Nanit raises $21 million for its baby monitor, app and new line of wearables for infants

The developer of a machine learning-enhanced baby monitor, Nanit, has managed to nab $21 million in financing even amid the teeth of an epidemic that has slowed venture financing across the board.

The round came from existing investors, including: Jerusalem Venture Partners, Upfront Ventures, RRE Ventures and Rho Capital Partners, and brings the company’s total capital to $50 million.

Nanit said it would use the financing for continued product development and global expansion.

For Nanit, the social distancing required to stop the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic has proven to be a huge boost for business. Families with grandparents, aunts and uncles make up 20% of the company’s active users, according to a statistic provided by Nanit.

The company didn’t even have to tap outside investors or go on a road show for its recent raise, according to chief executive Sarah Dorsett. So far, Nanit has sold more than 150,000 cameras and has at least twice as many users who are accessing the company’s app for remote monitoring of newborns and one-year-olds.

Prices for the sleep monitoring and video device range from $299 for a wall-mounted camera to $379 for one attached to a floor stand. Currently, Nanit sells its monitoring devices in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

The company’s app is free for the first year and then costs $5 per month to connect three users to the app. Upgrades are available for $10 per month for more users or $30 per month for unlimited users. And the company’s new line of wearable breathing bands, swaddles and sleeping bags range from $19.99 to $59.99.

Nanit does more than just provide a live, shareable feed of movements. The company is getting set to launch a new feature that would capture when a baby smiles or when they begin to move around in a crib, according to Dorsett.

“The company has experienced incredible growth from 2018, and our recent funding points to the confidence and demand in the marketplace for innovative consumer products,” Dorsett, said in a statement. “Having a baby is one of the most significant life moments not only for parents but for the entire family. We are so fortunate to be able to use our technology to keep families connected and sharing in this precious new journey, no matter where they are.”

Nanit has also launched a new line of wearables called Breathing Wear that track their infant’s breathing motion by reading the pattern printed on the fabric without putting sensors on their skin.

“Nanit has solved the age-old problem of teaching your baby to fall asleep. The company’s products are expanding our understanding of ‘life in the crib’ and giving families more ways to share in the joy of parenting. The company has achieved incredible product-market fit and we believe Nanit is well-positioned to address a wide range of health and wellness questions for families and physicians,” said Will Porteous, general partner, RRE Ventures, in a statement.

Source Jonathan Shieber, TechCrunch, May 12, 2020

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the Canadian startup market; offering strategic communications & public relations services to Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

Are you a pre-seed to late stage funded Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax

Boston-based DataRobot raises $206M Series E to bring AI to enterprise

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly large role in enterprise software, and Boston’s DataRobot has been helping companies build, manage and deploy machine learning models for some time now. Today, the company announced a $206 million Series E investment led by Sapphire Ventures.

Other participants in this round included new investors Tiger Global Management, World Innovation Lab, Alliance Bernstein PCI and EDBI, along with existing investors DFJ Growth, Geodesic Capital, Intel Capital, Sands Capital, NEA and Meritech.

Today’s investment brings the total raised to $431 million, according to the company. It has a pre-money valuation of $1 billion, according to PitchBook. DataRobot would not confirm this number.

The company has been catching the attention of these investors by offering a machine learning platform aimed at analysts, developers and data scientists to help build predictive models much more quickly than it typically takes using traditional methodologies. Once built, the company provides a way to deliver the model in the form of an API, simplifying deployment.

The late-stage startup plans to use the money to continue building out its product line, while looking for acquisition opportunities where it makes sense. The company also announced the availability of a new product today, DataRobot MLOps, a tool to manage, monitor and deploy machine learning models across a large organization.

The company, which was founded in 2012, claims it has had triple-digit recurring revenue growth dating back to 2015, as well as one billion models built on the platform to date. Customers contributing to that number include a broad range of companies, such as Humana, United Airlines, Harvard Business School and Deloitte.

Source. TechCrunch, Ron Miller, Septembet 16, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

.

Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

Avalanche Technology Raises $33M in Funding.

Avalanche Technology, a Fremont, CA-based MRAM technology platform, raised over $33M in funding.

The round was led by Thomvest Ventures.

The company will use the funds to accelerate the development of its P-SRAM™ memory devices for the Internet of Things, aerospace and defense markets and higher densities of persistent DRAM required for the next generation of machine learning architectures.

Led by Petro Estakhri, President and CEO, Avalanche Technology has developed Perpendicular STT-MRAM technology, which aims to replace traditional Flash and SRAM for unified memory architectures in future SOC systems, delivering high performance and low power at 55, 40 and 28nm with scalability to 22 and 14nm.

With a proven STT-MRAM portfolio at multiple geometry nodes combined with an intellectual property portfolio of over 280 patents and applications, Avalanche Technology aims to enable the next generation of scalable embedded unified memory architecture for use in GPUs, MCUs, DSPs, ASSPs and ASICs.

Source. FinSMEs, Staff, May 28, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the Canadian private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.