Last Week in Boston Tech Deals and Happenings (10/27-11/3)
Upcoming Exits, new rounds of funding, and a month in review
Welcome Back & Happy November!
People are actually reading this now, which is really cool! Thank you so much to everyone that shared my newsletter with friends and co-workers over the course of this week. I guess I can’t quit writing these now. First-time readers can learn more about the newsletter here and about myself here.
Hopefully everyone’s Halloweekend was as spooky as mine. I think several VC’s were too busy finding the perfect shade of red makeup for their Elizabeth Holmes costume to sign any term sheets this week. I would’ve settled for a ketchup-filled Juul pod as my nanotainer.
October is somehow already over, so I thought I’d review some venture stats for the month:
Over $450M in venture capital was raised since starting this newsletter in the beginning of October. This is spread across 52 companies.
The average deal size was $9.5M, while the median was $4.4M.
The Next High-Profile Boston Tech Exit
Per Dan Primack’s Pro-Rata, Draft Kings is reportedly in talks to be sold. This would be pretty big news for Boston’s overall tech M&A record. At a potentially $2B valuation, it would widen the thin gap between Boston and NYC for the second place spot in global tech startup exit value. See our standings below:
Image: Screenshot from Founder Collective’s “Startup Success Outside Silicon Valley”
In other M&A news, ConnectWise acquired Boston-based Continuum. Per CRN, “Two of the nation’s biggest MSP platform providers said Wednesday they are joining forces, with ConnectWise and Continuum coming together in a “revolutionary” offering for partners that combines some of the best-in-class products into one solution.” Financial terms were not disclosed.
VC Financing Deals
Avenify raised $71K in an equity crowdfunding round. Avenify is a peer-to-peer Income Sharing Agreement (ISA) lending platform that allows users to borrow money to attend college, but pay nothing until they’re hired. Unlike Lambda School (who is a client of theirs), it is education-agnostic and is offered for a variety of schools already: Cornell, Northeastern, Howard, UPenn, and Cal Poly. It also allows people or companies to invest in students and earn a return using the ISA vehicle. More on how it works here.
Datawire raised $4M in equity. Datwire’s open-source tools “empower developers to rapidly develop resilient microservices on Kubernetes.” This space is certainly heating up. Earlier this month, Microsoft also launched new open-source projects around Kubernetes and microservices.
TetraScience, an IoT platform modernizing laboratories, raised an $8M Series A. Their Integration Engine, Lab Monitoring, and Lab Scheduling products are already being used by customers such as Merck, Pfizer, and indigo AG. Investors included First Round Capital, Floodgate Fund, Founder Collective, Underscore, and others.
Activ Surgical has raised an $11M Series A led by Chicago-based DNS Capital. This follows their $12.9M Venture Round in July 2019 and a $1.5M Seed Round in 2017. According to their website, Activ completed the world’s first autonomous robotic suturing procedure on a live pig. But did they do surgery on a grape?
Grax raised a $12.8M Series A this week. The deal was led by Volition Capital out of Boston. Grax’s platform “captures a recoverable record of every single change that happens to a company’s data over time, enabling businesses to keep their backup and archive data in their own storage environment.”
Per Bostinno, Trade Hounds raised $5M in equity according to an SEC filing. Trade Hounds is the “#1 professional network for construction workers and tradesmen.” They offer a mobile app that helps users share photos and descriptions of their trade work and update their network on other personal developments.
Green Rabbit raised $31M in funding from Guidepost Growth Equity, per FINSMES. Based out of Braintree, Green Rabbit delivers distribution and fulfillment services for perishables goods and groceries. The deal was led by Guidepost Managing Partner Doug Kinsley, who will be taking a board seat.
NeighborSchools raised $3.46M in equity per an SEC filing. NeighborSchools helps parents find “quality in-home childcare” near them. Parents can request personalized and vetted educators to visit their homes and work with their children. Check out their catalog of daycare programs currently offered.
Per Bostinno and SEC filings, Foodome raised $5M. What is Foodome? I’m not entirely sure yet, but according to MIT Media Lab, their aim is to “build a food learning machine that comprehensively maps, for any given food, its form, function, production, distribution, marketing, science, policy, history, and culture (as well as the connections among all of these aspects).” [Patent]
Lantos Technologies raised $5.2M per (Bostinno). Lantos has developed a device for high-accuracy digital ear scanning for custom-fit hearing devices. The technology was developed out of MIT and has reached FDA 510K clearance. Applications for the tech include professional audio, consumer audio, and hearing protection.
Namogoo, which has a Boston and Israel presence, raised a $40M Series C led by Oak HC/FT, with additional investment from GreatPoint Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Hanaco VC. Their total funding to date is now at $69M. Namogoo specializes in customer journey hijacking prevention and customer privacy protection. Their mission is to “shed light on any code impacting online enterprises’ digital ecosystem and give them control over their customer journey.” Their customers already include Asics, Argos, Upwork, and Dollar Shave Club.
Evolv Technologies has raised $24.1M. Evolv is the developer of a frictionless, computer vision-based, real-time smart threat detection system. The product is powered by an AI platform that can screen over 3600 people per hour. In today’s world, the applications for this product are sadly growing, but it has the potential to greatly improve standard security checkpoints at places like entertainment venues, airports, stadiums, corporations, and hospitals.
Image: The Evolv Technology Evolv Express free-flow system
That’s all for last week! Tune in next Sunday to see what November brings us. Also, please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions for future letters — Any feedback is welcome!
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