HomeX Raises $90M to Provide Physical and Virtual Home Repair Services

On Tuesday, Chicago-based home services platform HomeX announced the close of a $90 million capital raise led by New Mountain Capital.

There are plenty of advantages to owning your own home: it gives you the freedom to do what you want with your space, it’s a proven way to build wealth and it means you don’t have to deal with landlords.

But there are drawbacks, and one of them is that you’re on the hook when something goes wrong. This can be intimidating for early homeowners who may not know what to do in these scenarios. What do you do if a pipe bursts? Or if your ceiling caves in? Most homeowners will call an expert like a plumber, electrician or other contractor. But doing so could easily result in a bill worth hundreds of dollars, if not more.

 HomeX wants to change the way we do home maintenance and repairs by blending the traditional with technology. Instead of “rolling a truck” to a person’s home every time a homeowner needs to address an issue, HomeX can use technology like natural language processing, machine reasoning and knowledge engineering to help diagnose what the problem is and how to solve it. From there it can determine whether a professional needs to be sent in, or if they can virtually guide the homeowner through the repair process.

The company says its platform can change the home services industry the same way telehealth changed healthcare. By adding virtual diagnoses, HomeX believes it can save professionals time and save customers money — and both parties benefit from the extra convenience.

“Home services is a $500 billion market, but it remains highly fragmented and needs meaningful innovation,” CEO and founder Michael Werner said in a statement. “This new partnership allows us to rapidly expand our offerings and reach new audiences, continuing to alleviate the headaches of homeownership, while helping contractors secure operational efficiencies and qualified appointments, not just leads.”

And just like telehealth services, the company’s virtual home service solutions saw a huge bump in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. It says that its HomeX Remote Assist virtual diagnostic and repair solution grew more than 400 percent in less than a year.

This new funding will help HomeX expand its business and offer its services in more parts of North America.

“We are excited to support the growth of HomeX, a business that is primed to reshape the home and commercial services industry,” New Mountain Capital managing director Harris Kealey said in a statement. “The market is massive and the need for change and innovation is substantial — HomeX is at the forefront of this opportunity and we are eager to partner with the management team to help position the Company for continued success.”

Source. Built In Chicago, Gordon Gottsegen, April 13, 2021

 ***

This post was brought to you by  The Woewoda Group of Companies that includes Media OneTwelve and Woewoda Communications. 

Media OneTwelve is a multimedia communications and production company that specializes in film, video and podcast production, photo journalism, and television, radio, newspaper, newsletter, journal and magazine publicity.   

Woewoda Communications is a public relations agency that specializes in media relations, community relations and event planning. 

Both companies work with organizations - including startups and investors - across Canada and the United States. Both are headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.  

Websites 

Media OneTwelve https://mediaonetwelve.woewodacommunications.com/
Woewoda Communications www.woewodacommunications.com

Exclusive: GoalBased Investors Banks $2.75M Seed To Gamify Financial Planning

 GoalBased Investors aims to provide access to anyone who wants goal-based financial planning and advice, and now has $2.75 million in new seed funding to continue developing its platform.

 The New York-based company, founded in 2019, asks users three questions: How much you have now, how much you want to save and the trade-offs you are willing to make. It then matches users and advisers through a free gamified app experience.

“We are creating a platform where conversations can happen,” said Chip Castille, founder of GoalBased Investors who previously spent time as an investment strategist at BlackRock. “We saw people without financial literacy, and we want to help individual investors build a financial plan and lower the barriers around finding advice.”

True Ventures led the seed round with participation from The Venture Collective.

“This team is on a mission to strip away some of the intimidating jargon from financial planning that makes it daunting for people,” said Phil Black, co-founder of True Ventures, in a written statement. “Bridging communication between the average investing consumer and advisors who can help them is an incredible use of technology. We believe in Chip, his team and their honest mission to help people achieve their life goals.”

GoalBased’s smartphone app offers a social media-like interface so the experience is something familiar, Castille said. Even before a plan is set in motion, app users can anonymously and confidentially share information with financial advisers until they get comfortable enough to share additional information.

When speaking with an adviser, goals are expressed in points, Castille explained. Each time the user adds more information or works on their financial plan, points are earned. For example, when the user answers an initial question, they earn 100 points. Someone could then “spend” points in a way to reach their goals, such as spending points to retire three years early or create a college fund, he added.

