Innovation

Vertice: Spend Optimization Company Raises $50 Million (Series C)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Spend optimization platform Vertice announced $50 million in Series C funding led by Lakestar. This funding has raised the total to over $100 million. And additional participants include Perpetual Growth and CF Private Equity, along with existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and 83North.

Keystone Education: €100 Million Bond Raised For Driving Expansion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Keystone Education Group, a leader in student recruitment, announced it has completed a first four-year senior secured bond issue of €100 million, further fueling ongoing expansion and growth.

Brookfield Buying Divvy Homes’ Portfolio & Platform For About $1 Billion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Divvy Homes, a leader in the property-technology industry, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement where a Brookfield private real estate fund will buy Divvy Homes’ property portfolio and platform for a total consideration of approximately $1 billion. And Maymont Homes, Brookfield’s single-family home rental business, will manage the portfolio.

Belfry: $12 Million (Series A) Raised For Accelerating Growth

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Belfry Software, a platform for physical security providers, announced it raised $12 million in a Series A funding round, bringing Belfry's total funding to $20 million. And the funding was led by Base10 Partners with continued support from existing investors Bienville Capital and Aglaé Ventures.

Lindus Health: $55 Million (Series B) Closed For Changing Clinical Trial Landscape

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Lindus Health, which is the anti-CRO running faster and more reliable clinical trials, announced it raised $55 million in Series B funding. The funding round was led by new investor Balderton Capital, with support from Visionaries Club and existing investors Creandum, Firstminute, and Seedcamp.

Databricks: $15 Billion (Series J) Raised At $62 Billion Valuation For Expansion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Data and AI company Databricks announced the final closing of its Series J funding. Existing investor QIA, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, along with new investors, including Temasek and entities administered by Macquarie Capital, participated in the funding round - which values the company at $62 billion. Plus, Meta has joined as a new strategic investor.

Upward Health: $12.5 Million Raised From Trinity Capital

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Trinity Capital, a leading alternative asset manager, announced the commitment of $12.5 million in growth capital to Upward Health, an in-home, multidisciplinary medical group providing 24/7 whole-person care.

Angel Kids AI: Interview With Co-Founder & COO Josh Thurman About The Safe AI-Based Browser

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Angel Kids AI is a new way for children to interact with the digital world. With Angel’s unique AI technology, content is customized to ensure all online interactions are age-appropriate. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Angel Kids AI co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Josh Thurman to learn more about the company.

Origen: Limestone-Based Carbon Removal Company Secures $13 Million (Series A)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Origen Power Limited, a growing limestone-based carbon removal provider, announced that it had secured $13 million in Series A funding led by Barclays Climate Ventures. And Shell Ventures, Exascale Fund, Elemental Impact, and Hatch also participated in the round.

StreamNative: Interview With Co-Founder & CEO Sijie Guo About The Event Streaming Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

StreamNative offers fully managed cloud-native event streaming and messaging powered by Apache Pulsar. Pulse 2.0 interviewed StreamNative co-founder and CEO Sijie Guo to learn more about the company.

GT Medical Technologies: $37 Million (Series D) Raised For Improving Lives Of Patients With Brain Tumors

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

GT Medical Technologies - a medical device company that aims to improve patients' lives with brain tumors - announced that the company has completed the $37 million first close of a Series D funding round.

Prophecy: Data Copilot Company Secures $47 Million (Series B Extension)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Data copilot company Prophecy announced a $47 million Series B extension to accelerate the AI-powered transformation of the data integration market. Smith Point Capital led the round, with HSBC joining as a new investor and participation from existing investors including Berkeley SkyDeck, DallasVC, Insight Partners, JPMorgan Chase and SignalFire. This new funding comes from 3.5 times revenue growth in FY'24 with 160% net revenue retention from existing customers.

Moment Energy: $15 Million (Series A) Secured To Build Second-Life Gigafactory In The U.S.

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Moment Energy, which is one of North America's leading EV battery repurposing companies, announced the closing of a $15 million Series A funding round. The Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures co-led the funding round. Along with Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures, this funding round received participation from In-Q-Tel (IQT), Version One Ventures, Overture Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, Fika Ventures, MCJ, One Small Planet, and Climate Capital.

Netflix Exceeds 300 Million Subscribers

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Netflix announced it added a record 18.9 million subscribers for the holiday quarter. With this increase in subscribers, Netflix’s global subscriber base is now more than 300 million. Including extra member accounts, Netflix said that its global audience is higher than 700 million.

CBRE Group To Buy Industrious

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

CBRE Group announced a definitive agreement to acquire Industrious National Management Company, a leading provider of flexible workplace solutions. CBRE will create a new business segment called Building Operations & Experience (BOE) in connection with the acquisition. This new segment will combine building operations, workplace experience, and property management, positioning CBRE to deliver scalable and future-ready solutions for offices, data centers, warehouses, and other facilities. The deal is expected to close later this month.

Quai Network: Interview With Co-Founder Alan Orwick About The Scalable Multichain Blockchain Infrastructure Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Quai Network is crypto for the global and computing economies. And Quai is the only fully scalable and smart contract enabled Proof-of-Work Layer-1. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Quai Network co-founder Alan Orwick to learn more about the company.

Kyle David Group Buying Kennedy & Associates

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

The Kyle David Group (KDG), a professional services firm specializing in technology, accounting, and strategy for small to mid-sized organizations, announced it has completed its asset acquisition of Kennedy & Associates, Certified Public Accountants. This move significantly enhances KDG's portfolio in small to midsized business tax, managed accounting, and fractional CFO services.

