Venture capitalist Emily Melton still remembers the day Jacob Sattelmair, founder of Wellframe, showed up with his pitch to persuade her firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, to invest in his start-up.

"He looked like he had been in a bar fight," Melton said. "His eye had been sealed shut." "Don't worry. It's not contagious," Sattelmair told her when he saw her expression, explaining that he had an eye infection.