Archives

TXSE Group announced that it plans to launch the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), based in Dallas. And TXSE will focus on enabling U.S. and global companies to access U.S. equity capital markets and will provide a venue to trade and list public companies and the growing universe of exchange-traded products. TXSE will be a fully electronic and national securities exchange that will seek registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

TraceAir, a leading provider of site intelligence software for homebuilders and land developers, announced a $25 million Series B funding round led by PeakSpan Capital, with participation from Flashpoint Venture Capital and other existing investors. TraceAir offers builders and developers a visual/collaborative construction management platform that empowers businesses with data-driven insights to lower costs, improve efficiency, and reduce the risk of errors and delays.

Relay, a business banking platform that provides small businesses (SMBs) with cash flow clarity, announced the closing of a US$32.2 million Series B financing round, led by Bain Capital Ventures. This brings Relay's total funding to $51.6 million.

Unchained and the University of Austin (UATX) announced a collaboration to create the first long-term endowment holding in Bitcoin. These organizations are committed to raising $5 million in Bitcoin for the University’s long-term endowment; the proceeds from which the University has committed will remain in Bitcoin for a minimum of five years.

Kirkland & Ellis announced that Michael Urschel has joined the firm as a partner in the Debt Finance Group, where he will lead its Structured Finance & Structured Private Credit Practice.

Pennybacker Capital Management, a real assets investment manager, announced the final closing of its sixth value opportunity series fund, Pennybacker VI, LP (Fund VI), which exceeded its target with $1.6 billion in capital commitments.

Inventive, a company building embedded AI for SaaS products, announced its official launch and the closing of a $6.5 million seed funding round led by Wing VC, with participation from Tokyo Black and an angel investors group led by founders and former Google and Meta executives. This funding round will go toward advancing the Inventive platform for product teams who need to efficiently deliver valuable AI-powered experiences in their customer-facing software products.

Wealth Enhancement Group, a national independent wealth management firm with over $81.5 billion in client assets, announced that it will join forces with The Financial Advisory Group, LLC, an independent RIA in Houston, Texas. The team of seven financial advisors and 14 support team members manages over $1.22 billion in client assets and is led by founder, Richard J. Alphonso, J.D., CPA/PFS, M.S.T., AEP.

Rockbridge Growth Equity, a partnership-oriented middle market private equity firm with a differentiated approach to building and growing companies, announced that it has made a majority investment in Vici Media, a provider of white label digital marketing and advertising solutions. The terms of the transaction were undisclosed.

SmartPM Technologies, a company that builds automated project controls for construction, announced the successful closing of a $5.5 million Series A funding round. This milestone, led by investors Building Ventures, with participation from GS Futures and existing investors The Nemetschek Group, marks a pivotal moment in SmartPM's journey of innovation and market expansion.

Matter Bio, a biotech company focused on preserving genome integrity and extending a healthy human lifespan, announced the successful closing of its seed round funding and raised $7 million to advance its work in longevity research.

Vantage Data Centers (a leading global provider of hyperscale data center campuses) announced that it has raised £600 million in securitized term notes, marking the first-ever securitization of data center assets in EMEA. The deal includes an additional £100 million in unfunded Variable Funding Notes. The term notes are rated A-, A (low), and A by Standard & Poor’s, Morningstar DBRS, and Scope Ratings, respectively.

Mozilla, the organization behind the popular Firefox browser, announced it launched its inaugural Mozilla Builders Accelerator, a 12-week program designed to support innovative projects that advance AI development and need funding to reach the next level. The selected projects can receive up to $100,000 in funding.

GoComet is an AI-Powered Transportation Management Platform. The company is transforming the $40 billion international logistics space by utilizing the power of data science and progressive machine intelligence to simplify end-to-end logistics and ensure transparency in business. Pulse 2.0 interviewed GoComet CEO Gautam Prem Jain to learn more about the company.

WndrCo, a multi-stage holding company and technology investment firm that is transforming how people live and work, announced the closing of over $460 million in new capital. The firm’s new Seed and Venture funds - which marks the expansion of WndrCo’s venture capital arm - will target high-potential companies solving big problems across the future of work, consumer technology, cybersecurity, and developer infrastructure.

CVC Credit, a $43 billion global credit management business of CVC, announced that it has successfully priced Apidos XLVIII (48), a new $500 million (c.€460 million) Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO).

