# Joey Katzen

> Joey Katzen is a pre-seed investor in Honolulu backing SaaS, Software and EdTech. See 10 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Location: Honolulu, United States
- Total investments: 10
- Last investment: Apr 2025
- Lead investor: 10%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joeykatzen
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joey.katzen

Joey Katzen is an entrepreneur and attorney whose expertise has been instrumental in the founding, growth, and exit of multiple Inc-500 companies.He is a volunteer Lead Mentor at Hawaii-based Blue Startups and a Selection Committee member of Honolulu-based Hawaii Angels.A storyteller by trade, he now spends much of his time helpingentrepreneurs distill new or difficult concepts into readily accessible verbal and visual stories that others can’t say no to.Whether for a fundraising deck, a sales pitch, or product and onboarding conceptualization, Joey's process is aided by his varied background in angel investing, law, marketing, product development, engineering, and visual design.While earning his law degree at the University of Virginia, Joey was a member of the founding team of Atlanta-based Vendormate, a healthcare compliance platform later acquired by Cleveland-based Primus Capital and then Louisville-based GHX, Inc. He went on to serve as interim CEO of DC-based Roomtag, a commercial leasing and space-optimization tech suite later acquired by Austin-based Asure Software. Later, he cofounded Atlanta-based KidsLink, a child-management app for parents.His first claims to fame came while attending Georgia Tech in the 2000s when he founded--and promoted with early gonzo marketing--the university-oriented web portal Walksideways.com, visited weekly by a third of the Georgia Tech student body, and developed the Retail Alphabet Game, an early Internet branding puzzle which appeared in the New York Times, National Post, Detroit Free Press, and Christian Science Monitor.Let's build some FOMO.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| SaaS | 3 | 30% |
| Software | 3 | 30% |
| EdTech | 1 | 10% |
| Events | 1 | 10% |
| Content | 1 | 10% |

