Archives

ThriveDX - a global leader in cybersecurity and digital skills training - continues its mission to reskill and upskill the global cybersecurity workforce by launching a Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Program to create job opportunities for diverse cyber talent at no training cost. And this program, made possible through strategic partnerships with non-profit organizations focusing on registered apprenticeships, aims to address the growing cybersecurity talent shortage while enhancing workplace diversity across the industry.

Altos Radar recently announced that it raised $3.5 million in a seed round of funding that will accelerate the commercialization of 4D imaging radars in driver-assisted and autonomous vehicles. The funding round - led by Hesai Technology CEO David (Yifan) Li, ZhenFund, and Monad Ventures - will be used to mass-produce and market Altos Radar's new high-performance 4D imaging RADAR Altos V1, which demonstrates revolutionary perception capabilities at a fraction of the cost of its competitors.

Advanced Ionics - the developer of a new category of hydrogen electrolyzers useful for expanding green hydrogen production - recently closed a $12.5 million Series A funding round led by bp ventures, with additional investors including Clean Energy Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and GVP Climate.

Intel and Synopsys recently announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to expand the companies’ long-standing IP (intellectual property) and EDA (electronic design automation) strategic partnership by developing a portfolio of IP on Intel 3 and Intel 18A for Intel’s foundry customers. And the availability of key IP on Intel advanced process nodes will create a more robust offering for new and existing Intel Foundry Services (IFS) customers.

Julie Heath - a leader in launching innovative public-private initiatives and social impact organizations and the architect of Indiana’s first entrepreneurship ecosystem strategy - will oversee a new Indiana University initiative to support students and faculty university-wide in creating and growing startup ventures.

basys.ai - a healthcare technology company co-founded by Harvard alumni Amber Nigam and Jie Sun in 2022 at Harvard University - announced the completion of its latest funding round, securing a total of $2.4 million in investments. This funding round will enable basys.ai to further its mission of empowering payers to streamline processes like prior authorization and utilization management.

Phospholutions - a pioneer in sustainable fertilizer technology - recently announced an additional $10.15 million investment from leading global fertilizer companies and investors to accelerate the commercialization of RhizoSorb in the US row crop market. And the funding round was led by Advantage Capital and included continued investment from Conti Ventures (a division of Continental Grain Company), Tekfen Ventures, Maumee Ventures, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners. Keytrade, a global fertilizer trader, also joins as a new investor.

Angeles Equity Partners LLC - a private investment firm focused on value creation through operational transformation - announced the final closing of Angeles Equity Partners II, L.P. and its parallel funds with total capital commitments exceeding its target of $500 million.

ClassWallet - a leading digital wallet-based purchasing and reimbursement platform for public funds - recently announced it closed its first institutional growth capital funding round of $95 million. Guidepost Growth Equity led the funding round, which included Education Growth Partners (EGP) and Lazard Family Office Partners. This funding round builds on ClassWallet’s rapid growth and supports its continued efforts to reshape the way government agencies do business.

Zeelo - a global transit-tech company powering bus operators, employers and schools to provide highly efficient, sustainable, and affordable private bus and shuttle transport programs - announced it has secured $14 million in its latest Series A extension round from three new venture capital firms, including FlatzHoffmann, the European growth equity investor; IREON Ventures, the venture capital arm of Motor Oil Hellas; and a prominent Boston-based family office with a principal that recently took their Nasdaq listing private for $6 billion.

The Arena Group Holdings, a technology platform and media company home to over 265 brands, including Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Parade Media, Men’s Journal, and HubPages, announced that it had signed a binding letter of intent with Simplify Inventions, LLC and its founder Manoj Bhargava, founder of 5-hour ENERGY, to acquire certain assets of its subsidiary Bridge Media Networks, a privately held media group with two national television networks distributed across more than 100 owned and affiliated Over-The-Air (OTA) stations, 35 OTT, CTV agreements, and multiple MVPD and cable agreements, creating a well-capitalized, growing media leader with digital, commerce, print and video capabilities all supported by a unified technology platform.

Octave Bioscience - a leading precision care company focused on delivering a new standard of care for multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases - recently announced the closing of a $30 million extension to its Series B funding round.

Jurny - the market's only vertically integrated artificial intelligence (AI)-powered property management solution - recently announced it opened a community investment round on Wefunder. Backed by venture capital and serving thousands of customers worldwide, Jurny has invited retail investors – who typically gain access only after an IPO – to participate for a limited time. This funding round has already experienced tremendous interest, garnering over $2 million within its first week open to the public.

Voiceflow - which is the industry’s first and leading collaboration platform for building AI agents - recently announced it had closed a $15 million round of financing led by OpenView, a leading venture capital firm focused on business software. And with this funding round, Voiceflow will amplify its commitment to product innovation while helping conversational AI product teams design, test, and launch AI agents for customer support.

Trinity Capital - a leading provider of diversified financial solutions to growth-stage companies - recently announced the commitment of $20 million in growth capital to MacroFab, the comprehensive manufacturing platform for building electronics from prototype to high-scale production.

