Brendan Fairbanks is the founder and CEO of Perchwell, the modern MLS technology and data platform for residential real estate. A former finance professional who taught himself to code after the 2008 crash, he built Perchwell to bring the quantitative rigor of capital markets to the world's largest asset class. Launched in New York, Perchwell now operates the de facto MLS of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) and is expanding to MLS organizations nationwide. In July 2024 the company raised a $25M Series B led by Lux Capital, bringing total funding to roughly $55M.
SportsManias is a Miami-based digital media company and the self-described leader in animated sports emojis, GIFs, and augmented reality effects. It builds officially licensed emojis and AR filters of pro athletes and their signature celebrations, distributing them across messaging keyboards and platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Google, and GIPHY, while also running a real-time sports news app powered by patent-pending AI. Through partnerships with leagues, players associations, and major brands, the company turns fan passion into shareable, monetizable digital content.
WIT is a New York-based gamification and digital activation platform that helps pro sports teams and Fortune 1000 brands turn casual fans into engaged, identifiable participants. Through a library of 30+ turnkey experiences - giveaways, polls, brackets, vote-to-win, fan maps and fan walls - WIT collects first-party data, sources authentic fan content, fulfills sponsor obligations and drives revenue. Founded in 2018 by Vaidhy Murti, it now powers activations for roughly 100 venues, leagues and teams across the NFL, NHL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, MLS, NWSL and NCAA, plus brands like Coca-Cola and Bud Light.
Sidekick is an AI assistant built for real estate agents and brokerages. It pulls real-time market and property data, runs valuation analyses, drafts marketing copy and contracts, and automates the back-office grunt work, giving agents the equivalent of a virtual assistant at roughly one-tenth the cost.
Mitch Lasky is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital and one of the most successful gaming investors in venture capital history. A Harvard-educated IP lawyer turned game studio executive, he rose through Activision and took mobile gaming startup JAMDAT public before selling it to EA for $680M. At Benchmark he backed Riot Games (~$7M early investment, now $20B+), Snap (led Series A at $70M valuation, IPO'd at $24B), Discord, and dozens of other landmark gaming and consumer internet companies. A five-time Forbes Midas List honoree, LAFC co-owner, and host of the GameCraft podcast, Lasky's career is a master class in recognizing non-obvious founders before the market does.