Because GoalBased is still early in its journey, there are no growth metrics Castille could reveal yet. While the app is free for consumers and advisers, the company aims to monetize the investment manager, he said.

In the meantime, the app will launch this summer, and the new funding is being used to continue testing it with the adviser community. The company is also using advertising to encourage users to get on the waitlist, as well as building out its engineering and sales teams.

“We understand the existing distribution channels and want to make them better,” Castille said. “You will be able to talk to your adviser and say, ‘I’m two points to my goal, what can I add to get there?’ Consumers can express their own way to achieve a goal, and the dialogue will have more meaning.”

Source. Techcruch, Christine Hall, April 22, 2021

***

This post was brought to you by  The Woewoda Group of Companies that includes Media OneTwelve and Woewoda Communications. 

Media OneTwelve is a multimedia communications and production company that specializes in film, video and podcast production, photo journalism, and television, radio, newspaper, newsletter, journal and magazine publicity.   

Woewoda Communications is a public relations agency that specializes in media relations, community relations and event planning. 

Both companies work with organizations - including startups and investors - across Canada and the United States. Both are headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.  

Websites 

Media OneTwelve https://mediaonetwelve.woewodacommunications.com/

Woewoda Communications  www.woewodacommunications.com

 

France’s Sendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform, raises $160M

As more companies and brands put the internet at the core of how they run their businesses these days, it’s giving a strong push to the growth of startups that are building tools to help them. In the latest development, Sendinblue, an eight-year-old French startup that has built a platform to help small and medium organizations run all of their marketing — from email, SMS and chat marketing through to automation services, Facebook ads and retargeting — has picked up $160 million in funding.

Bridgepoint, Bpifrance, Blackrock and previous investor Partech (which led Sendinblue’s $35 million in Series A in 2017) all invested in the round.

The money will be used to help the company build out its presence in North America — where it grew 100% last year — and to continue to add more tools to the mix, both organically and by positioning itself as a consolidator, acquiring smaller marketing tech startups. The company is also building CRM tools and other adjacent areas in the SMB back office, so you can see how it might evolve. It’s profitable and is active already in some 60 countries, with some 180,000 customers on its books.

 The huge funding, for a startup that may not have been on many people’s radar — you could say Sendinblue has come out of the blue — is a sign of the times.

SMBs (like retailers and brands doubling down on e-commerce) have long used the internet for marketing, but the recent pandemic, with its social distancing measures, has highlighted just how many people are spending time (and spending money) online, which has led to a boost in how organizations are using the internet to communicate with customers.

“The whole COVID pandemic has accelerated our business,” said Steffen Schebesta, who runs the company’s North American operations (and joined the company when his startup, Newsletter2Go, was acquired several years ago). “We’ve seen a lot of SMBs finding that they need to digitize in order to survive.”

It’s also notable that it’s a French startup raising a large growth round: It’s a signal of how companies from the country are scaling, filling out a mission that French President Emmanuel Macron set out to see the country produce (and invest in) more unicorns.

“Sendinblue is positioned in a growing market as more and more SMBs are going digital, especially in the past few months of lockdown,” said Olivier Nemsguern, partner at Bridgepoint, in a statement. “We seek investments that meet a critical market need. Sendinblue is the perfect example of a company that will make an impact.”

“We have invested in Sendinblue because the company offers innovative solutions for SMBs and has a strong track record of achieving high growth in the U.S. and European market,” added Louis Molis, investment director at Bpifrance. “We’ve seen that Sendinblue’s value is globally extensible and will increase in importance as integrated marketing becomes more important.”

“Sendinblue has quickly become the leading digital-marketing platform for SMBs,” said Bruno Crémel, general partner at Partech. “As demand for all in one platforms increases, Sendinblue has a unique ability to succeed. We are thrilled to continue to support Sendinblue as the company accelerates its next phase of international growth.”

Source. Ingrid Lunden, Tech Crunch, October 1, 2020

***

This post was brought to you by  The Woewoda Group of Companies that includes Media OneTwelve and Woewoda Communications. 

Media OneTwelve is a multimedia communications and production company that specializes in film, video and podcast production, photo journalism, and television, radio, newspaper, newsletter, journal and magazine publicity.  

