Keye 🗝

Setting the Scene

• Subscriptions for premium tools and content are not cheap. 💳

  • MasterClass costs $120/year.

  • Grammarly costs $180/year.

  • Crunchbase costs $600/year.

  • Don’t even get us started on PitchBook… 💰

• While some people create dozens of email addresses for free 1-week trials, many consumers, freelancers, and businesses spend thousands per year on productivity tools.

• This week’s company provides access to premium tools through a single affordable subscription.

In a Sentence

Keye offers access to tools and content through a single subscription.

• Access: Users are given monthly credits to unlock one-day access to paywalled platforms.

• Tools and content: Keye offers products across several workflows, including data (Crunchbase, CB Insights), information (TechCrunch, Fortune), productivity (Grammarly, Loom), and learning (MasterClass, Perlego, Codecademy).

The Basics

• Industry: Business productivity tool, Freelancer economy, SaaS

• Headquarters: NYC 🗽

• Year founded: 2022

• Employee count: 2 FTEs & 3 independent contractors

• Investors: Plug and Play Ventures, ERA, Commonvest

• Amount raised: $300k

• Entry market: Independent workers

• Currently raising: $2m

• Business model: Tiered subscriptions ($19/mo or $79/mo), revenue share with platforms

• Early traction: 35 content partners in its first year, 10k users, 4.3 sessions per week, 45-60% profit margin

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

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Due Diligence

WHAT WE LIKE

• 👩‍💻 Fueling freelancers: Independent workers make up roughly one-third of the workforce, and they face high enterprise software costs despite using the products less frequently.

  • Keye provides flexible access at an affordable price while offering products that users may never have considered.

• 💰 Recovering revenue: Content and enterprise software providers struggle to reach independent users, and Keye supports them through revenue share, usage data, and access to future users.

• 🏢 Unlocking B2B: While Keye initially targets the 60 million global independent workers, the company plans to sell to enterprise teams underutilizing their software subscriptions.

POTENTIAL RISKS

• 🌎 Partner dependent: The company must close high-demand partnerships to attract and retain users and cater to a broad end market.

  • Keye may also face long and complicated processes to close partnerships.

• 🔓 Product usage: The company relies on users consistently engaging with a variety of products to meet partner expectations, maintain power in negotiating contracts, and attract new partners.

• ⏱ Innovative pricing models: Many SaaS companies are adopting usage-based pricing to offer products at an accessible price, which may challenge Keye’s ability to close some partners and convert customers.

Founder Profile

• Rohan Parikh, CEO: Recent Wharton MBA graduate and previously worked as a trader at Natixis and a technology consultant at Accenture.

• Paolo Fornasini, COO: Recent Wharton MBA graduate and previously worked in corporate strategy at McKinsey and Business Development at Google.

Comps

• Zette: Backed by Afore Capital, Halogen Ventures, and others.

• NICKLpass: Backed by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures and Techstars.

• Blendle: Backed by Inkef, The New York Times, and others.

📌 Bulletin Board

• 🍩 No-nonsense news: Cut through the noise with THE DONUT, a free newsletter that provides quick, engaging, and jargon-free news and updates to stay informed.

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• 🍿 Keeping up with past features: Last July, we featured beehiiv, a newsletter platform for creators and brands.

  • The company hit $3 million in ARR and raised a $12.5 million seed from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

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Last Week Today

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• Subscriber feedback: “The product would be super beneficial to those new to the creative industry or with no background knowledge on the legal side of things.”

✍️ Written by Brett and Sam

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