Ureeka

Ureeka operated a membership community and marketplace that connected small and mid-sized business owners — with an explicit focus on underrepresented and non-coastal entrepreneurs — to mentors, paid coaches, peers and vetted service specialists. Members could post questions and receive answers from a mentor or coach, typically within two hours, and could also access on-demand webinar content, shared best practices and a proprietary growth framework. The platform used a social-network-style interface in which members maintained profiles, interacted with one another and sourced providers through a curated marketplace; it also hosted live and virtual pitch competitions, including a program called Ureeka Connect that introduced members to investors.

Mentors contributed their time without charge and included current and former employees of Facebook, Snap, Salesforce, Google, Adobe, Twitter, Amazon and Shopify; coaches were paid contractors with entrepreneurial or industry backgrounds. Ureeka additionally ran a vendor partnership program under which corporate vendors provided a dedicated communication channel to the community, and negotiated rates on behalf of its member base. In 2020 the company was selected to administer small-business grant programs for Facebook and Salesforce.

Following the September 2022 acquisition by ZenBusiness, the ureeka.biz domain presents ZenBusiness's offering: an online service for forming LLCs, S-Corps and C-Corps, with registered agent service, EIN and operating agreement preparation, compliance alerts and filings, domain and website tools, small business banking, bookkeeping and tax filing, guided by an AI assistant branded Velo.

Founding story

The three co-founders — David Jakubowski, Melissa Bradley and Rob Gatto — met while judging a pitch competition in Michigan and found a shared interest in the obstacles facing small business owners, particularly underrepresented founders. They concluded that angel investing and board service were not creating sufficient impact, and after studying patterns in what made businesses succeed, they identified access to the right people as the recurring gap and built a technology platform to provide it. Jakubowski had previously been Head of Data & Analytics, Emerging Business & Partnerships at Facebook; Bradley was Managing Director of Project 500, an adjunct professor at Georgetown's business school and a presidential appointee under Presidents Clinton and Obama; Gatto had held leadership roles at technology firms.

Business model

Ureeka ran a for-profit membership model, charging roughly $200 per year for access to the community, mentors and content, with a premium tier at about $3,000 per year that added a dedicated coach and two hours of one-to-one video time per month. The company said it took a margin of less than 15 percent, and it waived fees for businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic through 2020. It also generated activity through a curated marketplace of vetted service specialists and a vendor partnership program. Under ZenBusiness, the ureeka.biz offering is priced as packages starting at $0 plus state filing fees, with paid Pro and Premium tiers adding faster filing, EIN, registered agent and ongoing compliance services, plus add-on services for accounting, bookkeeping, taxes and marketing.

Subscription membership fees (approximately $200 per year standard, $3,000 per year with a dedicated coach), with the company retaining under 15 percent margin on marketplace-style services. The post-acquisition ZenBusiness product on the domain sells tiered formation packages starting at $0 plus state fees and recurring services including registered agent, compliance filings, bookkeeping and tax filing.

Traction

At the time of its 2020 funding, Ureeka reported thousands of community members and more than 200 mentors on the platform, with members in its Grow Customer Program reporting more than 2x overall revenue lift and 80 percent seeing at least a 50 percent lift. The platform was described as fast-growing and highly engaged while still in beta in April 2020. The ZenBusiness platform now operating at ureeka.biz cites more than 950,000 businesses formed, a 4.8 Trustpilot score across 32,254 reviews, an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, support in all 50 states, and $3 million in sponsorships and grants since 2021.

Latest developments

ZenBusiness acquired Ureeka on September 30, 2022, and Chicago Ventures lists its 2020 seed investment as exited. The ureeka.biz domain now hosts ZenBusiness's business formation and management offering built around the Velo AI guide, covering entity formation, registered agent service, compliance filings, banking, bookkeeping and tax services.