Woewoda Communications is a public relations agency that specializes in media relations, community relations and event planning. 

Both companies work with organizations - including startups and investors - across Canada and the United States. Both are headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.  

Websites 

Media OneTwelve https://mediaonetwelve.woewodacommunications.com/

Woewoda Communications  www.woewodacommunications.com

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  

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.

Brazil's Acesso Digital Secures 107.25 million in Funding

U.S. private equity firm General Atlantic LLC and Japan's SoftBank Group Corp 9984.T are leading a 580 million reais ($107.25 million) funding round in Brazilian facial biometrics and digital admission company Acesso Digital, it said in a statement on Monday.Both General Atlantic and SoftBank will hold a minority stake in Acesso Digital after the investment.

Founded in 2007, Acesso Digital announced its first funding round in January, when it raised 40 million reais with Igah Venture, formerly e.Bricks Ventures.

Acesso Digital founder and CEO Diego Martins said in an interview that demand for the companies’ services has doubled since the beginning of the pandemic, as use of contactless identification has surged in an attempt to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Martins said the company will use the proceeds of the funding round to expand the business, including via acquisitions.

Source. Reuters, Sept 21, 2020 

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.

Restream raises $50M to help creators program and stream to multiple platforms

Live streaming of video has come into its own during the coronavirus pandemic, with services like Zoom, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and many others giving people a way to stay connected with each other, run events and continue working even when they can not be in the same physical spaces together.

Now, a startup called Restream, which has built a platform to help those who want to stream to more than one place simultaneously, is announcing a big round of funding on the heels of seeng its business boom 300% in the last eight months. The Austin-based startup has raised $50 million, a Series A co-led by Sapphire Ventures and Insight Partners.

Alex Khuda, CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch in an interview that Restream is not disclosing its valuation with this round, except to note that it is definitely higher than the modest $17.8 million (per pitch book) valuation it reached when it announced a seed round in 2018.

The startup was bootstrapped for several years before that and has been profitable almost from the start. Khuda said that this latest, large round of funding was raised in fact not for current operations, but to take the business into newer areas.

Specifically, it will be used to help fuel the launch of Restream Studio, a platform for creators to do more production around their videos: for example, writing captions and lower-thirds, adding watermarks, managing chats, and editing and repurposing excerpts of streams on other channels, and managing analytics. Think of it as the Hootsuite of video streaming.

It will also go towards expanding with more localised servers in a wider set of markets to manage the content that it carries.

Restream today covers some 30 streaming platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube, and lets people also take video from platforms like Zoom and rebroadcast it to platforms for bigger audiences. It operates on a freemium model, with the majority of customers using the free tier and others paying between $19 and $299 per month depending on the level of service.

The company had its start in the world of gaming but today also caters to a wider range of creators, musicians and businesses that use the service both to manage internal and B2B communications as well as their wider marketing efforts. Some of the high profile organizations that have used it include the World Health Organization, which ran its One World: Together at Home charity concert on the platform to shore up spirits at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and had some 270 million viewers.

Indeed, for all the negative aspects of the pandemic, it’s been a boost to the streaming industry’s business, and no less so Restream’s business: the company hit 750 million monthly views in July. Other big-name customers include Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra, Microsoft, Redhat, SalesForce and Ubisoft.

And what’s particularly interesting is how the company — which numbers just 45 people — has been managing all of that work remotely: no one is going into the office at the moment. And I have to point out it looked like Khuda’s interview with me was being done in a closet (a large closet, I should add).

“We all sleep less,” Khuda, who is originally from Ukraine but now lives in Austin, said with a smile. “All of the team works remotely because we want to try to keep everyone safe. When it comes to tech our people who are responsible for dev ops and reliability, they have always been remote.” He said that the aim is to build tech to automate as much as possible, “so that they never come back to the same thing.”

While live-streaming was shaping up to be a big business already — and companies like Vimeo were also offering a route to rebroadcasting — we’re seeing ever more companies moving deeper in to the space to meet the demand and opportunity from the market today. Just yesterday, we reported on how Spotify is also preparing a virtual event streaming service at the same time that a number of other music services are also launching their own live event streaming platforms.

