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Slang.ai: AI-Powered Phone Answering Company Picks Up $20 Million In Funding

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 28, 2023

Slang.ai - an AI-powered phone answering product that emerged from stealth - announced it has raised $20 million in funding. This funding includes a recent Series A round led by Homebrew with participation from Stage 2 Capital, Wing VC, Underscore VC, Active Capital, and Collide Capital. And prominent industry angel investors, including celebrity chef Tom Colicchio and Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance, also participated in the round. Existing investors include executives from leading technology businesses like Snap, Zoom, and others.

Avala Launches Platform For Ethical AI Deployment

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 28, 2023

Avala AI - a San Francisco-based AI company pioneering a radically different approach to ethical AI deployment - announced its official launch. And the company is revolutionizing how people can contribute to, develop, and benefit from AI with a collaborative marketplace of datasets, labelers, and models in an ecosystem of products and services that directly address the challenges of AI alignment. Avala delivers market-relevant upskilling and reliable income that can be learned and earned anywhere, anytime.

Pyrra Technologies: Seed Funding Pulled In To Fight Threats On Social Media

By Annie Baker ● Jun 28, 2023

Pyrra Technologies - a company whose cutting-edge AI identifies threats across alternative social media - announced the completion of their series seed raise totaling $2.3 million. And the funding received will be deployed to accelerate the Company’s technical roadmap and market expansion plans. The investment round was led by Ducera Investments with participation from Andav Capital and Growth Science Ventures.

Nori: Carbon Removal Marketplace Company Secures $6.25 Million

By Dan Anderson ● Jun 28, 2023

Nori - a leading carbon removal marketplace - recently announced that Matt Trudeau, a digital markets and exchange veteran, is joining the company as CEO and joining the board of directors, effective immediately. And Nori also announced that the company raised an additional $6.25 million led by current investors M13, Toyota Ventures, Placeholder, and Cargill, bringing total funding to $17.25 million. Paul Gambill, Nori's co-founding CEO during the past 5 years, will remain on the board and take a new position within the company as Chief Product Officer.

Kyber Knight Capital: $120 Million Inaugural Fund Launches

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 28, 2023

Kyber Knight Capital - a pioneering new venture capital firm focused on pre-seed and seed investments in early-stage technology start-ups - launched recently with a $120 million inaugural fund.

LlamaIndex: $8.5 Million Closed For Building A Data Framework For LLMs

By Annie Baker ● Jun 28, 2023

LlamaIndex - a data framework for Large Language Models (LLMs) - announced it raised $8.5M in seed funding led by Greylock. Angel investors in the round include Jack Altman, Lenny Rachitsky, Mathilde Collin (CEO of Front), Raquel Urtasun (CEO of Waabi), Joey Gonzalez (Berkeley) among others. The company will use the funds to build an enterprise offering on top of the popular open-source project with the same name.

Connectifi: Application Interoperability Company Raises $3.4 Million In Seed Funding

By Noah Long ● Jun 28, 2023

Connectifi - an application interoperability company - announced it has closed Seed funding to bring the open-source FDC3 standard to the cloud. The funding round was led by Blumberg Capital with co-investment from Engineering Capital. And the funding round represents the growing demand for interoperability that goes beyond the desktop and interest by venture capital firms in what was once niche capital markets tech.

Togai: B2B SaaS Metering And Pricing Platform Company Closes $3.1 Million

By Annie Baker ● Jun 28, 2023

Togai - a B2B SaaS metering and pricing platform - announced it has raised $3.1 million in a seed round led by Together Fund. This fund round also saw participation from other investors like BoldCap, Core91, and angel investors, including Prasanna Shankar, the Co-founder of Rippling.

Spectrm: No-Code Conversational Marketing Automation Platform Closes $6.5 Million

By Noah Long ● Jun 28, 2023

Spectrm - a conversational marketing platform businesses use to automate one-to-one conversations with consumers on social messaging channels - announced a $6.5 million funding round. This funding round was led by 3TS Capital Partners with participation from existing investors including LHV Global, BDMI, North Base Media, and Jens Schumann.

Vertos Medical: $26 Million Closed To Develop Minimally Invasive Treatments For Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

By Annie Baker ● Jun 28, 2023

Vertos Medical - a leader in the development of innovative, minimally invasive treatments for lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) - recently announced that it has raised $26 million in an oversubscribed Series C equity funding round. The financing was led by new investor Norwest Venture Partners with participation from existing investors including Pitango Venture Capital.

