#10: (6/17/24) 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. Make sure you reach out to any that are interesting/relevant that you might be able to help!
Here’s this week’s startup funding recap:
Viaduct, led by David Hallac, has raised a $10 million Series B funding round. The round was led by FM Capital (Mark Norman), alongside Stellantis Ventures, Sumitomo Rubber North America, Innovation Endeavors, and Exor Ventures. Viaduct is revolutionizing the future of connected vehicles with its AI-driven solution that identifies, solves, and predicts product failures, helping customers improve product quality, boost customer satisfaction, and drive operational efficiency. Viaduct’s patented TSI Engine analyzes thousands of variables hidden in terabytes of data to detect issues, reducing the time to detect them by over 90%, and resulting in up to an 80% reduction in unplanned downtime. [Link] #Environmental Technology #Automotive Tech #Artificial Intelligence #Connected Vehicles #Data Analytics Platform #Product Quality Assurance #Sustainability
Anterior, led by Abdel Mahmoud, has raised a $20 million Series A funding round. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates (Mohamad Makhzoumi), alongside Sequoia Capital, Blue Lion Global, and Neo. Anterior is an AI-powered healthcare administration platform that aims to take administrative tasks off from doctors and nurses via its AI clinical co-pilot, Florence, which provides a guided approach to clinical reasoning, applied first to prior authorization. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its hiring and growth strategies. [Link] #Healthcare Administrative Software #Artificial Intelligence #Healthcare Payer Rates Software
Jump, led by Parker Ence, has raised a $4.6 million Seed funding round. The round was led by Sorenson Capital (Eric Hilton), alongside Pelion Venture Partners and strategic angel investors. Jump is a provider of AI software for financial advisors, enabling them to concentrate on their core competencies—advising and building relationships with clients—by using AI to automate repetitive administrative tasks like notetaking, sifting through data from previous client calls and notes to prepare for meetings, writing follow-up emails, generating task lists, and syncing relevant data to CRM (including deep integration with Wealthbox, Redtail, and Salesforce). The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. [Link] #FinTech #Artificial Intelligence #Financial Advisor Software
Ship Angel, led by Graham Parker, has raised a $5 million Seed funding round. The round was led by Glasswing Ventures (Rudina Seseri, Ali Mahmoud) and Newark Venture Partners (Thomas Wisniewski), alongside Bienville Capital, Socii Capital, and Plug and Play. Ship Angel is a SaaS solutions provider for the BCO shipper community, offering an AI-native platform for international shippers. Its logistics operating system streamlines freight processing, enhances data accuracy, and drives significant time and cost savings. The company plans to use the funds to support the expansion of its ocean and air freight rate management platform, including the launch of two AI-powered solutions—Contract Amendment Guard and Invoice Audit—designed to optimize beneficial cargo owners’ (BCOs) workflows. [Link] #Logistics Software #Artificial Intelligence #Freight Management Software #Supply Chain Management Software #Environmental Technology #Sustainability
FirmPilot, led by Jake Soffer, has raised a $7 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Blumberg Capital (Jacob Katz) and DoubleVerify, alongside Valor Ventures, SaaS Ventures, FJ Labs, and Connexa Capital. FirmPilot is an AI marketing engine for law firms, empowering services-based SMBs like law firms to increase their online visibility and direct inbound interest from prospective clients. Its patent-pending AI Legal Marketing Execution Engine® provides strategies built entirely on data and intelligence, learning from a comprehensive database of more than 3,000 legal cases and analyzing over 5,000,000 pieces of content. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. [Link] #LegalTech #Artificial Intelligence #MarTech
OnStation, led by Patrick Russo, has raised an $8.5 million Series A funding round. The round was led by JumpStart Ventures (Hardik Desai), with participation from VisionTech Partners, Frontier Angels, Up2 Opportunity Fund, JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund, Next Chapter Ventures, North Coast Ventures, New Dominion Angels, and other angel investors. OnStation is a provider of digital stationing solutions for the heavy highway industry, offering a collaborative platform that enhances communication, productivity, worker safety, and project quality. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate its growth, expand its customer base, and enhance its innovative platform designed for civil engineering and roadway projects. [Link] #Civil Engineering Software #ConTech #Construction Software #Construction Acceleration #Digital Stationing Platform #Sustainability #Environmental Technology
Whoosh, led by Colin Read, has raised a $10.3 million Series A funding round. The round was led by AlleyCorp (Marshall Porter), with participation from 8VC, Alaris Capital, Bienville, Craft Ventures, Eberg Capital, Operator Partners, Raptor Group, Larry Fitzgerald Jr., Alison Lee, Howard Lindzon, Kurt Kitayama, Andy Roddick, and Mike Walrath. In conjunction with the funding, Doug Band, a Venture Partner at AlleyCorp, will join Whoosh’s Board of Directors. Whoosh provides advanced reservation and operations software to manage everything from the course to the clubhouse. Its solution offers cloud-based, tablet-focused tee sheet and booking tools for private and public/daily-fee facilities, putting reservation control in players' hands for golf, racquets, simulators, lessons, fitness, and more. The company plans to use the funds to expand into public/daily-fee clubs, alternative golf facilities, “eatertainment” venues, resorts, and other time-based activity operators, as well as to further develop its technology and increase team capacity to meet customer demand. [Link] #Hospitality Tech #Clubhouse Software