The big question will be whether longer term we continue to see a proliferation of content across multiple places, or whether streaming companies — hoping to bring more viewers to their own platforms and to further differentiate themselves — push for more exclusivity rather than something that everyone can see anywhere. While this might happen, Khuda said he believes there will always be a market for those who want to be everywhere, and that this ultimately is a better business model for most people, not the select few.

“Mixer was an example of where exclusivity was applied but then suddenly those who used it had to find a new place to broadcast and build audience,” he said referring to the closure of Microsoft’s streaming service for gamers. “It’s a good lesson to not keep all your eggs in one basket.”

But the other big opportunity is also in how Restream is widening out to more than just gaming and entertainment.

“Restream’s 300% growth since January illustrates the value of their software for Fortune 500 companies to be able to communicate directly to their audiences in today’s virtual world,” said Teddie Wardi, MD at Insight Partners, in a statement. “Starting with the gaming community, Alex and Andrew quickly recognized the potential for Restream’s technology to engage audiences in a variety of settings and scale their platform globally. Now, with their suite of leading-edge streaming tools such as schedule, chat, and analytics, global brands and content creators are able to seamlessly connect and communicate with their audiences. We are excited to partner with Restream at this exciting time as they launch Restream Studio and continue to expand their product offerings.”

And while it’s not always the case that early movers are winners, in the case of Restream it helped them carve out a market position that they are able to keep by continuing to innovate on their technology.

“Long before remote work and life became the norm, Restream’s multistreaming platform had become essential to many creators, companies, entertainers, influencers and anyone that needs to broadcast to wide audiences across social channels such as Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and more,” said Paul Levine, a partner at Sapphire Ventures. “In just a few years, co-founders Alex Khuda and Andrew Surzynskyi built a product that’s become a valuable tool for content creators and marketers to maximize the audience for their live video. Accelerated by COVID, I believe Restream has a significant market opportunity, and I’m excited to partner together on the journey ahead.”

Both VCs are joining the board with this round.

Source: TechCrunch, Ingrid Lunden, August 27, 2020

***

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.

Dexterity exits stealth with $56.2M raised for its collaborative warehouse robots

Dexterity emerged from stealth this week to announce its full-stack solution aimed at creating collaborative robotics systems. The hardware-software system is designed for a variety of different tasks, including bin picking and box packing, targeted at warehouse fulfillment and logistics needs.

The Bay Area-based startup has already built up significant support from the investment world, with $56.2 million raised to date, from a long list of backers, including Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Obvious Ventures, Pacific West Bank, B37 Ventures, Presidio (Sumitomo) Ventures, Blackhorn Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures and Stanford StartX.

The company was founded back in 2017 as an extension of CEO Samir Menon’s Stanford thesis, described by Dexterity thusly, “Menon worked on a control theory framework to describe how the human brain controls and coordinates the body, which serves as a model to distill human skill into mathematical programs that control robots in a graceful human-like manner.”

Part of the company’s appeal appears to be the versatility of the robotics, which are designed to work alongside their human counterparts and operate collaboratively. Among the early adopters for the system are an unnamed “global food manufacturer,” “a worldwide package delivery provider” and Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

Dexterity says it’s also seen a boost from the push for essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic, like so many others in the robotics and automation fields, stating that its systems have been involved with the shipping of “half a million units of packaged food.”

Source: TechCrunch, Brian Heater, July 22, 2020

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.

LanzaTech Raises $50M, Launches New Sustainable Aviation Fuel Spinout

LanzaTech, a renewable energy startup out of Skokie, announced Tuesday it will be launching a new spinout company called LanzaJet to produce sustainable aviation fuel in an effort to decarbonize in the industry.

According to SKYNRG, planes currently account for about 2 or 3 percent of all man-made global emissions. That number is predicted to reach 22 percent by 2050 if we don’t intervene soon. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is meant to be a greener alternative to the fossil jet fuel currently being used. Instead of petroleum, it is made from sustainable materials like biological waste oils, agriculture residue or non-fossil carbon dioxide. The hope is that, by using a more sustainable fuel, the company can clean up this environmentally harmful industry.

