Venture Capital

Carnegie Mellon University Leading NSF AI Institute For Societal Decision Making With $20 Million Commitment

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 9, 2023

The advancement of artificial intelligence and its integration into crisis response can impact society and help save lives. But to actually be effective, artificial intelligence researchers, social scientists, decision-makers, and the public must understand and trust these tools. Led by Carnegie Mellon University, the AI Institute for Societal Decision Making (AI-SDM) is going to improve the response to societal challenges such as disaster management and public health by developing human-centric AI tools to assist with critical decisions. The institute is also going to develop interdisciplinary training to bolster effective and rapid responses in uncertain and dynamic situations. The AI-SDM is 1 of 7 AI institutes awarded today by the National Science Foundation. And a 5-year $20 million commitment from the NSF will support the institute.

Genemod: $4.5 Million Secured For Workspace Collaboration Platform

By Annie Baker ● May 9, 2023

Genemod - a cloud-based workspace collaboration software for biopharma R&D teams - announced it raised $4.5 million in seed funding co-led by defy.vc and LDV Partners, with participation from Dolby Family Ventures and Vulcan/Cercano Ventures.

Pluto Biosciences: $3.7 Million Secured For Life Sciences SaaS Platform

By Dan Anderson ● May 9, 2023

Pluto Biosciences - a life sciences software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform - announced the closing of a $3.7 million seed round led by Silverton Partners. This funding round will fuel the expansion of Pluto's innovative platform, which gives scientific teams both a unified home for managing their biological data, and an industry-first and interactive canvas for analyzing and visualizing complex biological data sets using no-code computational biology pipelines.

Slash: Online Banking Platform Company Raises $19 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 9, 2023

Slash - an online banking platform for the hustle economy - announced recently that it emerged from stealth with $19 million in seed and Series A funding. The seed and Series A funding rounds were led by NEA with additional participation from Menlo Ventures, Connect Ventures, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Global Founders Capital, with participation from angel investors William Hockey, the founder of Plaid, and Justin Mateen, co-founder and former CMO of Tinder.

Instruqt: Product Growth Platform Closes €15 Million In Series A

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 8, 2023

Instruqt – a product-led growth platform company that helps customers bring their products to life through engaging and interactive demos and training – announced it has raised €15 million in a Series A round led by Blossom Capital.

SuperDuperSecret Co.: Over $1 Million Raised To Build Out Battle Royale Chess

By Annie Baker ● May 8, 2023

SuperDuperSecret Co. announced it successfully raised over $1 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round. The investors include Round 13 Digital Asset Fund, Merit Circle, Polygon Ventures, Solana Foundation, LD Capital, Overwolf, Big Brain Holdings, and angel investors such as Sebastien Borget, Gabby Dizon, and Cristian Manea, among several others. The company’s launch title, Royale Chess—a 10-player, battle royale chess game—marks the first of many games across their underlying meta-game platform, focusing on multiplayer, evergreen games.

Viatu: $1 Million Raised To Simplify Booking Multi-Day Sustainable Travels

By Noah Long ● May 8, 2023

Viatu - a travel company utilizing API and data-driven technology to simplify the booking process of multi-day sustainable adventures - announced it has raised a $1 million seed round led by Ndoto LLC. The participants in the round include Austrian sustainable travel marketplace ASI Reisen and a number of prominent angels like ex-Uber and founder of Ambo Ventures and Kenyan-based lodge Emboo Camp, Loic Amado. Viatu has raised $1.2 million so far.

Entendre Finance: $4 Million Raised For Automated Accounting Solution For Web3 Businesses

By Noah Long ● May 8, 2023

Entendre Finance announced it has raised $4 million in seed financing to launch the first fully automated end-to-end accounting and bookkeeping solution for businesses operating in Web3. Led by Basis Set and with participation from Valhalla, Caffeinated, Moonpay, Alumni, MDig, and Alpine, Entendre built a platform that modern finance teams can use to put blockchain financial operations on autopilot.

Kindbody: $25 Million Raised For Expanding Access To Fertility

By Annie Baker ● May 8, 2023

Morgan Health - the JPMorgan Chase & Co. business unit focused on improving the quality, equity, and affordability of employer-sponsored health care - announced recently a $25 million investment in Kindbody, a leading fertility clinic network, and global family-building benefits provider for employers offering the full spectrum of reproductive care from preconception to postpartum through menopause. Dr. Cheryl Pegus, a Managing Director with Morgan Health Ventures, will be joining Kindbody’s Board of Directors.

