Archives

Shop Circle - a one-stop-shop software provider for e-commerce brands - recently announced the successful completion of its Series A funding round, raising $120 million. The funding round was led by 645 Ventures and 3VC, with notable participation from previous backers QED Investors and NfX, with the credit facility provided by i80 Group. This funding round was raised through a strategic combination of equity and debt.

Air Street Capital is a VC firm investing in AI-first technology and life science companies. The firm recently announced that it closed a new $121 million fund.

Qualcomm Technologies announced today that it agreed with Apple to supply Snapdragon 5G Modem‑RF Systems for smartphone launches in 2024, 2025, and 2026. And the company said that this agreement reinforces Qualcomm’s track record of sustained leadership across 5G technologies and products.

CLARA Analytics - a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for insurance claims optimization - recently announced its $24 million Series C funding, bringing its total funding to $60 million. This funding round was led by new investor Spring Lake Equity Partners, with participation from existing investors, including Aspen Capital Group, Oak HC/FT, and QBE Ventures.

Open Cosmos – a leading space tech business making satellites that gather data to solve pressing global challenges  – recently announced that it has raised $50 million in Series B funding from three leading impact investors, ETF Partners, Trill Impact, and A&G. The funding round also included Accenture Ventures, Banco Santander InnoEnergy Climate Tech Fund and Claret Capital Partners, with participation from Taavet Hinrikus and Kheng Nam Lee.

The J. M. Smucker Co. (NYSE: SJM) announced today the signing of a definitive agreement to buy Hostess Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ: TWNK) for $34.25 per share in a cash and stock transaction. This deal represents a total enterprise value of approximately $5.6 billion, which includes approximately $900 million of net debt.

Inspirit is the first and only education solution to combine powerful virtual and augmented reality technology (together as XR technology) with Stanford research-based instructional practices. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Inspirit CEO and co-founder Aditya Vishwanath to learn more.

Ibex Medical Analytics - a leader in AI-powered cancer diagnostics - recently announced it has closed a $55 million Series C financing round led by 83North. And additional participants in the round were Sienna Venture Capital and existing investors in the company, Octopus Ventures, aMoon, Planven Entrepreneur Ventures, and Dell Technologies Capital. The round brings total funding to over $100 million since Ibex's inception in 2016.

Qualiti.ai - a Utah-based software test automation solution - recently announced the closing of a $6.5 million seed round. Sierra Ventures led this funding round, with participation from Epic Ventures.

Viome Life Sciences - a longevity company committed to translating scientific advancements into practical and individualized health solutions - recently announced the successful closure of its $86.5 million oversubscribed Series C funding round. The major investors include Khosla Ventures, Bold Capital, WRG Ventures, and other existing and new ones. And the funding round brings Viome's total to $175M and will be used to support research and development and retail expansion efforts.

Google has updated the Google Store website with information about its new flagship smartphone devices: Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. These devices will be available for purchase on October 4, 2023.

SAP SE and LeanIX GmbH recently announced that SAP has entered into an agreement to acquire LeanIX, a leader in enterprise architecture management (EAM) software. The planned deal helps SAP expand its business transformation portfolio, giving customers access to the tools required for continuous business transformation and facilitating AI-enabled process optimization.

FIGUR8 - a leading innovator in the measure of musculoskeletal (MSK) health, has successfully closed a $25 million Series A-1 funding. The funding round was led by First Spark Ventures (FSV) with participation from DigiTx Partners and Phoenix Venture Partners.

Michigan’s Office Of Future Mobility And Electrification (OFME) is building a stronger state economy through safer, more equitable, and environmentally conscious transportation for all Michigan residents. This office works across state government, academia, and private industry to enhance Michigan’s mobility ecosystem, including developing dynamic mobility and electrification policies and supporting the startup and scale-up of emerging technologies and businesses. Michigan's competitive advantages make this state a place where advanced mobility solutions are born, and companies find long-term success and support. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Charlie Tyson, Technology Activation Director at OFME, to learn more.

