Hey, this is Napkin Notes: the only startup newsletter Taylor Swift reads and is worth cancels her date night for.

In all seriousness, we did cold email Taylor’s EA to join as a speaker at our next pitch day, but sadly she said she’s doubling down on her real estate portfolio these days.

Oh, you didn’t know she quietly owns a $150m real estate portfolio? Maybe we’ll dive into that more another week.

Enough celebrity gossip, let’s get to the menu.

On Deck Today?

• 🎟 RSVP to MARL and a16z’s Demo Day Event

• 🗳 Nominate a startup or judge for Kernal’s next pitch day

• 💸 Browse the seed startup deals from Supernova’s event

🎟 RSVP to MARL’s Demo Day

• When: Tuesday, June 4th @ 1 pm PST

• Where: online via Kernal Dealroom

• Why: to meet and invest in fascinating early-stage startups

• Who: MARL Accelerato’s Cohort IX is pitching on stage:

  • Hyperspec AI 

  • TEAMCAL AI

  • Buzzable

  • BetaLifeAI

  • SiteView.ai

  • TausiApp

  • Ziramba

  • Beepy

  • JustiGuide

Wanna be there?

🎟 RSVP to a16z’s Demo Day

• When: Friday, June 7 @ 9am PST

• Where: online via Kernal Dealroom

• Why: to meet and invest in a16z’s early-stage startups

• Who: the startups below

Wanna be there?

💸 Skim Startups from Supernova’s Event

Missed the Supernova demo day? We’ll let it slide. Here’s some of the top pitches from the day if you want to see their startup decks.

Apollo Neuro is the first vibration therapy system clinically proven to reduce stress, improve sleep, and restore balance to the nervous system, initially launched with a wearable and now expanding into a multi-form factor platform.  

• Traction - Projecting $17.5M revenue in 2024 (75% YoY growth). 130K customers and growing (100K 5-star reviews); highly engaged, with an average use of 4.5 hours/day and active retention of over 80% after 12 months.

• Team - Kathryn Fantauzzi, CEO & Co-Founder & David Rabin, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer & Co-founder. HQ in San Francisco, CA. 

• TAM - Targeting the $19B+ stress management, $18B+ sleep tech, and the $77B+ overall wearable markets. More than 75% of Americans claim they get physically ill from stress; 31% have an anxiety disorder diagnosis and 51% struggle to sleep.

• Healthy Young Minds (HYM) is a personalized online Behavioral and Mental Telehealth platform serving 0-21 yrs with anxiety, depression, autism, ADHD, substance abuse, developmental disabilities and many other conditions with a focus on serving the Medicaid population.

  • TAM -  90M+ young people in the USA; Over half (56%) are on Medicaid. Only 1 in 5 who need support receive care from a mental health provider.

  • Team - Paul Graf, CEO & Founder is an exited founder and prior VC. Wolf Shlagman, CTO of HYM is an exited founder (Consult-A-Doctor to Teledoc pre-IPO). 

  • Traction - Achieved $2.5MM+ ARR (63x Rev Rate in last 18 months) with 85% of billings fully covered and reimbursed by Medicaid.

  • Scale  - Launched in Colorado and now opening 6 states in 2024 (CO, TX, FL, OH, GA, CA); 32x contracted TAM to over 13MM+ children.

• Baubap, serves over 1.5 million people, with most earning around $480 usd a month.

• Many of them share a common worry—they're scared of not managing their money well enough to support their families.

• About 60% of our clients have regular jobs, while the other 40% have informal ones, each looking for flexible and understanding financial help.

• Baubap isn’t just another lending app; we're a complete solution aiming to bring real financial freedom through availability, trust, and proper financial guidance.

🍿 Want a Movie for The Weekend?

Watch the Supernova event day recording to see what went down:

🖼 Swipes of the Week

💚 The Kernal Fam

P.S. If you are a founder / VC who wants to speak at our next demo day email [email protected] to shoot your shot