Campus.edu: $29 Million Secured To Make Community College More Accessible

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 8, 2023

Campus.edu - a company transforming higher education by making community college accessible across the country - recently announced it has opened enrollment with $29 million in funding from Discord founder Jason Citron; OpenAI founder Sam Altman; Figma founder Dylan Field; former head of Stripe Issuing Lachy Groom; Bloomberg Beta; Founders Fund; Rethink Education; Reach Capital and Precursor Ventures among other investors.

Initial Therapeutics: $75 Million Closed For Launching A New Drug To Stop Difficult-To-Drug Protein Target Formation

By Annie Baker ● May 8, 2023

Apple Tree Partners (ATP) - a leader in life sciences venture capital - announced the launch of Initial Therapeutics, a biotechnology company created to make medicines that block notoriously difficult-to-drug protein targets with a new mode of action: selective termination of protein synthesis (STOPS). Initial was developed by ATP with $75 million in Series A funding.

Tristero: $4.8 Million Raised To Develop Technology For Enabling Decentralized Dark Pools

By Dan Anderson ● May 8, 2023

Tristero - a company working toward developing decentralized dark pool technology to create a fairer trading environment - announced the launch of their company supported by a $4.8M Seed round co-led by General Catalyst and Steel Perlot. And the company will be using the funding to build markets designed to minimize the price impact of trades, an invisible cost to all market participants.

Impact Nano: Advanced Materials Supplier Company Raises $32 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 7, 2023

Impact Nano L.L.C. - a U.S.-based chemical manufacturing company enabling sustainable computing with advanced materials - announced that it has raised $32 million in total funding in successive rounds from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Intel Capital, and other investors. In conjunction with the latest funding round, Sean Doyle, managing director of Intel Capital will join the board of directors.

Inbox Health: Patient Billing Communications Company Raises $22.5 Million

By Annie Baker ● May 6, 2023

Inbox Health - a leading patient billing communications platform - announced that it has completed a $22.5 million Series B financing round, bringing the total capital raised to over $43 million since inception. The Series B funding round was led by Ten Coves Capital with participation from existing investors including Commerce Ventures, CT Innovations, Vertical Venture Partners, Healthy Ventures, and Fairview Capital.

Kinnos: $15 Million Raised To Meet The Commercial Demand Of Novel Color Additives For Disinfection Solutions

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 6, 2023

Kinnos - the maker of Highlight, a novel technology that colorizes disinfectants - announced a $15 million financing led by a group of current and former industry leaders. And the company also named healthcare veteran Steve Fanning as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors.

e2ip technologies: Printed Electronics Company Secures $120 Million Growth Funding Round

By Annie Baker ● May 5, 2023

e2ip technologies - a global printed electronics and embedded system technologies innovation leader of the Human Machine Interface (HMI) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sectors - announced the completion of its oversubscribed global growth funding round. The Series B funding round was co-led by Export Development Canada (EDC) and McRock Capital with existing investor Investissement Québec, which more than doubles its position, and new investor DNA Fund. This round is also supported by the National Bank of Canada (BNC). Founding investors W and Namakor remain.

Relay: $13 Million Raised To Develop Cloud Platform For Frontline Teams

By Dan Anderson ● May 5, 2023

Relay - a cloud platform for frontline teams - announced the closing of a $13 million Series A funding round from Sovereign's Capital, Wind River Ventures, and existing shareholders.

Evommune: $50 Million Secured To Develop New Ways To Treat Inflammatory Diseases

By Annie Baker ● May 5, 2023

Evommune - a clinical-stage biotechnology company discovering and developing new ways to treat inflammatory diseases - announced the completion of a $50 million Series B financing. The funding round was co-led by new investor Arix Bioscience and current investors EQT Life Sciences and SymBiosis with participation from new and existing investors including Amplitude Ventures, and Series A leads Pivotal bioVenture Partners and Andera Partners.

AirOps: $7 Million Raised To Deploy AI-Powered Apps For The Workplace

By Noah Long ● May 5, 2023

AirOps - a company that enables businesses to deploy powerful, easy-to-use, AI-powered apps - announced it has raised $7 million in seed funding led by Wing VC with participation from Founder Collective, XFund, Village Global, Apollo Projects, and Lachy Groom. This funding round will go toward building out its product suite, supporting new hires, and growing its customer base.

