Last Week in Boston Tech (12/30-1/12)
And a little bit of the week before
Welcome Back!
Last week, I skipped out on a few companies and instead did a short piece on VC financing data in the Boston area. Now that things are back to a regular pace, I want to share fourteen new deals representing over $415M in new invested capital into the ecosystem Greater Boston ecosystem.
Outside of New England, it seems like several VC-backed companies are entering 2020 by shuttering after raising mega-rounds at mega valuations. Just in the last week, Axios and others have been reporting that we had Getaround lay off 25% of staff, Zume lay off 80% of staff, CafeX shut down in SF, Rappi lay off 6% of its workforce, Oyo lay off thousands in China and India, and Lime lay off 100 employees. Yet somehow, writing these updates gets me more and more bullish on the East Coast startup scene. What do you think?
If you’re reading this for the first time, welcome! My name is Nick Stuart and I write a weekly newsletter on tech VC financing trends in Boston. You can learn more about me on my website here and about the micro-VC I help run here.
In early November of last year, I wrote that Evolv Technology had raised several million from undisclosed investors. The developer of a frictionless, smart threat detection system has now formally filled that round with a $30M Series C. With total capital raised now topping over $70M, the company’s list of investors has grown to include Bill Gates, Jeb Bush, DCVC, General Catalyst, and Lux Capital.
Per Axios, “We live in the age of mass shootings, in which attending school or a concert is potentially fatal. Evolv is an alternative to traditional, "one-person-at-a-time" metal detectors, able to simultaneously screen large flows of people, including at Lincoln Center and select schools in Spartanburg, South Carolina.”
Image: The Evolv Technology Evolv Express free-flow system
Indigo AG just raised $200M in a combination of equity and debt with a goal of being cash flow positive within the next twelve months. Indigo provides a variety of digital agricultural services aimed at increasing crop yields on farms. Using AI, they are able to predict which microbiomes will positively contribute to the growth of crop yields and are able to apply these microbiomes to the coating of unplanted seeds.
According to the company, “The new capital will support the continued global development of Indigo Grain Marketplace, an e-commerce platform for direct grain transactions, as well as Indigo Carbon, a market providing farmers with a financial incentive to enrich their soils while addressing climate change.”
Image: Indigo is one of Boston’s largest venture-backed companies
Commercial insurance analytics startup Corvus just secured $33M in equity funding led by Telstra Ventures with participation from Obvious Ventures, bringing their total raised to $45M. Past investors include .406 Ventures, Hudson Structured Capital Management, and Bain Capital Ventures. The company uses AI & IoT to help underwriters make more informed pricing decisions and prevent unnecessary losses. The company currently offers four Smart Commercial Insurance products and is also going on a hiring spree.
Considdr, a 2019 MassChallenge participant and developer of a search engine for market research data, has raised $32.5K from undisclosed investors. Led by Noah Finberg, the company aims to “change the way the world informs their important decisions and beliefs.” Enterprise search engines for internal and external data seem to be gaining traction over the last twelve months as businesses look to better preserve and access valuable data. One recent favorite of mine is Grafiti, a search engine specifically made for charts.
Stealth media startup Isoquant Media just raised $77K in part of a $500K Angel Funding from undisclosed investors. Couldn’t find a whole lot about the Brighton-based company online, except that it’s led by Matthew Radcliffe, and Bill Keogh appears to be an advisor. They provide, “risk management solutions focusing on the media industry.” Here’s an SEC Form D they published on the 9th regarding the raise.
Per BostInno, Paris and Boston-based Cardiologs has secured a $15M Series A funding round led by Alven, bringing their total raised to over $25M. The MedTech company uses AI to accurately and reliably screen patients for heart disease. Their software platform helps doctors interpret ECG information to better manage cardiac disorders.
nFerence just secured $60M Series B from the Mayo Clinic and NTT Venture Capital. The company uses neural networks to map out knowledge from scientific literature and other sources of data. By “Synthesizing the world’s biomedical knowledge,” they hope to augment the ability of healthcare and pharmaceutical professionals to make informed decisions. The ability to compute and understand massive amounts of biomedical research and data could be a huge benefit for drug discovery and development teams, among other similar fields. According to their website and Linkedin, they now boast over 100 employees that are focusing on advancing nFerence’s biomedical knowledge platform.