Renovus Capital Partners, a Philadelphia-based investment firm, announced that it has hired seasoned private equity professional Gary Tang as Principal. Tang will focus on expanding Renovus’ healthcare services investment vertical.

Hoop, a to-do list that updates itself, announced $5 million in seed funding, led by Index Ventures, with participation from Origin Ventures, Divergent Capital, and Chingona Ventures. The company’s team (who met as early employees at Trello) will use the funding to deepen Hoop’s AI capabilities, expand its platform integrations, and develop collaborative features. Hoop is currently available to individuals, but will soon launch a version for teams.

Dresser Utility Solutions (a leading provider of global infrastructure technology for the energy transition including measurement, instrumentation, coupling and repair, pressure and flow control solutions to water and gas utility and industrial customers, and a portfolio company of First Reserve) announced it has secured a $335 million credit facility from funds managed by Blue Owl Capital's Credit platform.

Mint Blockchain, the Ethereum L2 network for NFT industry, completed a US$5 million seed funding round joined by Jsquare, SNZ Capital, Antalpha Ventures, Mask Network, BlockAI Ventures, Predator Capital, GoPlus, Whitelist Ventures, PANONY Group, and individual investors Victor, founder of Smart Token Labs, and Mike, founder of GoPlus. And this funding round will be used for Mint Blockchain's global market brand building and NFT infrastructure development.

Ardian, a leading private investment house, announced that it had raised €530 million for its third-generation Growth platform, Ardian Growth Fund III. The fund closed above the €500 million target size and more than doubled in size compared to the previous generation, which closed at €230 million in 2018.

AI governance and privacy solutions company Zendata emerged from stealth and raised $2 million in funding to transform how security teams manage data and security. The seed funding round was led by PayPal Ventures, First-hand Alliance (operated by Salesforce Alumni), Geek Ventures, and Altari Ventures.

Leading global investment firm KKR announced that a fund managed by KKR has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Agiloft, a trusted global leader in data-first contract lifecycle management (CLM). As part of the deal, FTV Capital (a sector-focused growth equity firm and an existing investor in Agiloft) will make an additional investment in the company and JMI Equity (a growth equity firm focused on investing in leading software companies) will join as a new investor in the company.

Leading connectivity cloud company Cloudflare has announced the acquisition of BastionZero, a Zero Trust infrastructure access platform. This deal further strengthen remote access to core IT systems for customers of Cloudflare One, which is the company’s secure access service edge (SASE) platform.

LambdaVision, a company that is developing a protein-based artificial retina to help patients regain sight lost to retinal degenerative diseases, announced it secured the first closing of its seed round being led by Aurelia Foundry Fund (a fund spun out of MIT).

Novel has announced a $15 million oversubscribed Pre-Series A round, co-led by IGNIA Partners and Ulu Ventures, to propel the fintech’s expansion of their groundbreaking Capital Intelligence platform. The funding round also includes participation from MatterScale, Gaingels, as well as previous investors.

Sagetap, the first AI-driven marketplace matching SaaS buyers and sellers, announced $6.8 million in funding from NFX, Uncorrelated Ventures, Emergent Ventures, and 15 active customers. And the company is cash-flow positive and has grown revenue 3 times year-over-year.

Ducky, an AI-based support platform unlocking customer support agents' problem-solving superpowers, announced it raised $2.7 million in pre-seed funding led by Penny Jar Capital, with participation from Bread & Butter Ventures, NOMO Ventures, Wilson Sonsini, angel investors, and others.

Aperture Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that is pioneering AI-powered intents, announced it has raised a Series A funding round, bringing the total across all rounds to $12 million and propelling the valuation at $250 million. This funding round was led by Skyland Ventures, Blockchain Founders Fund, and Krypital Group, with participation from notable investors like Alchemy, SNZ, Stratified Capital, Tide, Cipholio, ViaBTC, CatcherVC, and Double Peak. Previous rounds included participation from ParaFi Capital, Arrington Capital, Divergence, Blockchain Founders Fund, Laser Digital (Nomura Group), Skyland Ventures, Costanoa, Rarestone, Krypital Group, Big Brain Holdings, LD Capital, ViaBTC, Cipholio, Double Peak, Athena Ventures, Coinseeker, Artemis Capital, and AWS.

Cornell Tech has awarded four student startup companies with investments worth $100,000 each in its eleventh annual Startup Awards competition. This award includes $80,000 in pre-seed funding, co-working space in the Tata Innovation Center, and mentorship by the Cornell Tech team, valued at $20,000 together.