Innovation

Interview With Ariel Taub About This Luxury Fashion And Bridal Brand

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 4, 2024

Ariel Taub is a luxury fashion and bridal accessory brand designed specifically for the modern person who craves elegant and unique pieces. The company’s products include clutches, jewelry, veils, and other couture accessories, which are made with high-quality brilliant-cut crystals and handcrafted in the designer's Michigan-based studio. Pulse 2.0 interviewed the owner of Ariel Taub to learn more about her namesake company.

Outside Interactive Buys MapMyFitness From Under Armour

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Outside Interactive - which is the leading creator of outdoor content, services, events, and experiences, announced the acquisition of MapMyFitness from Under Armour. MapMyFitness is a fitness tracking app that enables users to track their activities using built-in GPS on their mobile devices. This technology includes popular applications like MapMyRide, MapMyRun, and MapMyWalk.

CLEAResult Raises Majority Investment From Kohlberg & Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

CLEAResult, which is North America’s largest energy efficiency, energy transition and energy sustainability services provider, announced a majority investment by funds managed by Kohlberg & Company, a leading U.S. middle market private equity firm with 37 years of experience and an extensive background in the infrastructure services and energy efficiency sectors.

Skycharger: An Interview With COO Johannes Copeland About This EV Charging Leader

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Skycharger is a company that has emerged as a leader in the EV charging space. And the company’s mission is to create environmentally conscious communities where accessibility to EV charging is not a luxury. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Skycharger COO Johannes Copeland to learn more about the company.

Yellow.ai: Empowering Enterprises To Create Memorable Customer Conversations

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Yellow.ai is an AI-first customer service automation company that empowers enterprises to create memorable customer conversations through a generative AI-powered customer service automation platform. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Yellow.ai co-founder and CEO Raghu Ravinutala to learn more about the company.

Halcyon: How This Company Stops Ransomware From Impacting Enterprises

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Grid Status: Electric Grid Platform Secures $8 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Grid Status, a modern data and analytics platform for the electric grid, announced an $8 million funding round led by Energize Capital. The company investors joining the round include Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross (NFDG Ventures), Rayburn Electric Cooperative, Evergreen Climate Innovations, and other individual investors.

Turntable Labs: Social Music Platform Company Raises $8.2 Million (Seed)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Turntable Labs, the company behind the new social music platform Hangout, announced an extended seed round totaling $8.2 million ahead of its public launch. Hangout, which enables music fans, coworkers, and other communities to gather, DJ together, and interact in a playful virtual setting, is expected to go live later this year.

VRGL: Client Acquisition And Investment Proposal Company Raises Strategic Funding

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

VRGL, a Client Acquisition and Investment Proposal Management solution, announced the completion of a strategic fundraising round. The funding round was led by existing investors FINTOP Capital and MissionOG, with significant support from Northwestern Mutual, Flyover Capital, Fin Capital, and other industry insiders and friends of the firm.

Bland AI: Conversational Platform Secures $16 Million (Series A)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Bland AI - a platform automating phone calls for the enterprise using hyper-realistic AI agents - announced it emerged from stealth with a $16 million Series A funding round led by Scale Venture Partners. Other investors include: Y Combinator and angel investors Max Levchin the founder of Paypal, Piotr Dąbkowski the CTO of Eleven Labs CTO, Jeff Lawson the founder of Twilio, and others. With this funding, Bland AI has raised a total of $22 million.

New School Foods: Alt-Protein Company Raises $6 Million (Seed Extension)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

New School Foods has announced the completion of a $6 million Seed Extension round with funding from global investors including Inter IKEA, Good Startup, NewTree Capital and Hatch, building on previously announced non-dilutive capital from Protein Industries Canada.

nOps: AWS Cost Optimization Platform Company Raises $30 Million (Series A)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

nOps, a leading AWS cost optimization platform, announced the closing of a $30 million Series A funding round led by Headlight Partners. nOps is enabling organizations across the globe to solve one of the largest IT challenges of the last decade - which is better understanding, controlling and reducing cloud spend.

Aplantex Closes C$2.8 Million To Extract Plant Molecules From Proprietary Biomasses

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Aplantex, an innovative Quebec-based startup specializing in extracting high-value plant molecules from its proprietary biomass, announces the closing of a $2.8 million CAD round of funding led by Frederick Perrault, with the participation of the Circular Innovation Fund (CIF) through its Acceleration Program, Cycle Momentum, Investissement Québec, and several angel investors. This funding will accelerate the development of the company’s strategic and production plan.

Codeium: AI-Based Code Acceleration Platform Raises $150 Million (Series C) At $1.25 Billion Valuation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Codeium, an AI-based code acceleration platform, announced it has secured $150 million in Series C funding, raising the company's valuation to $1.25 billion and bringing the startup to unicorn status in under two years since being founded. The funding round was led by General Catalyst, with continued support from existing investors Kleiner Perkins and Greenoaks.

Alaska Communications: $390 Million Financing Raised To Expand Statewide Fiber Infrastructure

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Alaska Communications, a provider of mission-critical and life-critical communications infrastructure in Alaska, announced a major financial advancement by establishing a new five-year $390 million senior secured credit facility. These funds will be used for repaying existing debt and to further invest in expanding the company’s fiber infrastructure across the state.

