Reading · AlleyCorp’s Newsletter

Less than 1% of VC-backed startups reach a $1 billion valuation. It’s a milestone to be incredibly proud of, with so many things having to go right for an early-stage investment to succeed.

But the far greater achievement is recognizing when you’ve built a truly category-defining business, and that’s exactly what both ShopMy and Thyme Care have done.

With ShopMy, they’ve taken on the largest industry incumbent and completely flipped social commerce on its head. As consumers rely more and more on creators for trusted product recommendations, more than $1B in annual sales now flows through the ShopMy platform. Even as OpenAI rolls out its first e-commerce tools, ShopMy’s prospects continue to look incredibly bright with their business sitting complementary to agentic shopping for the millions of consumers that prioritize curator taste over algorithms.
In Thyme Care, we’ve long believed in the vision of value-based care models and the role it can play in changing the landscape of healthcare. Now managing over $5B in oncology spending, that’s finally coming to fruition. Thyme Care’s growth has been extraordinary in the past year, providing meaningful cost-savings and support to tens of thousands of cancer patients, while outperforming projections at just about every turn. Now, through partnerships with major payers like Humana and Aetna, as well as bringing on Texas Oncology (one of the largest cancer centers in the U.S.), Thyme Care has emerged as one of the most transformative companies in arguably the most complex and expensive area of healthcare.

Again, reaching unicorn status is rare. But redefining entire markets is that much rarer.

We’re incredibly proud to have been a part of both companies since the beginning.

Wholesome nutrition with no compromises – Nara Organics

Nara Organics announced its official launch, becoming the first and only USDA organic-certified infant formula made with whole milk — not skim.

Nara has raised $32M to-date with backing from AlleyCorp, Torch Capital, Corazon Ventures, BBG Ventures, and Gingerbread Capital, as well as notable angel investors including Serena Williams, Mindy Grossman, Gina Rodriguez, Nicky Hilton, and Erin and Sara Foster.

Read more from Axios.

Deep Tech New York (DTNY)

As a way to unite and champion the growing Deep Tech community in NYC, we’ve dreamed up Deep Tech New York (DTNY) — a new annual conference that we’ll be hosting at Newlab in Brooklyn on Wednesday, January 28, 2026.

Featuring a lineup of speakers that will be announced in the coming weeks, DTNY will bring together the industry’s top founders, investors, researchers, and academics to highlight breakthrough technologies that are shaping the next 50 years — across robotics, space, energy, biotech, manufacturing, materials science, and more.

To sign up for more updates and be the first to secure your ticket, please visit DTNY.co.

Digital Health New York (DHNY)

For the 4th straight year, AlleyCorp hosted the Digital Health New York (DHNY) summit, bringing together 400+ founders, payers, providers, and investors to discuss new perspectives and innovation in healthcare.

Thanks to all who were able to come out, with a special thanks to our incredible lineup of speakers including: John D’Angelo (CEO of Northwell Health), Julia Cheek (CEO of Everlywell), Nicholas Gavin (CCIO of Mount Sinai Health System), Ali Khan (CMO, Medicare at Aetna), Michelle Morse (NYC’s Health Commissioner), Dave Chokshi (NYC’s former Health Commissioner), and so many more.

Fireside Chat w/ Shiv Rao, MD (Abridge)

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AlleyCorp continued its Expert Fireside Series for physician entrepreneurs with a conversation between General Partner Alexi Nazem, MD and Shiv Rao, MD, Founder & CEO of Abridge.

The two unpacked where the landscape of digital health is headed in the next 10 years, the challenges of product iteration within this lighting-fast AI landscape, and advice for other physician founders just starting on their journey.

AI Event in SF

Cover Image for AI & Dev Tools Happy Hour

AlleyCorp partnered with our friends at NEA, General Catalyst, Integral Ventures, Sentry, Browserbase, Modal, Factory, Metronome and Neon to host an AI & DevTools event in SF, in conjunction with OpenAI’s DevDay week.

“Many people were impressed by how well spoken he is, how smooth he is, what a good politician he is — and I mean that in good and bad ways.”

Kevin was featured in two stories by The New York Times, highlighting AlleyCorp’s event with NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani, as we hosted 200 founders and investors in the tech community to hear more about Mamdani’s policies and ways he plans to work with NYC startups.

Stories including commentary from Kevin also ran in Business Insider, WIRED, and Bloomberg.

“I think it’s going to be the first big opportunity we’ve had to change e-commerce in 30 years.”

General Partner Marshall Porter spoke to Pitchbook for an article unpacking OpenAI’s new instant checkout tool and what it means for the future of retail. “I think you can assume that all of the model companies will enter this space in some form, especially [Google’s] Gemini,” he shared.

“Agents will learn how to parse influencer taste just like we do, and they will be swayed by influencer content in both obvious and subtle ways we can’t predict yet.” - Susannah Shipton

For the second straight year, General Partner Marshall Porter and Partner Susannah Shipton were named to Business Insider’s list of top VCs investing in the creator economy, highlighting our portfolio companies ShopMy and Agentio.

Principal Omar Njie moderated a panel at this year’s AWS Healthcare Investor & Executive Summit, where participants unpacked the state of healthcare investing, covering everything from pilot strategies and rollouts throughout health systems to the most defensible use-cases of GenAI in healthcare.

Principal Youssef Kalad was named to Tech:NYC’s inaugural Grid Fellowship — a 9-month program preparing tech leaders to engage with the civic systems that make NYC run. A much-deserved recognition and further integration into AlleyCorp’s civic-minded initiatives.

“Document summarization remains one of the most challenging AI implementations.”

AlleyCorp Nord penned an op-ed highlighting their work with Recidiviz and Mobile Pathways to create powerful AI tools that can extract legal insights from hundreds of case notes spanning years of history.

These developments, as part of AlleyCorp’s annual Nonprofit ENG(INE), led to dramatic time savings for each organization who previously spent hours manually reviewing case histories.

Nara Organics and Glacier were each selected to TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025.
Agentio and Rogo were both named to Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups list for their contributions to “The Next Frontier of AI.”
- Rogo founder Gabe Stengel was also featured on Bloomberg, providing commentary on the future of AI in finance.
NFL legend Tom Brady joined Aescape as their Chief Innovation Officer (CNBC), while content creator Logan Paul also joined the team as an investor.
Civ Robotics was featured on CNBC in a broadcast segment that highlighted how robotics are helping throughout solar power operations.
Pearl Health founder Mike Kopko was named to Becker’s Top 25 Digital Health Executives of 2025.
Stepful was featured in the New York Post, providing commentary on AI in education and its ability to democratize learning and work opportunities for low-income communities.
Coral Care CEO Jen Wirt was featured on NYC’s PIX11 and ABC Pittsburgh, speaking on pediatric development and issues surrounding limited access to care.
ShopMy was named as one of the fastest growing startups on the Inc. 5000 list.
Altana founder Evan Smith was named to Crain’s 40 under 40 list.

AlleyCorp in Q3: Two New Unicorns in the Portfolio

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