Cemex Ventures Kicks Off Construction Startup Competition 2023 With July 2 Deadline

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 27, 2023

Cemex Ventures - Cemex’s corporate venture capital (CVC) and open innovation unit - announced it has kicked off its Construction Startup Competition 2023, which is the largest competition in the construction industry for startups. And Cemex Ventures is joined in its 7th Competition edition by prominent leaders like Black & Veatch, Dysruptek by Haskell, Ferrovial, Hilti, VINCI Group’s Leonard, NOVA by Saint-Gobain, Trimble and Trimble Ventures, and Zacua Ventures.

ZapScale: Customer Success Platform Company Closes $2.5 Million

By Noah Long ● Jun 27, 2023

ZapScale - a trailblazer in delivering the easiest Customer Success Platform - recently announced that it has successfully raised $2.5 million in seed funding from leading venture capital firms, including Blume Ventures, Veda VC, Java Capital, 100xEntreprenuers, T2D3 Capital, Arka Venture Labs, and other prominent investors.

Blackpoint Cyber: Advanced Cybersecurity Suite Company Secures $190 Million

By Annie Baker ● Jun 27, 2023

Blackpoint Cyber - a leading technology-focused cybersecurity company providing its advanced security suite via managed service providers (MSPs) - announced it has received a $190 million growth investment led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities with participation from Accel. Bain Capital Tech Opportunities and Accel join existing investors including Adelphi Capital Partners, Telecom Ventures, Pelican Ventures, and WP Global Partners.

Hopewell Therapeutics: $25 Million To Develop Next Generation Of Tissue-Targeted Lipid Nanoparticles

By Noah Long ● Jun 27, 2023

Hopewell Therapeutics - a biotechnology company with a differentiated lipid nanoparticle platform harnessing unique ionizable lipid chemistry - announced a seed funding round of up to $25 million to support its operations and growth. This funding round will enable the company to advance the development of genomic medicines based on its differentiated ttLNP platform through both internal pipeline programs and external partnerships.

Carta Healthcare: $25 Million Raised To Improve Patient Care By Utilizing Clinical Data

By Annie Baker ● Jun 27, 2023

Carta Healthcare - a company whose mission is to improve patient care by harnessing the value of clinical data - announced the final closing of its $25 million series B financing, thanks to additional investments from leading health systems Memorial Hermann Health System and UnityPoint Health.

ALTR Launches Snowflake Native Format-Preserving Data Protection With Snowpark

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 27, 2023

ALTR - an innovator of automated data governance and data security solutions - announced at Snowflake’s annual user conference Snowflake Summit 2023 the expansion of its SaaS data access control and tokenization solution with Snowflake.

Delve Bio: $35 Million Secured For Commercialize Metagenomic Sequencing Platform For Infectious Disease Diagnosis

By Dan Anderson ● Jun 27, 2023

Delve Bio - a pioneer in metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) for infectious diseases - recently announced that it debuted with $35 million in Series A financing led by Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund II (PXV Fund II) and joined by Section 32 and GV. The funding round will be used to commercialize the company’s mNGS-based infectious disease test – which was developed by world-renowned infectious disease experts at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Center for Next-Gen Precision Diagnostics – and advance a pipeline of next-generation tests.

Meta Reveals Quest+ VR Subscription For $7.99 Per Month

By Annie Baker ● Jun 27, 2023

Meta has announced the new Quest+ VR subscription service, which will make it easier to explore the Meta Quest catalog. For $7.99 USD per month or $59.99 USD annually (a savings of more than 37%), users get access to two hand-picked VR titles every month. And when you sign up now through July 31, you will get your first month for $1 USD.

Wolfspeed: $1.25 Billion Secured Note Financing Led By Apollo Credit Funds Received

By Dan Anderson ● Jun 27, 2023

Wolfspeed - a global leader in silicon carbide technology - announced a $1.25 billion secured note financing from an investment group led by Apollo with an accordion feature for up to an additional $750 million. This financing supports the company’s previously announced U.S. expansion efforts and is a significant step toward achieving the company’s $6.5 billion global capacity expansion plan.