Advantus Health Partners is a healthcare solutions company that makes the supply chain easier for its clients through streamlined management, organizational purchasing, operations, and cost-savings efficiencies. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Advantus Health Partners president Dan Hurry to learn more. 

Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) - through Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP) and U.S. maritime, energy, and logistics solutions leader Crowley recently announced the creation of a new joint venture to advance offshore wind energy solutions for the U.S.

SportsVisio - a new AI-powered software company bringing image-based deep learning to the sports analytics space - recently announced a $3 million seed round led by Sapphire Sport, a first-of-its-kind early-stage investment platform at the intersection of tech, media, entertainment, and sport. SportsVisio's AI technology is bringing augmented reality to the amateur sports level, allowing players, coaches, and parents to record any game or live event on their smartphone and enabling users to stream live, review statistics, access insightful analytics, and create real-time highlights.

Rockwell Automation - which is the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation - recently announced it has signed a definitive agreement to buy Ontario, Canada-based Clearpath Robotics, a leader in autonomous robotics for industrial applications. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are considered the the next frontier in industrial automation and transformation and this acquisition will supercharge Rockwell’s lead in bringing the Connected Enterprise to life.

Olis Robotics - a remote monitoring, control, and error recovery technology specialist for industrial robots - recently announced that it has raised $4.1 million funding in a round led by PSL Ventures. And additional investors include Tectonic Ventures, Ubiquity Ventures, and several prominent strategic angel investors, including robotics pioneer Daniel Theobald, the President and co-founder of MassRobotics and Founder and Chairman of Vecna Robotics.

Story Protocol - an open infrastructure designed to power a new era of creativity and intellectual property (IP) ownership - announced it has raised more than $54 million in funding led by a16z crypto. The company is creating a new IP protocol optimized for the internet era. and aims to democratize IP creation through a global and extensible IP repository.

Pixxel is a space data company building a constellation of the world’s highest-resolution hyperspectral earth imaging satellites and the analytical tools to mine insights from the data. The images gathered by Pixxel's satellites will provide global coverage every 24 hours and help detect, monitor, and predict global phenomena across agriculture, mining, environment, and energy use cases. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Pixxel CEO and co-founder Awais Ahmed to learn more.

IndustrialNext is a company that is building an autonomous manufacturing ecosystem. The system’s foundations are smart cameras that allow more precise vision-based tasks, which opens the door to a more modular and flexible approach to manufacturing automation. These smart cameras don’t need extensive programming to set up and can handle both classical and deep learning-based computer vision work. Pulse 2.0 interviewed IndustrialNext co-founder and CEO Lukas Pankau to learn more.

Josys - a leading SaaS and Device Management Platform - recently announced a successful Series B funding round of $93 million, bringing the total funding to $125 million. Global Brain and Globis Capital Partners led the round.

d-Matrix - a leader in high-efficiency generative AI computing for data centers - recently announced it has closed $110 million in a Series-B funding round led by Temasek. The goal for this funding round is to enable d-Matrix to begin commercializing Corsair - which is the world’s first Digital-In Memory Compute (DIMC), chiplet-based inference compute platform, after the successful launches of its prior Nighthawk, Jayhawk-I, and Jayhawk II chiplets.

Canadian Solar recently announced that Recurrent Energy, its wholly owned subsidiary for global project development and power services, secured $112 million in project financing for its 160 MW (120 MWac) North Fork Solar project, located 100 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. The project is expected to be operational in 2024.

Smart home energy company dcbel and existing investors Volvo Cars, Coatue, Kevin Mahaffey, and Real Ventures recently announced that they welcomed Idealist Capital following the closing of a successful $50+ million Series B funding round.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a five-year $3 million grant, which will be used to establish a doctoral training program at the University of Missouri to help prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers to work in the emerging fields of materials science and data science and analytics. The program's goal is to empower future workers to be proficient in these subjects, a skillset that is highly desirable in today’s global marketplace.

Otto (formerly TeleVet) - a leading customer engagement platform for veterinary clinics - recently announced a $43 million Series B round of equity financing.