Toxin-free skincare e-commerce company Follain just raised a $2.25M Angel Round, bringing them to a total raised of $6.85M. Founded and led by Tara Foley, the company sells a variety of skincare, makeup, bath, and hair brands that contain no toxins according to their ingredient exclusion and approval test guidelines. What’s all the fuss about organic makeup products? For one, the EU has banned or restricted 1,300+ chemicals from cosmetics while the US has done the same for just 11. I’m sure there are a host of regulatory reasons for this, but one might find some clues by looking at the USDA’s National Organic Program marketing guidelines. FDA does not define or regulate the term “organic,” as it applies to cosmetics, body care, or personal care products, and apparently consumers are fed up with the lies.
Image: A collection of Follain’s popular beauty products
Following a $2M round of bridge financing last June, BlueConic has raised a $13M Series B led by Spring Lake Equity Partners, bringing their valuation to $50M. BlueConic is a B2B MarTech company helping its customers improve engagement by leveraging AI/ML. They help companies sync engagement information across all social channels in real-time with a complex customer data platform used by leading brands such as the Boston Globe, Ajax, and Bob’s Furniture. The round will go towards expanding their global footprint, which already includes two offices in the Netherlands.
Cambridge-based IndustrialML has raised a $500K angel round from undisclosed investors. The pre-launch industrial automation company collects, cleans, and curates factory sensor and IT data for enterprise customers to optimize productivity. IndustrialML’s traction seems to represent a growing trend in New England of new Industrial IoT products. For example, MachineMetrics has now raised $15M and Datanomix has raised $4.2M, both creating tools to give factory managers insights into machine operations to generate real-time insights. The company is currently led by Arjun Chandar, Hunter Ashmore, and AJ Perez.
Mamava, the company “For moms who need a place to pump,” just raised a $2.73M round from undisclosed investors following a seed financing round from FreshTracks Capital back in February of 2018. The company is the developer of a private kiosk and accompanying app for mothers to find a place breast pump on the go. They’re actually based out of Vermont, but I thought the concept was too neat not to share. They already have 1000 lactation suites spanning from Vermont to San Francisco. You can read more about the company and its “Mamavafesto” here.
Image: The suite of Mamava lactation and wellness room products.
Computer vision company AirWorks just raised a $1.4M Seed 2 round at a $15M valuation. Previous investors include Innospark Ventures, MetaProp NYC, Rough Draft Ventures, and MIT Delta V. Their total capital raised has now reached over $3.7M. The company has developed a platform that autonomously converts 2D and 3D aerial imagery into CAD models for engineers. It could be a breakthrough compared to the current sluggish methods of surveying.
Image: Example of a downloadable aerial CAD file generated by AirWorks
Breezeway just closed a $4M Series A at a $13M pre-money valuation. The company has developed a property operations and services platform. The company is led by Jeremy Gall, who previously started rental listing website FlipKey before being acquired by TripAdvisor in 2013. Breezeway makes it easy for property managers to perform maintenance operations by utilizing real-time updates, easy task management, and scheduling capabilities.
Image: Screenshots of the Breezeway mobile and desktop applications
Waltham-based Vecna Robotics has raised a $50M Series B led by BlackHorn Ventures, with participation from Tectonic Ventures, Drive Capital, and Highland Capital bringing their total raised to $63M. Vecna creates autonomous vehicles for indoor material handling and transportation. The currently have three robot models: The Pallet Jack, the Conveyor, and the Tugger. The company focuses not just on workplace automation using robotics, but on improving workflows between human employees and their robot counterparts.
Amazon’s $775M acquisition of Kiva Systems was eight years ago, which resulted in one of the best fulfillment robotics vendors closing its doors to all other customers shortly after. Will Vecna work to fill this empty space? According to WSJ, nearly 28% of warehouses globally will be using commercial robots by 2025 compared to around 3% in 2018. Vecna spun off from its parent Vecna Technologies in 2018, and has since gone on to serve customers such as FedEx, Caterpillar, and Medline Industries.
Image: Vecna’s three robot models
Medical device company Allurion Technologies just secured $34M from Novalis LifeSciences and Romulus Capital for their obesity treatment product. Allurion is the maker of the Elipse Balloon Weight Loss Program, which involves swallowing a small device that inflates into a balloon in your stomach, making you feel full with less content inside of you. The idea isn’t completely novel, but Allurion’s balloon requires no procedure or anesthetics, making it as easy as swallowing the flexible polymer material in the doctor’s office. The device is not yet FDA approved.
Oddly enough, I stumbled upon a TikTok of exactly how this works.
Image: The Allurion Balloon Weight Loss Program components (excluding scale).
That’s all from me until next week — If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me on Linkedin and Twitter or check out my website at nickstu.art.
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