Last Week in Boston Tech VC (11/17-11/24)
Fifteen Boston tech companies raised $146M last week.
Welcome Back!
Does anyone else feel like November just started? It looks like plenty of VCs are trying to close deals before Thanksgiving arrives and messes up their intermittent fasting schedule. This week, fifteen Boston companies raised $146M.
While Silicon Valley investors are wondering how they can invest in the next billion-dollar Chrome extension, Boston investors focused on crypto analytics, video game studios, eBikes, and more.
For those who are first-time readers, welcome! My name is Nick Stuart and I write a weekly newsletter on tech VC financing trends in Boston because I feel the city deserves more coverage. You can learn more about me here and about the micro-VC I help run here.
VC Financing Deals Last Week
OpenScholar, which aims to “provide a direct conduit between creators and consumers of knowledge,” raised $1.13M last week. The company started as a Harvard research project lead by now CEO Jessica Drislane. The SaaS product helps university administrators publish and manage website content. Think Squarespace, but for universities with thousands of web pages being maintained by hundreds of different people that don’t often communicate with each other.
Wellframe, which has created a mobile digital health management platform, has raised a $20M Series C. Founded close to a decade ago and boasting over 100 employees, Wellframe has now raised over $45M and is valued north of $143M — selling off 58% of ownership to investors in the process. Their cap table is filled with 30+ individual and institutional investors from across the map, but this round was lead by BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners with participation from F-Prime Capital and Threshold Ventures.
Superpedestrian, which makes fleets of ultra-durable electric scooters, just raised $20M led by General Catalyst with participation from Empire Angels, Hanaco Venture Capital, and Spark Capital. Using a mixture of sturdy hardware and vehicle intelligence software, the company claims that their scooters have a 12-month lifespan — compared to the reported month-long lifespan of competitors like Bird. They also make $2000 bicycles. (More on the fundraise from TechCrunch.)
Image: Superpedestrian scooter
Coinmetrics has raised a $6M Seed Round, bringing its total raised to $7.9M. Investors are so far undisclosed, but previous investors include Castle Island Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, Fidelity Investments, and Highland Capital Partners. CoinMetrics provides free and premium crypto-asset market data. Their data is used by a variety of parties including large financial firms, family offices, and news publications. For example, last week they published data that shows Ethereum ERC20 Tokens Are Gaining in Total Market Capitalization. Meanwhile, another Boston-based crypto company called Algorand is helping World Chess simultaneously IPO on the blockchain and London Stock Exchange.
ZwitterCo has closed a $1.12M Angel Round, raised over the last 15 months in convertible notes from investors such as ImagineH20, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Greentown Labs, and Tufts Gordon Institute. ZwitterCo is the creator of a “reverse osmosis membrane technology built for industrial water treatment.” The company claims that its nanofiltration technology can filter more than 98% of organic molecules. Zwitter’s technology utilizes zwitterionic copolymers, which sounds completely fake but I promise it’s very real and has some fascinating potential applications.
Decibel, which analyzes and rates website and app user experiences to drive up conversions, has raised a $17M Series B led by Draper Esprit, with participation from Eight Road Ventures and John Simon. The company has a Boston HQ, but is primarily located in London and will therefore not be included in my monthly fundraise count.
According to an SEC Form D filing, InsightSquared has raised a mixture of debt and equity totaling $6.82M. About 18 months ago, the sales intelligence platform had raised $23M from a handful of Boston, New York, and Seattle-based VCs.
Hingham, MA-based Dive Technologies has raised a $3.01M Angel Round from undisclosed investors. The company develops autonomous underwater ocean exploration vehicles (AUVs). Their product’s capabilities could be applicable for services like commercial surveying, defense, research, energy, and communications.
Voda is raising $3M according to an SEC Form D filing last week. The company uses AI to monitor the health of utility piping and streamline replacement and maintenance processes. Voda’s “daVinci ML engine” analyzes pipe breakage history, pipe age, and a handful of other datasets to predict the likelihood of a utility pipe breaking.
RGS Automation, which stands for “Robot Gripping Services,” raised a $250K Seed Round from undisclosed investors. Previously, they had raised $250K from Aldavia Ventures in 2017. According to Crunchbase, RGS is preparing for “the next wave of automated services within robotics.”
Last week, I reported that NOCA had raised a Seed Round that we now know topped $3.5M for their spiked water beverage. This week, a canned mimosa company called Ohza has brought in $80k in an Angel Round. Ohza makes premium canned mimosas that are “not just for brunch.”
Image: Ohza’s canned mimosa
Mobile Cooks has initiated an equity crowdfunding campaign as of last week. The deal is being raised in the form of SAFE notes via the crowdfunding platform Republic. Their goal is to raise $25K-$1M, with a $3M valuation cap. Mobile Cooks wants to enable vegan chefs to better monetize their specialized cooking skills by connecting them with pop-up, restaurant, and catering opportunities. This summer, they did a three-month residency at the Timeout Market in Fenway where they served 20K vegan meals.
Proletariat, which develops award-winning multiplayer strategy video games, has closed a $20M Series C led by Take-Two Interactive Software with additional participation from Spark Capital and FirstMark Capital. Previous investors include Accomplice and Coffin Capital. The company has now raised over $28M to build out its game portfolio. Take-Two interactive owns the publisher of Rockstar Games, famous for publishing massive hits like Grand Theft Auto. They plan to use their Series C funding to ramp up production of their latest fantasy-style battle-royale title: Spellbreak.
Image: A screenshot of Proletariat’s 2016 hit title Streamline
Starburst Data has announced a $22M Series A led by Index Ventures. The company develops a SQL query engine that works with diverse big data sets in a variety of formats. According to TechCrunch, they’re monetizing the open-source Presto distributed query engine. Presto is basically a SQL database without storage — Here’s a YouTube video that explains it better than I could.
Artistory has raised a $190K Seed Round from undisclosed investors. The company aims to utilize special algorithms to understand how musicians are gaining traction on a variety of fronts such as streaming, touring, and social media. “Our passion is deconstructing and analyzing data to tell the real story and creating exciting products that improve how artists, managers, brands, and fans experience the music world.” I also found their Spotify profile if you want to judge a music analytics firm’s music taste. In the past, they received investment from MA-based Mill Town Capital.
In the first week of November, I wrote about how Turbonomic purchased SevOne. This week, Turbonomic has raised $42M from undisclosed investors, bringing their total raised to $167M. They have developed an “AI-powered application designed to improve application performance.” In other words, they collect API data from applications that a company uses, analyze the data to manage application resource allocation, then recommend or execute changes in application performance in real-time.
That’s all from me — thanks again to everyone who has shared this newsletter with friends and colleagues! If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me on Linkedin and Twitter. Shoot me a message if you’d like to chat! Enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday.
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