TeamBridge: Interview With Co-Founder & Co-CEO Arjun Vora About The Process Automation Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

TeamBridge is a company that helps teams unlock their potential by organizing their process in one place, then automating it like never before possible. Pulse 2.0 interviewed TeamBridge co-founder and co-CEO, Arjun Vora, to learn more about the company.

Insight Partners: $12.5 Billion Closed For Investing In Software Leaders

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

Global software venture firm Insight Partners announced the closing of its thirteenth flagship fund with a dedicated buyout co-invest fund (Fund XIII) and the closing of its structured equity fund, Opportunities Fund II. These funds represent $12.5 billion in capital for deploying in leading software companies across the globe to support growth at any stage. Insight's investment strategies saw strong support from both long-standing and notable new investors, with Insight's employees representing the most significant aggregate commitment to the funds. And the closing of these new funds brings Insight Partners' regulatory assets under management to over $90 billion. It marks a notable milestone in the firm's 30-year history of scaling transformative software companies worldwide.

Trump Administration Announces $500 Billion Stargate AI Project

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 22, 2025

President Donald Trump has announced a private sector investment of up to $500 billion for building artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure with the goal of staying competitive against rival nations in technological advances. This joint venture is called Stargate and the goal is to build data centers while also creating over 100,000 jobs in the U.S.

Dfns: $16 Million (Series A) Raised For Expanding Crypto Wallet Infrastructure

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Dfns - a leading wallet-as-a-service platform for crypto assets - announced it closed a $16 million Series A, led by Further Ventures (the venture arm of Abu Dhabi’s largest sovereign wealth fund ADQ). This funding round also included participation from investors such as White Star Capital, Hashed, Semantic, Techstars, and Bpifrance, alongside new backers including Motive Partners, Wintermute, and Motier Ventures.

Thoras.ai: Reliability Platform Company Raises $5 Million (Seed)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Thoras.ai announced the closing of a $5 million seed funding round led by Wellington Ventures, with participation from Sinewave Ventures, Focal Ventures, Storytime Capital, and other strategic investors. And this new funding will enable Thoras to scale its AI-driven platform.

Harbinger: Medium-Duty EV Company Secures $100 Million (Series B)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Harbinger - a leading medium-duty electric vehicle (EV) company - announced it has raised $100 million in Series B funds. The funding round was co-led by Capricorn's Technology Impact Fund (a part of the VC firm with $10 billion under management and investments in leading electrification companies) and Leitmotif (a new U.S. venture capital firm anchored by European industrial interests). The Series B round also includes a significant additional investment from leading investment firm Tiger Global and continued support from other return investors, including The Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, managed by Greycroft; ArcTern Ventures, a prominent climate tech investment firm; THOR Industries and its investment partner TechNexus; as well as continuing investments by Ridgeline, Maniv Mobility, Ironspring Ventures, Schematic Ventures, and Overture Climate.

Lady Technologies: Women’s Health Company Raises $6.5 Million (Series A)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Lady Technologies announced it secured $6.5 million in Series A, led by Relentless Consumer Partners, to put cervical mucus at the forefront of women's health and build a vaginal health platform. And Lady Technologies' first product, kegg is a fertility tracker and pelvic floor trainer that analyzes vaginal data by measuring changes in cervical mucus to identify women's full fertile windows.

Value Added Distributors Raises Funding From Rotunda Capital

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Rotunda Capital Partners announced it has invested in Value Added Distributors (VAD) in partnership with the existing owners and management team. Founded in 1995 and based in Shawano, WI, VAD is a distributor of hoses, tubes, seals, couplings, and related products to specialty vehicle OEMs and other mobile fluid power users. VAD operates out of 17 facilities across the Midwest and Southern US and provides highly value-added services like custom fabrication, assembly, kitting, and vendor-managed inventory solutions.

Gravity: $13 Million (Series A) Raised For Accelerating Energy Optimization

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Gravity, a leading enterprise carbon accounting and energy management platform, announced a $13 million Series A funding round, bringing the company's total funding to over $20 million. The funding round was led by Ansa Capital, with participation from existing investors Eclipse, Hanover, and Caffeinated Capital, along with new investors Communitas Capital, Buoyant Ventures, and WEX Venture Capital. Marco DeMeireles, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Ansa Capital will join Gravity's board of directors as part of the funding round.

LeapXpert: Business Communication Company Raises $20 Million (Series B)

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

LeapXpert, a business communication pioneer, has secured $20 million in Series B funding. This funding round was led by Portage, with participation from existing investors, including Rockefeller Asset Management, Uncorrelated Ventures, and the Partnership Fund for New York City.

Cyngn: $33 Million Raised For Scaling Customer Deployments

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Cyngn announced that it has raised $33 million in funding. This funding positions the company to accelerate its growth and deliver on its mission to proliferate industrial autonomous vehicles. And Cyngn enters this year with strong momentum, utilizing its latest financing to scale production and deployment of autonomous industrial vehicles.

Percipio: AI-Based Population Health Monitoring Platform Raises $20 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Percipio Health, a population health monitoring and management platform that is scalable across rising and high-risk categories, announced its official launch and $20 million raised to date with the closing of its series A, from investors including UPMC Enterprises, WAVE Ventures, Labcorp, and First Trust Capital Partners.

Micron Biomedical: $2 Million BARDA Competition Prize Received

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 21, 2025

Micron Biomedical, a life science company developing the world’s first needle-free technology for drugs and vaccines that is based on dissolvable microarrays, announced the company won the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) Patch Forward competition and presented at an event during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and Biotech Showcase in San Francisco.