#2: (4/22/24) Early & Growth Stage Tech Startup Funding Recap!
Check Out This Week's Venture Capital Investment Summary Spanning Early & Growth-Stage US Based Environmental Technology & Enterprise Software Startups!
Every Monday, the team here at Bearhug Recruiting aggregates, researches, and publishes a recap of the prior week's fundraising activity within the early and growth-stage Environmental Technology & Enterprise Software startup ecosystem.
This research not only allows us to keep our finger on the pulse of the markets we serve, but also benefits others who, like us, enjoy analyzing the latest trends that signal investor confidence AND startup growth within what we believe are the most exciting and impactful segments!
We also hope the people and companies we feature enjoy both a virtual fist bump from the team at Bearhug, plus benefit from some additional free market exposure to amplify their mission. So, make sure to give each one a look!
Here’s this week’s startup funding recap:
Ecotrak, led by Matt Singer, has raised a $30 million Venture round. The round was led by Respida Capital, with participation from Carver Road Capital, and existing investor Gala Capital Partners. Ecotrak is an Enterprise Asset Management software platform that simplifies facilities management through modern web and mobile applications for multi-site owners and operators of restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores, and countless other businesses. Its platform combines asset-specific data at a granular level, automation and predictive analytics with a large network of service providers. [Link] #Asset Lifecycle Management #Computerized Maintenance Management Systems #Facility Management Software #Environmental Technology
Kode Labs, led by Edi Demaj, has raised a $30 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Maverix Private Equity, with participation from TELUS Ventures and existing investor I Squared Capital. Kode Labs is making a bid to become the Salesforce of commercial building automation. [Link] #Commercial Building Automation #Smart Building Software #Internet of Things #Environmental Technology #Sustainability
Quilt, led by Paul Lambert, has raised a $33 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Energy Impact Partners and Galvanize Climate Solutions, with participation from Lowercarbon Capital, Gradient Ventures, MCJ Collective, Garage Capital, Incite Ventures, and Drew Scott. Quilt creates home climate systems designed to move humanity off fossil fuels. Its systems blend into any home environment, offering room-by-room control, occupancy awareness for energy efficiency, and predictive technology to create an advanced and comfortable system. [Link] #Smart Building Software #Internet of Things #Environmental Technology #Sustainability
Take2 AI, led by Kaushik Narasimhan and Yaniv Shimoni, has raised a $3 million Seed funding round. The round was led by Reach Capital & SemperVirens, with participation from Techstars and HR leaders from Visa, Disney, HP & Google. Take2 AI is an AI-powered job simulation platform for sales recruiting that helps companies generate tailor-made simulations of real-world sales scenarios that vet job applicants for skills, behavioral attributes and culture fit. This enables companies to minimize their mis-hires and improve employee retention. [Link] #Generative AI #Recruiting Tech #HR Tech
AI Squared, led by Benjamin Harvey, has raised a $13.8 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Ansa Capital with participation from existing investors NEA and Ridgeline. AI Squared helps organizations deliver data and AI insights into their business applications. Its solutions are currently being rolled out across government organizations, as well as Fortune 500 corporations across the finance, manufacturing, and health industries. Its team carries deep data science experience across large tech companies such as Databricks and Microsoft, financial organizations such as JPMorgan Chase, as well as the National Security Agency. [Link] #Artificial Intelligence #Generative AI #Last Mile #Business Intelligence #Augmented Reality #Enterprise Reverse ETL #ML Ops
NeuBird, led by Goutham Rao, has raised a $22 million Seed funding round. The round was led by Mayfield. NeuBird is bringing Generative AI into operations via an AI workforce- The company’s AI ITOps engineer named Hawkeye works alongside a company’s human workforce to pinpoint the root causes of software issues. It is augmented with knowledge about specific IT scenarios and how to solve them. Using Hawkeye, IT and SRE operations teams can focus on deploying new technology faster without worrying about diagnosing and resolving integration and scaling issues. [Link] #Generative AI #IT Ops #ML Ops
Found Energy, led by Dr. Peter Godart, has raised a $12 million Seed funding round. Backers included KOMPAS VC, Munich Re Ventures, Good Growth Capital, the Autodesk Foundation, J-Impact, GiTV, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), and Glenfield Partners LTD. Found Energy has developed an aluminum-thermal power system that continuously generates carbon-free industrial heat, hydrogen, and alumina trihydrate (ATH) on-site from various aluminum feedstocks. Compact and modular, its technology allows a promising new tool to accelerate heavy industry’s transition away from fossil fuels. [Link] #Renewable Energy #New Energy #Energy Tech #Environmental Technology #Sustainability #ClimateTech #CleanTech #GreenTech #Recycling Tech #Energy Generation #Energy Storage #Energy Transport
Xfactor.io, led by Mike Carpenter, has raised a $16 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Accel and Xfactor.io CEO and Founder Mike Carpenter, with participation from Lightspeed and others. Xfactor.io is an AI-powered revenue platform that combines sales, marketing, and operations teams with effective planning, value-driven execution, and key decision-making. The platform leverages real-time data with AI-powered modeling to enable revenue leaders to plan, execute, and make real-time, intelligent decisions that accelerate pipeline, increase deal size, and improve win rates. [Link] #Artificial Intelligence #SalesTech #MarTech #Business Intelligence
ClaimScore, led by Bob Gallo, has raised a $3.15 million Seed funding round. The round was led by ROC Venture Group. ClaimScore offers tested and validated AI and machine-learning-based anti-fraud software solutions for class action settlements. ClaimScore’s tech identifies fraud with accuracy and to date, has helped companies avoid $340 million in fraudulent payouts. [Link] #Artificial Intelligence #LegalTech
Nectar, led by Trevor Larson, has raised a $40 million Series B funding round. The round was led by PeakSpan Capital. Nectar is an employee recognition and rewards platform for the modern workforce. This significant investment will enable Nectar to further develop its culture platform, empowering organizations worldwide to cultivate vibrant and engaged workplace environments built on recognition. This will include large investments into the core recognition product, as well as additional strategic products which will enable companies to build strong organizational cultures. [Link] #Employee Recognition #HR Tech #Workforce Management #Employee Engagement
Dataplor, led by Geoff Michener, has raised a $10.6 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Spark Capital (Alex Finkelstein) with participation from ff Venture Capital (John Frankel), Quest Venture Partners, Acronym Venture Capital (Joshua Siegel), Circadian Ventures, Two Lanterns Venture Partners and APA Venture Partners. Dataplor is a geospatial data company that helps global enterprises grow abroad by mapping tough-to-reach markets with a privacy-first approach. Its proprietary approach merges technologies including artificial intelligence, machine learning, LLMs, and a purpose built technology platform with a global team of expert human validators. This combination allows the company to gather accurate, deduplicated and verified location data while providing a framework for regular updates to the information to stay current. Dataplor offers data coverage across more than 200 countries and territories, encompassing over 300 million locations and over 15,000 brands. Companies in industries including technology, mapping, search, third party logistics, consumer packaged goods (CPG), telecom, investing, real estate and finance already use dataplor’s global, accurate coverage to power strategic decisions and investments. [Link] #Location Intelligence #Artificial Intelligence #Global Point Of Interest Data #Geospatial #Business Intelligence
*Note: The companies we feature in our weekly recap are a very small subset of a much larger batch, carefully chosen based on our team's assessment of how each company aligns with our GTM search practice. It’s worth noting that most startups raise funding rounds privately, often long before the news is announced publicly!