28 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pre-Seed | 5 | 50% |
| Seed | 3 | 30% |
| Series C | 1 | 10% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 10% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 9 | 90% |
| Puerto Rico | 1 | 10% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Thrive Smart Systems | Thrive Smart Systems develops and sells wireless irrigation systems for agricultural, residential, and commercial buildings. | $1M |  | Apr 14, 2025 |  |
| Quibble | Price Optimization and Revenue Management Software and Consulting For Vacation Rentals & Alternative Accommodations - We created Quibble to address the gap in the market between the simple rules-based software applications currently available and a truly science-based optimization. Quibble bundles our software with a full service offering togive our clients complete Pricing Ease of Mind. With many years of revenue management experience in the travel and hospitality industries, we know the pains and uncertainty revenue management brings. At Quibble, we aim to increase your revenue performance by engineering and implementing your custom pricing strategy while developing long-lasting partnerships. |  | Pre-Seed | Apr 01, 2023 |  |
| Turno, formerly TurnoverBnB | TurnoverBnB is a operator of an online platform intended to allow hosts to find local cleaners for their short-term rental cleaning. The company's software allows users to connect with their existing Airbnb and VRBO calendars to automatically schedule their cleaners via SMS and email, enabling users to hire and pay housekeepers conveniently. |  | Seed | May 10, 2019 |  |
| ClassCalc | Students can use their smartphones instead of using or buying a TI calculator, and teachers can ensure they only use the ClassCalc calculator app in class. We believe students and teachers should have a choice other than the same expensive, difficult to learn and use dedicated-purpose TI calculator they have been forced to use for decades.ClassCalc provides a multi-subject math calculator with scientific, graphing, and matrix functionality in an easy-to-use smartphone app. Teachers are able to lock down the student’s phone to only the ClassCalc app for class time, quizzes, tests… no cheating or outside distractions (social media, texting etc). |  | Pre-Seed | Jan 01, 2019 |  |
| Instant Teams | Instant Teams is a remote-first, tech-enabled solution building high-quality customer support and operational teams. Our remote teams are built with military spouses and underserved talent communities enabling 24/7 support around the globe.Our technology platform, Arti, solves two major problems in the customer support industry - gettinghigh-quality talent and retaining talent after they are onboarded with built-in workforce development. With remote work and people first best practices and HR automation, Instant Teams is a plug-and-play B2B enterprise solution for scaling and managing support operations. Customers include Walmart, Amazon, CrowdStrike, Assurance, SeeSaw, and more. |  | Pre-Seed | Dec 22, 2018 |  |
| Dataplor | Dataplor is a location intelligence platform provider that connects businesses with an on-demand mobile workforce. The platform offers real-time data verification, augmentation, and market research on local firms using machine learning and artificial intelligence models, allowing clients to alter their collecting requirements readily. | $765K | Pre-Seed | Jul 01, 2018 |  |
| Tropical Smoothie Cafe | Tropical Smoothie Cafe’s menu boasts bold, flavorful smoothies with a healthy appeal, all made-to-order from the freshest ingredients. they find that superior, simple ingredients including real fruits and veggies just tastes better. Their toasted wraps, sandwiches, flatbreads and bowls are made fresh with quality meats and cheeses, fresh produceand flavorful sauces. It started on a beach in Florida. The calm gulf waters, friends enjoying games in the sand and a need for replenishment from the warm Florida sun. They started by blending fruit and vegetables together to create unique and refreshing smoothies. And customers lined up for their tasty creations. |  | Seed | Nov 03, 2014 |  |
| 2080 Media | 2080 Media, Inc. operates as a digital media company. It focuses on the production and distribution of broadband content, as well as untelevised live sporting events. 2080 Media, Inc. was incorporated in 2008 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. | $7.2M | Series C | Sep 06, 2011 |  |
| CodeGuard | CodeGuard provides website backup, monitoring, and malware remediation services to small and medium businesses. As anyone who has ever tried to recover a crashed or hacked website can attest, the "back-up" systems of many web hosting providers leave a lot to be desired. The back-ups sound reassuring in theory--you are assured thatyour data is always "backed-up" on a system that is completely separate from the main one and that you'll be able to access it whenever you need it. When disaster strikes, your site has been hacked or your developer make a simple mistake, you often discover that your backup is hard to access, out-of-date or has been affected by the same event.CodeGuard is unlike ISP-based-backups. Instead of a static snapshot of your site kept by your ISP (hopefully), we use a File Integrity Monitoring system built on a version control system and store site data in the cloud. CodeGuard backups are stored as the differential between each daily scan of the site; allowing users visibility into what has changed along with the ability to undo changes on their site and restore to a past version in real time, much like Time Machine for Apple OS does for your laptop. If the current backup solutions for webmasters are lackluster, then the systems that alert webmasters if their site has been hacked are absolutely appalling. Webmasters discover they have been hacked because traffic suddenly disappears, they see a warning message on Google when searching for themselves, or they get an email from a customer complaining about strange behavior. CodeGuard's differential backup approach revolutionizes hacking detection and remediation. Rather than relying solely upon site scans and comparisons with known threats, we scan files that have been modified since our last backup This allows us to identify hacking and alert the site owner before they can spread malware, have their links pirated or act as a parasitic host for spammers--and before safe browsing alerts quarantines the site and kills all of the traffic. In the event a hack or an unauthorized change is detected, webmasters can quickly revert to the last known good version and have their site working in minutes without engaging a developer to remediate the issue. | $500K | Seed | Jun 02, 2011 |  |
| Vendormate | Vendormate, Inc. is a 3rd-party vendor credentialing firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.Primarily geared toward the healthcare market, Vendormate is retained by other organizations with the need to keep track of and screen their suppliers, vendors, and contractors in a centralized database. When retained by a hospital or other companypartnered with Vendormate, vendors and contractors who do business with that hospital must register online with their contact, legal, and financial information. Vendormate then conducts background checks, financial screening, and compliance/document monitoring on behalf of the Vendormate-partnered hospital or firm.[1] |  | Pre-Seed | Aug 01, 2005 |  |

10 of 10 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Blue Startups](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/blue-startups) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [BIP Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/buckhead-investment-partners) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [ff Venture Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ff-venture-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [GoAhead Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/goahead-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Imlay Investments](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/imlay-investments) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Plumus](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/plumus) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

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## FAQ

### What does Joey Katzen invest in?

Joey Katzen invests primarily in SaaS, Software and EdTech startups, most often at Pre-Seed and Seed stage. Most of the 10 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Joey Katzen last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Joey Katzen closed in Apr 2025. Shizune tracks 10 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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