate marketplace) $175M 

KRY (Swedish Healthcare Company) $156M 

Sisense (Analytics tool) $100M 

NexNav (Indoor Location Services) $120M 

Berkshire Grey (Robotic Fulfillment) $263M 

Memphis Meats (Artificial Meat) $161M 

These seven in aggregate are nearly $1B of the total. We selected Neighbor, an Andreessen Series A 
deal, and Roofstock, which has Lightspeed, Bain and Khosla as investors in their Series D. 

Roofstock; Marketplace for buying and selling residential rental properties. 

Copyright 2019 - Blitzscaling Ventures

Total: 82/100 

 
 
Round Date  Round Size  Series  Investors of Note 

Jan 8, 2020  $50M  Series D   Lightspeed, Bain, Khosla 

 
 
Headquartered in Oakland, CA, Roofstock is taking the informal residential rental market and 
professionalizing it. They have created a marketplace for listings, where buyers and sellers can find 
one another. This is a classic local two-sided marketplace that need to be built city by city. But to win 
the entire country, they need to build presence in the major cities simultaneously. Chris Yeh has seen 
this market up close all his life, and knows how keenly the need is felt for better information on 
pricing, and better options for list as both a buyer and seller. 

Neighbor : Helping you stuff in your neighbor’s attic! 

Total: 79/100 

 
Round Date  Round Size  Series  Investors of Note 

Jan 30, 2020  $10M  Series A  Andreessen 

 
 

Copyright 2019 - Blitzscaling Ventures

Neighbor has a great idea. Self-storage is really expensive, and with good reason. The facilities have 
to be built, maintained, insured, staffed, and there are utilization challenges. Between bank interest 
and payroll, it is small wonder they charge so much. But consumers are desperate for a solution, so 
they are able to acquire and retain customers. But their customers are surly. 
 
Enter Neighbor, which takes nearly all the cost out of the equation by using spare storage space. We 
don’t personally know any houses with spare storage, and doubt their existence, but perhaps they 
exist, or will exist when homeowners realize they can make steady money by tossing out old 
electronics boxes. For now though we are cautious on product market fit. 
 
As a consumer-facing local marketplace, this is a classic blitzscaling play. We like the network effects. 
For distribution, the demand for storage is strong and neighbors talk, but there is nothing inherently 
viral about the business. But realtors can certainly help their clients who are moving, and contractors 
can help with remodeling, so there are ways to leverage sales here. We do worry about organizational 
and operational scalability, as the customer service burden here could be significant.   
 

Copyright 2019 - Blitzscaling Ventures