Last Week in Tech Deals
Boston's Recession Readiness
Boston’s Recession Readiness
Over a month ago, Venture Lane, Techstars, Underscore VC, BostInno, and First Republic Bank teamed up to collect data for a Recession Readiness Report on the Boston startup ecosystem. They ended up collecting data on 106 Massachusetts-based software companies and the results are now published. It’s full of valuable information on how startup leaders are thinking about execution for the next six months and beyond.
A few key points I found interesting:
75% of respondents have less than 12 months of runway.
53% of respondents will start raising in the next 6 months.
63% applied for PPP or a similar program.
28% laid off or furloughed employees.
69% reported flat or negative revenue in the last 60 days.
The report goes a lot deeper into the breakdown of each of these stats. There’s also a collection of founder strategies outlining how startup executives are thinking about new revenue streams, retention, and remote leadership. Definitely worth a read!
Stuff I’m Reading:
VC Financing Deals:
ClearGov 🏫
In early March, I wrote that ClearGov was raising $1.5M. According to a new Form D, they’ve gone on to raise $3M in equity. The Maynard-based company offers a suite of budgeting and insight products for local government and school districts that help provide transparency to constituents. The last week, and more specifically the last three days, has shown that the public is eager to get a better understanding of city budgets.
Their products help schools and cities budget, benchmark, and communicate important spending information while allowing anyone to sift through the data. The company has previously raised from a mixture of grants, accelerators, and investors, including Hub Angels, Launch Capital, MassVentures, and the Bantam Group.
Common Sense Machines 🧠
A new AI-related company out of Cambridge called Common Sense Machines is currently raising $5M. According to a Form D, Common Sense Machines is a newly incorporated company being built by Tejas Kulkarni and Max Kleiman-Weiner. Tejas is an AI researcher who spent 3+ years at DeepMind and Max co-founded Diffeo, an autonomous research assistant software that Salesforce bought in 2019.
Superpedestrian 🛴
After raising $20M in November of last year, electric scooter and bicycle startup Superpedestrian has now raised $15M from growth equity firm Edison Partners. The deal also included the acquisition of Zagster, which will become part of the company’s Link program. Superpedestrian has differentiated itself from the scooter funding frenzy by focusing on durability and vehicle intelligence. They’re backed by General Catalyst, Spark Capital, Breyer Capital, and a handful of other individual angels and VCs.
It’s an interesting time for scooter economics:
Zilla Security 🛡️
Wellesley-based SaaS security management company Zilla Security has raised a $1M tranche in a $4.13M seed round. The stealth company’s known investors are Pillar VC and FirstMark Capital. Zilla’s founder and CEO is Deepak Teneja, a founding CEO at Pillar VC and past early executive at Netegrity, Aveksa, and RSA. He’s also notably a board member at Boston cybersecurity firm ObserveIT.
LabMinds 🔬
Somerville-based robotic lab automation company LabMinds has raised an undisclosed amount of capital, according to Pitchbook. This comes a year after it’s $4.2M Series A3. The eleven-year-old company uses AI and robotics to optimize lab productivity, improve safety, and minimize waste to bring medical solutions to market more quickly. LabMinds is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, AngelCoFund, and Longwall Ventures.
Z Imaging 🥽
Boston-based Z Imaging, which is building augmented reality (AR) guidance solutions for surgery, just raised $530K. The four-year-old YC, MassChallenge, and Harvard i-Lab graduate helps surgeons overlay patients with CT scan and MRI imagery, track medical instruments inside the body, and plan procedures using AR. It’s run by Jose Maria Amich, who previously co-founded a non-profit aimed at tackling blindness in developing countries. Helping people see better seems to be his thing.
MetaLenz 🔍
Cambridge-based optical lens company MetaLenzhas raised $7.36M from so far undisclosed investors. According to Pitchbook, previous investors include the Department of Defense, Applied Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, and Tsingyuan Ventures. The four-year-old company is using flat-lens technology to make optical lenses on devices far smaller.
OpenExchange 📹
OpenExchange, an eleven-year-old communications company for the financial services industry, just raised VC for the first time since a Series B in 2013. It raised $4.35M, bringing total investment to $16M+. The Lincoln-based company helps finance firms spin up reliable and secure video conference connections and live streams. Previous backers include Citigroup, Ipreo, and Barclays.
Thanks for reading!
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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