Occidental recently announced that a wholly owned subsidiary has entered into a definitive purchase agreement to buy all the outstanding equity of Carbon Engineering Ltd. for total cash consideration of approximately $1.1 billion, to be made in three approximately equivalent annual payments, with the first at closing. This deal is expected to close before the end of 2023, subject to Canadian court reviews, Canadian and U.S. regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions.

Dioxycle - a French-American start-up that transforms carbon dioxide emissions into high-value, sustainable chemicals - recently announced the successful closure of its Series A funding round of $17 million. The funding round was co-led by renowned climate tech investors Lowercarbon Capital and Breakthrough Energy Ventures Europe (BEV-E), with participation from Gigascale Capital. This funding round propels Dioxycle into an exciting new development phase towards a first-of-its-kind industrial-emission-busting demonstrator.

As part of a strategic collaboration, Futureverse (a leading AI and metaverse technology and content company) and Outlier Ventures (the leading global web3 investor and accelerator by volume) announced the launch of the Futureverse Base Camp accelerator. This program, which will receive funding from the recently announced Born Ready, a venture fund and studio created by the co-founders of Futureverse, will select a cohort of leading early-stage startups building across The Root Network, a public decentralized blockchain network optimized for metaverse apps and experiences. And the program will provide the chosen teams with a virtual 12-week program filled with support from world-class experts. Starting in January 2024, this program marks a significant leap in supporting creators, innovators, and communities shaping the future of the open metaverse.

Kivera recently announced it had raised $3.5 million in seed funding from General Advance, Round 13 Capital, and several angel investors, including Srinath Kuruvadi, Managing Director and Head of Cloud Security, JP Morgan & Chase; Ely Kahn, VP Product for Cloud Security and AI/ML at SentinelOne; Dimitri Sirota, Founder and CEO of BigID; and other senior executives from Amazon, Google, Shift5, ServiceNow, and Zscaler. With the funding, Kivera will invest in new talent as it moves its headquarters from Sydney, Australia, to New York City.

Kriya Therapeutics - a biopharmaceutical company developing gene therapies for conditions affecting millions of people around the world - recently announced the addition of over $150 million in capital committed as part of its Series C Financing, bringing the total Series C round to over $430 million. The proceeds from the funding will support the clinical translation of Kriya’s broad pipeline of gene therapies and the continued scaling of its engineering, computational and manufacturing platforms.

Nexo Therapeutics recently emerged from stealth with a $60 million Series A financing led by founding investor Versant Ventures with participation from New Enterprise Associates and Cormorant Asset Management. And the company also announced a multi-year strategic research collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Radiant Security recently announced that it entered the market with its AI-powered SOC co-pilot. And the industry-first solution empowers security operations centers (SOCs) to harness the power of AI to boost security analyst productivity, detect more real attacks, and reduce incident remediation times.

Chesapeake Energy Corporation recently announced that it has executed an agreement to sell its remaining Eagle Ford assets to SilverBow Resources for $700 million, bringing the total proceeds from its Eagle Ford exit to more than $3.5 billion.

MSCI - a leading provider of mission-critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community - recently announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the remaining 66% of The Burgiss Group, LLC for $697 million in cash. Burgiss is a Hoboken, New Jersey-based market-leading provider of data, analytics, and technology solutions for investors in private assets. Since its initial investment in January 2020, MSCI will have invested $913 million to acquire all of Burgiss.

Redaptive is an Energy-as-a-Service company that funds and installs energy-saving and energy-generating equipment. The company’s programs help many of the world’s most sophisticated organizations reduce energy waste, save money, lower carbon emissions, and meet sustainability goals across their entire real estate portfolios. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Redaptive CEO Arvin Vohra to learn more.

PayPal announced its Board of Directors appointed senior Intuit executive Alex Chriss as President and CEO, effective September 27, 2023. Chriss will also join the Board on that date.

Ford has named Apple veteran Peter Stern to lead the newly formed Ford Integrated Services, which will create and market valuable software-enabled customer experiences across Ford Blue, Model e and Ford Pro. Stern had previously served as vice president of Services at Apple for more than six years through January 2023 and was a driving force behind the launch of Apple’s portfolio of services, including Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, MLS Season Pass and Apple One.

Harmony Biosciences Holdings - a pharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and commercializing innovative therapies for patients with rare neurological diseases - recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire Zynerba Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ZYNE), a leader in innovative pharmaceutically produced transdermal cannabinoid therapies for orphan neuropsychiatric disorders, including Fragile X syndrome (FXS).

Eagle Merchant Partners - a private equity firm investing in lower middle-market franchise, consumer, and industrial companies - recently announced the closing of its inaugural fund, Eagle Merchant Partners I, L.P. The fund had closed with over $265 million, which was well more than its initial target.

K4Connect - a leading provider of enterprise technologies for senior living communities - recently announced it raised $8.9 million in a new investment round co-led by Bryce Catalyst and AVP (AXA Venture Partners), with continuing support from other existing investors, including Intel Capital, Forté Ventures, Topmark Partners, and the Ziegler-Linkage Fund. This latest funding round brings the company's total funding raised to $39 million and will be used for driving further adoption in the senior living market while continuing to rapidly advance its patented FusionOS integration technology and K4Community Engagement Suite.