The company also announced it has raised $50 million in investments from Canada-based Suncor Energy, Japanese investment firm Mitsui & Co. and Japanese airline All Nippon Airways, as well as a $14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The money is being used in the construction of a biorefinery plant in Soperton, Georgia, which is projected to produce 10 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel for the commercial market annually. Production is expected to begin early 2022, according to LanzaTech.

“This partnership demonstrates our continuing commitment to improving the sustainability of the aviation industry and supports our ambition to be the first in Japan to produce SAF on a commercial scale,” Mitsui COO and Managing Officer Toru Matsui said in a statement. “The SAF produced by LanzaJet will support the development of a global SAF supply chain, which has the potential to significantly reduce emissions from aviation and help to create a low carbon society.”

LanzaTech was founded in 2005 by Richard Forster and Sean Simpson and is currently led by CEO Jennifer Holmgren. Over the years, the company has become a leader in using methods like gas fermentation, reactor design, machine learning and synthetic biology to develop commercially used carbon recycling processes and sustainable fuels. Last year, LanzaTech closed on a $72 million Series E round, bringing its total funding raised to $350 million. 

At the helm of the new LanzaJet will be Jimmy Samartzis, who has spent decades in the industry working for companies like United Airlines, Airlines for America and the International Air Transportation Association. He is also the former managing director at consulting firm Slalom and a current director on the board of Fermilab, a U.S. Department of Energy lab in Batavia. 

“The launch of LanzaJet marks a historic milestone in the clean energy transition that is underway globally. I’ve been a part of many renewable energy and sustainability firsts over the decade, and this one is the most exciting,” Samartzis said in a statement. “The commercialization of LanzaJet — built on the shoulders of LanzaTech, Suncor, Mitsui, ANA and with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy — gives our world, and aviation in particular, an important solution in shaping a cleaner future.”

Source. Chicago Startups, Ellen Glover, June 3, 2020

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.

SmartRent raises $60 million to manage connected buildings

SmartRent which provides smart home automation for property owners, managers, developers, and residents, today announced that it has raised $60 million. CEO Lucas Haldeman said the funding will enable the company’s next phase of growth as it expands its portfolio of offerings

According to Statista, revenue from the smart home market is anticipated to climb 18.3% from 2020 to 2023, resulting in market volume of $41 billion within the next three years. But appliances, lighting fixtures, and security cameras are often not user-friendly, which has threatened to impede adoption. A survey conducted by TechSee found that nearly 74% of respondents were “certain” or “very likely” to return a new smart home purchase if they found it difficult to install.

SmartRent promises to take the pain out of installation with a fully managed service approach. The company, which launched in the multifamily apartment space with a platform for single-family rentals, expanded to over 25,000 homes spanning 15 different states between 2014 and 2016. In early 2017, it relaunched with a “heightened focus” on multifamily communities and support for dual ownership, where a resident directly controls devices like smart locks, thermostats, and sensors, but a property manager monitors the system and supplies credentials.

SmartRent’s flagship product is Alloy Access, a cloud-based access control system that enables property managers to streamline the move-in and move-out process. There’s no need to collect fobs or keys — former residents and staff are automatically removed from the system once their contract, employment, or lease ends.

Alloy Access supports fobs for customers who choose to use them, as well as keyless entry and PIN codes and mobile credentials. Those credentials can be added to a mobile app or revoked, and managers receive alerts from that same app when doors are propped open or visitors arrive.

With SmartRent, customers can switch between communities to manage particular units and work orders. They’re able to create, assign, and manage units, leases, and unit-related work from the app and integrate the platform with existing software like Yardi, RealPage, Entrata, ResMan; single sign-on portals like Okta; and access control systems and hardware like Brivo or HID.

In addition to automated move in/out, SmartRent can handle vacant unit management and automatic hourly syncs, as well as tasks like reporting and analytics.

SmartRent works with property managers to inspect unit door locks and common area access points, as well as electrical, water, and network infrastructure. Depending on local municipal laws, geographic location, and property type, SmartRent’s channel partners design device packages for managers to choose from. SmartRent’s field staff installs selected hardware and performs platform activation, providing training and assistance for staff and residents.

