AI Company Beyond Limits Raises $133M Series C

Artificial intelligence company Beyond Limits has landed $133 million in its Series C round. 

The round was led by new investor Group 42 and existing investor BP Ventures. 

Beyond Limits is focused on industrial AI, more specifically energy, utility and power. The Series C round will help it expand globally in those sectors.

In an interview with Crunchbase News CEO AJ Abdallat said, “We are focused on customers globally in these sectors so that’s why we expanded into Asia and that’s why we’re expanding into the Middle East region and Africa….We’re going after big global brands. These are global players, these are not just players in the U.S., so we’re excited.” 

The company, which is based in the Los Angeles area, is planning on launching operations in Asia and expanding in the Middle East and Africa. Beyond Limits Asia will have its headquarters in Singapore with offices in Taipei, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

It will also be expanding in North America and Europe and invest in its product portfolio, focusing on repeatable software-as-a-service products, Abdallat said.

The company last raised a $20 million Series B led by BP Ventures in June 2017. The latest round brings Beyond Limit’s total funding to more than $158 million. With the Series C round, Abdallat said going with Group 42 as the lead investor was a good strategy for the company as it goes after the industrial space.

“I always was a big fan of strategic investors and this was very evident in our B round,” Abdallat said. “BP helped us understand products and the energy sector.”

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, the company hasn’t changed its forecast for 2020 on the booking side, Abdallat said. The company is expecting more than $50 million in booking business in 2020 and expects to double that figure in 2021, owing to its global expansion. 

 Source. TechCrunch, Sophia Kunthara, September 22, 2020  

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Monarch Biosciences Closes Over $1M Seed Financing

Monarch Biosciences, Inc., a Los Angeles, CA-based advanced life sciences company, closed its seed round financing of more than $1m.

The round was led by by Checkmate Capital Group. In conjunction with the funding, Checkmate Capital’s CEO, Tom Paschall, will join the MonarchBio Board of Directors.

The company intends to use the funds for the development of its biomaterial-based neurovascular stent and platform for local delivery of cell therapies.

Led by CEO Leon Ekchian, Ph.D., MonarchBio is an advanced life sciences company that is developing a pipeline of products based on its proprietary thin-film nitinol (TFN) biomaterial. Its lead product – the Titan Flow Diverter™ – offers rapid occlusion of cerebral aneurysms compared with current leading neurovascular products in the market. The second product in its pipeline, the Engineered Lymph Node™ (ELN), is a TFN-based device for local delivery of cell therapies treating solid tumors.

The seed funding, which supplemented several million dollars of NIH funding, has been pivotal for the development of MonarchBio’s Titan Flow Diverter. In preparation for first-in-human trials expected later this year, MonarchBio completed preclinical animal and human simulator testing conducted by a team headed by David Kallmes, M.D., Professor of Radiology, at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota.

MonarchBio has thirteen issued U.S. patents in addition to having exclusively licensed a portfolio of patents from UCLA and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center related to various applications of TFN technology.

Source, FinSMEs, April 8, 2020

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Co-Living Keeps Growing As Tripalink Raises $10M At $100M Valuation

Tripalink, a Los Angeles-based real estate startup providing co-living space for students and  young professionals, has raised a $10 million Series B at a $100 million valuation.

Founded by University of Southern California-Los Angeles (USC) graduates in 2016, Tripalink has grown rapidly. According to CEO Donghao Li, the company has been profitable since the year it was founded and tripled its revenue in 2018.

The latest financing marks Tripalink’s third funding round in a ten-month period, Li said, bringing its total capital raised to $20 million. Existing investors Calin SJG Fund, China-based K2VC, and Tekton Ventures participated in the round, along with new investor Oriza Ventures.

Tripalink has two product lines. First, it works with small and medium-sized developers to create and manage co-living spaces. Second, it has also become a developer, building out its own co-living projects.

Tripalink helps provide furnished, all utilities-paid co-living spaces in Los Angeles, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Irvine, Austin, and Philadelphia. It claims that its properties are “fully occupied” in most of the cities where it currently operates. The new capital will mostly go toward market expansion with a goal of being in 30 cities by 2020, according to Li. By the end of this year, the company expects it will have developed itself nearly 4,000 beds via master leases or joint ventures.

“Besides building a community, our price per bedroom is much cheaper compared to most luxury apartments,” Li told Crunchbase News. “Purchasing land and then building our own co-living space is our ultimate goal in each market.”

The model is attractive to developer partners because the more bedrooms in a unit, the higher the value of their property, Li said. Tripalink purposely targets centrally located areas that are more likely to see appreciation over time.

Most apartments that the company rents have room for four people, with a total square footage of about 1,200. Each person has their own bedroom and bathroom, and each unit has a kitchen and living room. Larger units that can room up to six people are about 1500 square feet. Average rent per person varies on the market, Li said. In Los Angeles, monthly rent per person runs around $1,300-$1,500 whereas in cheaper markets, it’s less. Each unit has common indoor and outdoor space.

The trend of rising rental costs in hot job markets has brought all sorts of new ideas regarding living to the market. WeWork’s WeLive product line, hacker houses of dubious repute and more have become regular fare. And so long as jobs continue to cluster in big urban environments, the market may keep generating demand for new housing arrangements like what Tripalink and others can provide.

Source. Crunchbase News, Mary Ann Azevedo, August 6, 2019

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Glofox Closes $10M Series A Funding

Glofox, a Los Angeles, Calif.–based management platform specifically tailored to the needs of boutique fitness studio owners and their members, closed a $10M Series A funding.

The round was led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Partech, Notion Capital and Tribal VC.

The company intends to use the funds to:
– continue its expansion efforts in the US,
– build out its Los Angeles HQ,
– invest in product, developing additional innovative solutions for the enterprise/franchise market,
– increase marketing efforts, and
– fill key leadership positions.

Founded in 2014 by CEO Conor O’Loughlin, Glofox provides a software platform for fitness entrepreneurs to manage booking, payments, new leads and memberships. The system enables boutique fitness studio owners to create and maintain relationships with their members at every phase of the life cycle and at scale, whether they own one studio or 1,000. The company has a client base that spans 43 countries across the globe

Customers include F45 Training, Elite Bodyworks, Fit 7/8, 9Round, Switch Playground, etc.

Source. FinSMEs, Staff, May 14, 2019

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Halla Raises $1.4M in Seed Funding

Halla, a Los Angeles, CA-based AI company focused on personalized recommendations for the food ordering industry, raised $1.4m in seed funding.

The round, which brings the total equity raised to $1.9M, was led by E&A Venture Capital with participation from multi-stage technology investor SOSV.

The company intends to use the funds to:
– scale the I/O platform,
– onboard new customers, and
– further develop its AI technology.

Co-Founded by Spencer Price (CEO), Henry Michaelson (CTO) and Gabriel Nipote (COO), Halla is an AI company focused on personalization for the food ordering industry. Using Machine Learning technologies built around the psychography of food selection and billions of food-related data points, the company’s core offering Halla I/O (Intelligent Ordering) allows online grocers, meal kit services and food delivery businesses to offer personalized food ordering suggestions to their customers.

The platform is currently being used in stealth mode by several regional and national grocery chains.

Source. FinSMEs, Staff, May 15, 2019

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