Purdue University Reveals Record-Breaking Growth For The Year

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Since Purdue University created Purdue Innovates in 2023, the system has worked to streamline access and strengthen support for technology commercialization and startup support resources. The goal of providing top-tier resources for entrepreneurial activities in Indiana is paying off.

ScaleVoice: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO Ondrej Kuchta About This AI Communication Solution Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

ScaleVoice is a company that drives business growth through advanced AI-powered communication solutions. Pulse 2.0 interviewed ScaleVoice co-founder and CEO Ondrej Kuchta to learn more about the company.

PhotonPharma: $2.5 Million (Seed) Raised To Develop Ovarian Cancer Treatments

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Fort Collins, Colorado-based biopharmaceutical company PhotonPharma announced the closing of a $2.5 million seed financing round.

The Rounds: Inventory Management Platform Company Raises $24 Million (Series B)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 3, 2024

Inventory management platform company The Rounds - a company that delivers recurring grocery and household essentials in reusable packaging - announced a $24 million Series B funding round led by Moderne Ventures, with participation from FJ Labs and existing investors, bringing the total funding to date to $66 million.

Cassidy: Business Automation Platform Company Raises $3.7 Million (Seed)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 2, 2024

Business automation platform company Cassidy announced $3.7 million in seed funding led by The General Partnership, with participation from Neo, Comma Capital, Spacecadet Ventures, Ride Ventures, and angels like Erik Goldman (Co-founder of Vanta), Jason Dorfman (CEO of Orum), Zach Sims (founder of Codecademy), and other leading angels and operators.

Cribl: IT And Security Management Company Raises $319 Million (Series E) At $3.5 Billion Valuation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 2, 2024

Cribl announced it has closed a $319 million oversubscribed Series E round, comprised of a combined primary and secondary transaction. This brings the company’s total capital secured to over $600 million and increases its valuation to $3.5 billion—up 40% since the company’s Series D round in 2022.

Rise Growth Invests In Bleakley Financial Group

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 2, 2024

Rise Growth Partners—the wealth management industry’s first synergistic financial partner for growth-oriented registered investment advisors (RIAs)—announced an inaugural strategic minority investment in Bleakley Financial Group. Bleakley is a distinguished wealth advisory and financial planning firm with over thirty years of history, whose advisors currently service nearly $10 billion in advisory assets as of June 30.

QuantHealth: $215 Million In Financial Returns And 85% Clinical Trial Accuracy

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 2, 2024

QuantHealth, an AI-based clinical trial design company, announced it has surpassed 100 successfully simulated clinical trials, achieving 85% accuracy and a major return on investment (ROI) for pharmaceutical partners.

Noetik: AI-Based Biotech Company Raises $40 Million (Series A) To Develop Cancer Therapeutics

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 1, 2024

Noetik - an AI-based biotech company leveraging self-supervised machine learning and high-throughput spatial data to develop next-generation cancer therapeutics - announced that it closed an oversubscribed $40 million Series A financing round. This funding was led by Polaris Partners and managing partner Amy Schulman, who will join the board of directors, with participation from new investors Khosla Ventures, Wittington Ventures, and Breakout Ventures.

Onebrief: Military Staff Workflow Platform Company Raises $53 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 1, 2024

Onebrief—a leading software platform for military staff workflows and collaboration—announced the closing of its Series B funding round, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $53 million. Human Capital led this funding round, with participation from 9Yards Capital and Caffeinated Capital.

Skyfire Systems: AI-Based Financial Stack Company Raises $8.5 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 1, 2024

Skyfire Systems has launched the world's first payment network built to enable fully autonomous transactions across AI Agents, LLMs, data platforms, service providers, and other goods and services. The company has also announced $8.5 million in funding from Neuberger Berman, Brevan Howard Digital, Intersection Growth Partners, DRW, Inception Capital, Arrington Capital, RedBeard Ventures, Sfermion, Circle, FBG, Gemini, Crossbeam Venture Partners, EveryRealm, Draper Associates, ARCA, and Ripple.

Cairn Surgical: Breast Cancer Locator Company Raises $4.5 Million (Series A2)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Sep 1, 2024

Cairn Surgical - an innovative medical technology company aiming to make breast cancer surgery more precise - announced that it has closed $4.5 million in a Series A2 financing led by Morningside Ventures.

Buzz Solutions: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO Kaitlyn Albertoli About Their AI-Powered Power Utility Infrastructure Inspection Solution

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 30, 2024

PuriFire Energy: Green Hydrogen And Methanol Solutions Company Secures £2.7 Million (Seed)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 30, 2024

PuriFire Energy announced it had closed a £2.7 million (US$3.5 million) seed round investment led by HICO Investment Group with participation from Bulnes Capital, R&R Investments, and Abhishek Desai.

Echelon: Decentralized Lending Protocol Company Secures $3.5 Million (Seed) Funding

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 30, 2024

Decentralized lending protocol Echelon announced it has secured seed funding to advance DeFi lending on Move-based blockchains. This funding round was led by Amber Group, with participation from strategic partners including Laser Digital, Saison Capital, Selini Capital, Interop Ventures, and Re7. Echelon aims to offer high-performance markets integrated with other DeFi applications and real-world assets (RWAs).