Residents get features like climate control, keyless access, preprogrammed scenes, scheduled routines, and monitoring (of energy and usage), courtesy of devices from Yale, Honeywell, Nest, Amazon, Assa Abloy, Aeotec, and other popular manufacturers. SmartRent’s platform is fully compatible with assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. On the prospective renter side, it allows managers to offer self-guided tours that collect information like contacts and identification (i.e., a driver’s license) while providing a high-level overview of units, covering things like prices, bathroom counts, amenities, and ADA-accessible features.

Haldeman notes that the pandemic appears to be ushering in contactless experiences like SmartRent’s self-guided tours feature. In the payments arena, for instance, a Mastercard study showed that 79% of consumers who use contactless payments cite safety and cleanliness as the key drivers of adoption.

SmartRent says it encrypts connections using ciphers and keeps current on security incidents to patch its software as needed. The company also claims it walls off certain device usage data (like lock and air conditioning status) from property managers, excepting things like leak monitors, security and other cameras, and broken glass sensors. However, SmartRent concedes that it might disclose data when it’s necessary to “investigate, prevent, or take action” regarding “illegal activities, suspected fraud, [situations] involving potential threats to the safety of any person,” or during litigation. It also says it shares personal info with advertising and analytics providers and might provide “aggregated and de-identified” data with landlords and others for “research purposes.”

SmartRent competes with companies like Zego, as well as home builders, including Lennar and REIT BSR. But Haldeman says demand is on the upswing, with 600% of SmartRent’s customers in 2019 expanding their use of the platform to new units.

Spark Capital led this latest funding round, with participation from Fifth Wall Ventures, Energy Impact Ventures, the Amazon Alexa Fund, Bain Capital Ventures, and RET Ventures. It brings Scottsdale, Arizona-based SmartRent’s total raised to over $100 million, following a $32 million series B in June 2019.

Alongside the funding, SmartRent hired Darian Hong as its new chief financial officer and CJ Edmonds as chief revenue officer.

Source. Venture Beat, Kyle Wiggers, May 27, 2020

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.

First Dollar Raises $5M in Seed Funding

First Dollar, an Austin, Texas-based human-centric health care savings platform, closed a seed funding round of $5M.

The round was led by Next Coast Ventures with participation from Meridian Street Capital.

Backers included former athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush, Everlywell CEO Julia Cheek, Bright Health CTO Brian Gambs and Capital Factory.

The company intends to use the funds to recruit a top team of engineers and designers to scale the HSA offering and build new functionality for its platform.

Co-founded in October 2019 by Jason Bornhorst and Colin Anawaty, First Dollar provides a platform for people to save for out-of-pocket expenses and find health care for a fair price. The company targets Millennials and Gen Z, a generally healthy population that typically spends too much per year for more coverage than they need.

Source. FinSMEs, May 6, 2020

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.

Artms Closes US$19M Series A Financing

Artms, Inc., a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based developer of technology that transforms the production of diagnostic imaging isotopes, raised US$19m in Series A financing.

The round was led by Deerfield Management Company with participation from GHS Fund (Quark Venture LP and GF Securities).

The company intends to use the funds to continue to collaborate with industry partners with the aim of developing cyclotron produced 68Ga-based diagnostic and to expand the commercialization of the QISTM for the production of additional critical medical isotopes.

Led by Charles S. Conroy, Chief Executive Officer, Artms provides the QUANTM Irradiation SystemTM (QISTM), which enables decentralized, and local production of important medical isotopes including gallium-68 (68Ga), zirconium-89 (89Zr), technetium‐99m (99mTc) and copper-64 (64Cu).

The technology utilizes locally-based medical cyclotrons, empowering the user to control their supply chain and produce high volumes of innovative high-quality radiopharmaceutical products.

Source, FinSMEs, May 20, 2020

***

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.

Berlin-based Zenjob gets €27 million to take its student job site international

Today the digital staffing service, Zenjob, has successfully secured a Series C funding round of €27 million. The lead investor in this round was Forestay Capital, who is joined by Redalpine, Acton Capital, Axa Venture Partners and Atlantic Labs.

Zenjob was founded in 2015 by Fritz Trott, Cihan Aksakal and Frederik Fahning, and has since become a team of 250 people. Their main goal is to act as a digital staffing service that provides temporary work to students, as well as helping companies on the other side find employees. Using the Zenjob app, students can find and book jobs on an hourly basis and can flexibly decide when, where and for whom they work. Each month, more than 15,000 students are employed in sectors such as logistics, events, retail and catering. 