Cata Labs: $4.2 Million Secured To Connect The World’s Blockchains

By Annie Baker ● May 5, 2023

Cata Labs announced that it has raised $4.2 million in seed funding to support its development of a cross-chain liquidity layer to accelerate the economic activity between blockchains. And Spartan Group led the round, with participation from Robot Ventures, Maven11, Alchemy Ventures, HashKey Capital, Circle Ventures, Superscrypt, and others. And notable angel investors include Calvin Liu, Aditi Sriram, and David Phelps.

Redaptive: Energy-As-A-Service Solutions Company Raises $250 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2023

Redaptive - a leading provider of Energy-as-a-Service solutions - announced an additional investment in its series E funding round from long-term investor Linse Capital. This latest funding round follows recent contributions to the round made by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), Honeywell, CBRE, and others, which brings the total amount raised for this round to approximately $250 million.

Greycroft Closes Over $1 Billion Of Capital Commitments Across New Funds

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 5, 2023

Greycroft - a seed-to-growth venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs who build category-defining companies - recently announced the closing of over $1 billion of capital commitments across new funds. And the firm’s 2 flagship vehicles Greycroft Partners VII and Greycroft Growth IV closed on over $980 million, enabling the firm to continue to invest in early and growth-stage enterprise and consumer businesses.

Ares Strategic Income Fund Launched With $1.5 Billion In Initial Investible Capital

By Dan Anderson ● May 4, 2023

Ares Management - a leading global alternative investment manager - announced recently the launch of Ares Strategic Income Fund (ASIF), which is a perpetual capital, continuously offered, non-traded business development company seeking to primarily invest in directly originated, senior secured, floating-rate loans to U.S. middle-market companies. And this fund has launched with approximately $1.5 billion in initial investible capital, including over $847 million of equity commitments raised from certain existing institutional relationships in a private placement, and approximately $625 million in credit facility commitments.

Cowen Healthcare Investments: Over $550 Million Raised For Fourth Fund

By Annie Baker ● May 4, 2023

Cowen Healthcare Investments announced the successful closing of Cowen Healthcare Investments IV (CHI IV) with total committed capital of $555.6 million. CHI IV had received commitments from a wide cross-section of limited partners including institutional investors, wealth managers, family offices, and high net-worth individuals. CHI IV is going to invest primarily in mid to late-stage life sciences opportunities.

TheGuarantors: This Renter/Landlord Insurance Solution Company Has Now Secured Over $110 Million

By Dan Anderson ● May 4, 2023

TheGuarantors - a fintech company building smart financial and insurance solutions for renters and landlords - announced it has raised $35 million in growth capital financing from CIBC Innovation Banking.

Ansa: Digital Wallet Infrastructure Company Raises $5.4 Million

By Noah Long ● May 4, 2023

Ansa announced a first-of-its-kind digital wallet infrastructure platform for merchants along with its first round of funding of $5.4 million. This funding round was led by Christina Melas-Kyriazi at Bain Capital Ventures with participation from Nimi Katragadda at Box Group, Nichole Wischoff at Wischoff Ventures, Cambrian Ventures, The Fintech Fund, and Susa Ventures. Female investors and angels contributed over 75% of the funding round.

Openlayer: $4.8 Million Raised To Build On A Machine Learning Evaluation Platform And Address A $6 Billion Market

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 4, 2023

AaDya Security: All-In-One Cybersecurity Solutions Company Raises $5 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● May 3, 2023

AaDya Security - a software company founded by cybersecurity veteran Raffaele Mautone - announced the closing of a $5 million Series A funding round.

aiXplain: No-Code/Low-Code Development Company Secures $8 Million

By Noah Long ● May 3, 2023

aiXplain - one of the industry's first no-code/low-code integrated AI development platforms - announced that it has raised $8 million in seed funding led by Transform VC and Calibrate Ventures.

Amboss Technologies: Bitcoin Lightning Network Analytics Company Raises $4 Million

By Annie Baker ● May 3, 2023

Amboss Technologies - a pioneering data analytics company for the Bitcoin Lightning Network - announced it raised $4 million in Seed funding from Stillmark, which is a leading Bitcoin-native VC. The funding round also includes participation from such VCs as Valor Equity Partners, Draper Associates, Fulgur Ventures, and Ride Wave Ventures.