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TechCrunch

Freada and Mitch Kapor are ‘stepping back’ from Kapor Capital

Kapor Capital co-founders Freada and Mitch Kapor are stepping back from the venture capital firm they launched over a decade ago. In a blog post announcing the news, the Kapor’s say that Uriridiakoghene “Ulili” Onovakpuri and Brian Dixon will be the new managing partners at the firm — which focuses on funding social impact ventures and founders of color.

“As a social impact investing firm with very specific criteria, Kapor Capital is excited to foster the next generation of our leadership,” the Kapor family said. “We’ve realized tremendous value from having varied perspectives, lived experiences and distance traveled in our partnership. That tradition will persist with Brian and Ulili.” Read more.

TechCrunch

BlocPower wants to evict fossil fuels one building at a time

BlocPower founder Donnel Baird grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn in the 1980s. The area was so poor that buildings often lacked decent heating systems. People would turn on the stove or use electric heaters to compensate for ineffective central heating.

It wasn’t safe or efficient, but it was reality for many families, most of whom were Black, living in these deficient buildings at the time. Baird says that the sense of inequity and inequality of the situation stuck with him. When he grew up, he recognized that the problem persisted in many poorer neighborhoods, impacting quality of life for the people living there as well as harming the broader environment. Read more.

Healthcare IT Today

Curve Health Raises $12M in Oversubscribed Series A

Curve Health today announced a $12M Series A financing round led by Morningside Ventures with participation from Alumni Ventures and Recover-Care Healthcare, as well as returning investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, IDEO, Inflect Health, Correlation Ventures, Rosecliff Venture Partners, Kapor Capital, WTI, and angel investor Ben Jealous.

Curve Health delivers an award-winning care enablement platform that allows patients and providers to connect beyond the four walls of a facility. The Curve solution includes telemedicine, health information exchange, data and predictive analytics, and billing integrations that enable 1) patients to avoid unnecessary trips to the hospital, 2) providers to have a one-of-a-kind user experience, and 3) skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), healthcare systems, and provider groups to improve their bottom line. Read more.

CNBC

Microsoft and Jeff Bezos are backing this start-up that aims to retrofit millions of old buildings with ‘green’ energy

In a four-story apartment building in Brooklyn, New York, a very small company is implementing a very big idea: Electrify every building in the United States by leasing landlords the necessary equipment to make the transition.

BlocPower is a Brooklyn-based start-up that has “greened” more than 1,200 buildings in New York City and has similar projects in two dozen other cities. It uses a lease-to-own platform, offering landlords and homeowners green heating and cooling systems, electric appliances and solar panels. It installs the equipment and manages its upkeep. Landlords make monthly payments that cover those costs and offer returns to investors. Read more.