Currently, the startup’s services are deployed and used in 14 German Cities. The new funds raised will primarily be used to support their expansion across more cities in Germany, as well as subsequently expand internationally. As well as this geographic expansion, the new funding will be used to develop the technology behind the service, using algorithms to further predict staff demand in the future.

Fritz Trott, co-founder and CEO of Zenjob comments: “We continue to invest further in our technology and expansion. Soon, more companies across Germany and Europe will be able to book staff by the hour and with fewer than 24 hours’ notice. The same applies to employees, particularly students, who also benefit from the flexibility and ease-of-use that Zenjob’s technology provides. Instead of paperwork and unnecessary interviews, a student goes directly to the right job with the help of the app. The coronavirus crisis requires social distancing, which has created increased demand for staffing in, especially, logistics and retail. Our service means that we can assist in the almost effortless digital hiring of hundreds of new students every day to fill these gaps.”

Forestay Capital’s Managing Partner, Frederic Wohlwend, said: “We are delighted to have invested in Zenjob and are very much looking forward to working with Fritz and his highly talented team. Zenjob is a company that has deployed disruptive technology to shake-up the temporary employment market and which, prior to this coronavirus crisis, had already proven itself to have an exciting future. Now, during this pandemic, its flexible digital recruiting service has, in our eyes, further been confirmed as a model for keeping the working world moving.”

“It’s great to see Zenjob going from strength to strength since the early days. We strongly believe in Zenjob’s unique digital offering in the temp staffing market. The team has built a very powerful platform to match high-quality temp staff with businesses, quickly and flexibly across all industries. This financing round is an important milestone for the company to further strengthen its market position in Germany and expand internationally,” adds Harald Nieder, Partner at Redalpine.

Source. EU Startups, Charlotte Tucker, May 12, 2020

***

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.

Sound Agriculture Raises $22M in Series C Funding

Sound Agriculture, an Emeryville, Calif.-based agtech company, closed a $22m Series C funding.

The round was led by S2G Ventures (Seed 2 Growth), with participation from existing investors Cultivian Sandbox, Fall Line Capital, Cavallo Ventures and Syngenta Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Sanjeev Krishnan, Managing Director and CIO of S2G Ventures, joined the Board of Directors, along with new independent board member and Chair of the Board, Cheryl Martin, Ph.D., Founder and Principal of Harwich Partners.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the development of novel bio-inspired plant traits and chemistries, as well as new business development efforts across food and agriculture.

Led by Adam Litle, CEO, Sound develops innovative crop solutions. Its first commercial product, SOURCE™, was launched last year to unlock nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil, supporting plant and soil health, and on-farm efficiency. By harnessing existing nutrients in the field, Source provides an average corn yield increase of 8-10 bushels per acre without requiring more fertilizer.

Source. FinSMEs, May 19, 2020

 ***

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.

Quartz Systems Raises $7.75M in Pre-Seed and Seed Funding

Quartz Systems, a San Francisco, CA-based construction technology company leveraging advanced perception systems to understand everything on a construction site, raised $7.75m in pre-seed and seed funding.

The round was led by Baseline Ventures with participation from Felicis Ventures, Lemnos, and Bloomberg Beta.

The company intends to use the funds to further develop their solutions for construction professionals.

Led by Jeremy Conrad, CEO, Quartz is an integrated hardware and software platform that uses cameras and machine learning to provide construction teams with actionable insights to be safer and more productive. Its initial product offering utilizes an advanced crane camera system and a reporting dashboard to provide real-time, 360-degree visibility into everything that happens on a construction site. 

Using a wireless, multi-camera setup, Quartz streams 4K live feeds anywhere in the world, with high resolution, low latency video. Project managers and superintendents are able to see both live and historical data remotely, without ever having to step foot on site or in an office and can monitor security from afar, with night vision, motion detection, and alerts. 

Rugged hardware paired with image recognition and software analytics power the customer dashboard, providing specific daily insights into project progress. In addition to live and historical view, Quartz users can see construction delivery and crane utilization metrics, enabling project managers to react, plan, and deliver on time and on budget. Features in development include tools to understand and improve site safety and concrete cycle productivity.