Advantus Health Partners: $2.9 Billion Strategic Collaboration With Medline Announced

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 27, 2023

During a grand opening of Medline’s new distribution center in West Jefferson, Ohio, Advantus Health Partners President Dan Hurry spoke this week about the significance of Medline’s unique strategic relationship with Advantus - which will support the improvement of quality patient care and operating performance of Advantus’s growing client base of more than 200 hospitals, 1,700 sites of care and over 600 clinics in 46 states.

Insilico Medicine Completes First Dose In Patients In Phase II Clinical Trial For INS018_055

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 27, 2023

Insilico Medicine - a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven clinical-stage biotech company - announced that it has completed the first dose in patients in the Phase II clinical trial of INS018_055, which marks the world's first anti-fibrotic small molecule inhibitor discovered and designed by generative AI, initiating Phase II clinical trials for further evaluation.

Joyful Ventures: $23 Million Raised To Advance Sustainable Protein Market

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 27, 2023

Joyful Ventures announced the successful closing of $23 million of a $25 million fund, aimed at catalyzing the $1.5 trillion global animal protein industry towards sustainable, and regenerative food solutions.

Acryl Data: Data Management Platform Company Raises $21 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 27, 2023

Acryl Data – the company driving the DataHub Project, the most widely-used open source data catalog – announced that it has secured $21 million in Series A funding led by Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner at 8VC, with participation from Ram Shriram, Founder, Sherpalo Ventures and Guillermo Rauch, Founder and CEO of Vercel. This funding round will be used to deepen investments in customer success, accelerate the development of its cloud offering and extend the vision of its product towards a control plane for data.

Databricks Buying MosaicML In $1.3 Billion: Details

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 27, 2023

Databricks recently announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MosaicML, a leading generative AI platform. Combined, Databricks and MosaicML is looking to make generative AI accessible for every organization, enabling them to build, own and secure generative AI models with their own data. The deal is valued at approximately $1.3 billion, inclusive of retention packages.

Highwood Emissions Management Raises $3 Million To Enable Energy Companies To Pursue Climate Change Goals

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 26, 2023

Highwood Emissions Management - announced it has secured $3 million in seed funding - led by Energy Capital Ventures (ECV) and supported by Veritec Ventures. This marks the first external funding Highwood has accepted, positioning the company for accelerated growth and innovation in the emissions management market.

ThoughtSpot Acquiring Mode Analytics For $200 Million: Details

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 26, 2023

ThoughtSpot - an AI-Powered Analytics company, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mode Analytics, which is a modern Business Intelligence (BI) platform that brings data teams and business teams together to drive impact - in a cash and equity deal valued at $200 million.

IBM Buying Apptio In $4.6 Billion Deal: Details

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 26, 2023

IBM announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Vista Equity Partners to buy Apptio, a leader in financial and operational IT management and optimization (FinOps) software, for $4.6 billion. The acquisition of Apptio is going to accelerate the advancement of IBM's IT automation capabilities and enable enterprise leaders to deliver enhanced business value across technology investments.

Flow Medical: University Of Chicago Medical Device Startup Raises $1 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 26, 2023

University of Chicago company Flow Medical recently announced it raised $1 million from a medical device manufacturer and they are finalizing a product design. Flow Medical - which is creating a multi-function catheter for helping diagnose and treat venous thromboembolic disease - was founded by the University of Chicago researchers Jonathan Paul, associate professor of medicine, and Osmanuddin Ahmed, associate professor of radiology.

Outbound AI: $16 Million Raised To Advance Conversation AI For Healthcare

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 26, 2023

Outbound AI - a conversation AI platform built for healthcare - announced it raised $16 million in funding co-led by Madrona Venture Group and SpringRock Ventures. And the company recently emerged from stealth mode last year to a market hungry for solutions that improve both productivity and profitability. Also joining Outbound AI's seed financing are Epic Ventures, Ascend, Pack Ventures, Locke Capital, Tacoma Venture Fund, and KCRise Fund.

Luxury Fashion Gaming Company DREST Bags £15 Million In Funding

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 26, 2023

DREST - a mobile gaming company that opens up the often exclusive worlds of luxury fashion, beauty and lifestyle to everyone, everywhere - announced recently that it raised £15 million of funding to continue the genre defining development of its new product proposition DREST Game 2.0.