Quartz is installed on jobs worth over $3.3 billion, covering over 6.9 million square feet.

Source. FinSMEs, May 16, 2020

*** 

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.

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

Stellar Health Raises $10M in Series A Funding

Stellar Health, a New York City-based value-based healthcare technology company, raised over $10m in Series A funding.

The round was led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from existing investors Primary Venture Partners.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate product development and engineering, and support operations including the expansion of services to new markets and to double the size of its team within the next year looking to hire across multiple departments, including Engineering, Product, Operations, and Business Development.

Founded in 2018 and led by Michael Meng, CEO, Stellar Health provides a cloud-based, point-of-care platform which tracks data and actions to help primary care providers achieve value-based care goals for their patients and rewards them with real-time incentives.

The company has developed a payor and provider network across 11 states in the U.S., and, by the end of 2020, expects to have 100,000 patient lives managed through their platform.

Source. FinSMEs, 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

Dyno Therapeutics Raises $9M in Seed Financing

Dyno Therapeutics, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnology company applying artificial intelligence (AI) to gene therapy, raised $9m in not previously announced seed financing round.

The round – secured when Dyno spun out of the lab of Prof. George Church of Harvard – was co-led by Polaris Partners and CRV. 

Led by Eric Kelsic, Ph.D., CEO and Co-founder, the company has also launched from stealth mode with its proprietary platform, CapsidMap™. The platform applies proprietary artificial intelligence technology to discover and design novel AAV capsids, the cell-targeting protein shell of viral vectors. CapsidMap systematically generates and then evaluates millions of new AAV variants at scale, accelerating the identification of improved AAV vectors. It uses advanced machine learning search algorithms, combined with high-throughput experiments generating massive quantities of in vivo data, to accelerate the creation of superior synthetic AAV capsids. Through its R&D and collaborations with biopharmaceutical companies, Dyno has active programs focused on novel gene therapy vectors for ophthalmic, muscle, central nervous system (CNS), and liver diseases. The platform builds on certain intellectual property developed in the lab of George Church, Ph.D., who is Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a Core Faculty member at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Dyno has an exclusive option to enter into a license agreement with Harvard University for this technology. Church is a co-founder of Dyno and Chairman of the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Alan Crane, a co-founder of Dyno and Entrepreneur Partner at Polaris Partners, and Dylan Morris, General Partner at CRV, have joined Dyno’s board of directors, with Alan Crane serving as Dyno’s Executive Chairman.

In addition, founders include Sam Sinai, Ph.D., Lead Machine Learning Scientist, Adrian Veres, Ph.D., Scientific Advisor, and Tomas Bjorklund, Ph.D., a scientific advisor of Dyno who is Associate Professor at Lund University and a leader in AAV capsid engineering.

Source. FinSMEs, May 11, 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

SVT Robotics Secures $3.5M in Seed Funding

SVT Robotics, a Norfolk, Va.-based provider of a software platform that accelerates and simplifies deployment of industrial robotics, completed a $3.5m seed funding round.

The round was led by Cowboy Ventures with participation from Dynamo Ventures, Schematic Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, and NRV.

The company intends to use the funds to scale up the product and customer success teams and expand its offering.

Co-founded by Michael Howes and A.K. Schultz, SVT Robotics provides a robotic Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) that enables companies to connect their enterprise systems to any robot or automation. The company is now expanding its product feature set to support this customer growth and market demand.

Source. FinSMEs, May 5, 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

Covariant Raises $40M in Series B Funding

Covariant, a Berkeley, CA-based developer of artificial intelligence for robotics, raised $40m in Series B funding.

The round, which brought total funding raised to date to $67m, was led by Index Ventures and Radical Ventures with participation from Amplify Partners, etc. In conjunction with the funding, Mike Volpi, partner at Index Ventures, will be joining Covariant’s board.

The company will use the funds to expand its research, engineering and commercial teams, add partnerships, and launch AI Robotics to new industries.

Founded in 2017 by Pieter Abbeel, president, chief scientist officer and Peter Chen, CEO, Covariant is building the Covariant Brain, a universal AI to give robots the ability to see, reason and act on the world around them. In 2020, the company launched from stealth and later announced partnerships with ABB and Knapp.

Source. FinSMEs, May 7, 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