Aidentified, led by Tom Aley, has raised a $12.5 million Series B funding round. The round was led by FactSet (Greg King). Aidentified is an AI-powered prospecting and relationship intelligence platform for financial services professionals, providing tools to identify, qualify, and convert new client relationships. Its platform combines professional and household data to offer a 360º view of clients and prospects, using proprietary algorithms and relationship cloud functionality. The company plans to use the funds for further technological development and to grow its team as client adoption accelerates. [Link] #FinTech #SalesTech #MarTech #Financial Services #Artificial Intelligence
Canary Speech, led by Henry O’Connell, has raised a $13 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Cortes Capital (Ryan Tidwell), with participation from Sorenson Communications, SMK, and Hackensack Meridian Health. Canary Speech is an AI-powered voice biomarker health tech company that uses real-time patented vocal analysis to screen for mental health and neurological disorders. Its technology captures and analyzes speech data within seconds to identify irregularities in behavioral and cognitive changes before current clinical screening standards or noticeable symptoms for invisible illnesses like anxiety, depression, and dementia. The company plans to use the funds to expand its team to support growth driven by advancements in artificial intelligence and the healthcare industry’s demand for more advanced tools. [Link] #Health Tech #Artificial Intelligence #Vocal Biomarker Technology #Remote Patient Monitoring #Preventive Screening Software
ElectronX, led by Sam Tegel, has raised a $15 million Seed funding round. The round was led by Innovation Endeavors (Sam Smith-Eppsteiner), with participation from DCVC (Ali Tamaseb), Amplo, BoxGroup, and Lightning Capital. ElectronX is a new energy exchange created to help accelerate the U.S. grid transition to renewable sources by providing power market participants with trading products to manage price risk against short-term volatility. With offices in Chicago and New York, the company is building the U.S.-regulated financial infrastructure necessary to support increased investment in clean energy development. The company plans to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. [Link] #Energy Tech #Renewable Energy #Clean Energy #Energy Transition #Energy Trading Platform #Environmental Technology #Sustainability
CargoSense, led by Richard Kilmer, has raised an $8 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Lanza techVentures (Lucio Lanza, Michael McNamara), with participation from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (MGHIF), SmoothBrain, channel partner The Pallet Alliance, and other previous private investors. CargoSense provides a ‘Visibility OS’ platform for automating supply chain operations, enabling customers to get the full value of their visibility data to drive core systems and reduce the workloads of supply chain teams. Founded in 2012, CargoSense aims to simplify supply chain operations through measurement, automation, and collaboration. The company plans to use the funds to expand its partner ecosystem of integrated management systems, data sources, and industrial IIoT platforms available to digital agents running on the Visibility OS. [Link] #Supply Chain Management Software #Environmental Technology #Sustainability #Artificial Intelligence #Supply Chain Automation #Internet of Things #Data Integration Platform
Swift Solar, led by Joel Jean, has raised a $27 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Eni Next (Clara Andreoletti) and Fontinalis Partners (Chris Cheever), with participation from Stanford University, Good Growth Capital, BlueScopeX, HL Ventures, Toba Capital, Sid Sijbrandij, James Fickel, Adam Winkel, Fred Ehrsam, Jonathan Lin, and Climate Capital. Swift Solar is a solar technology company developing perovskite photovoltaics. It is a spinout of MIT, Stanford University, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The company plans to use the funds to accelerate the scaling of its technology as they prepare to break ground on their first factory. [Link] #Solar Tech #Renewable Energy #Solar Panel Manufacturing #Clean Energy #DeepTech #Environmental Technology #Sustainability
Learn to Win, led by Andrew Powell, has raised a $30 million Series A funding round. The round was led by the Westly Group (Danny Cotter), with participation from Norwest Venture Partners and Pear VC. Learn to Win offers a software platform that utilizes data analytics and AI to personalize and optimize learning effectiveness, empowering success for its customers. Founded in 2019, the company serves over 75 enterprise customers across the U.S. military, life sciences, manufacturing, supply chain, and professional sports industries, including the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, Novartis, AbbVie, and sports teams such as the Los Angeles Rams and the University of Michigan football team. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate its progress to scale its training platform. [Link] #Enterprise Training Software #Artificial Intelligence #Learning Management System
Aepnus Technology, led by Lukas Hackl, has raised an $8 million Seed funding round. The round was led by Clean Energy Ventures (Mallika Gummalla), with participation from Voyager Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Impact Science Ventures, Muus Climate Partners, and Gravity Climate Fund. As part of the financing, Clean Energy Ventures’ Venture Partner, Mallika Gummalla, PhD, will join the Board of Directors. Aepnus Technology provides an electrochemical platform to improve circularity and reduce emissions in battery supply chain chemicals. The company offers an end-to-end solution for low-cost sodium sulfate recycling, giving battery supply chain customers access to critical chemicals that are cost-competitive, produced locally, and with zero carbon emissions. The funds will be used to accelerate the production of their novel end-to-end sodium sulfate recycling technology. [Link] #CleanTech #Sustainability #Battery Recycling #Circular Economy #Environmental Technology #Electrified Chemicals Manufacturing
GPTZero, led by Edward Tian, has raised a $10 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Footwork VC (Mike Smith), with participation from Reach Capital, Uncork, Neo, Alt Capital, and the former CEOs of Reuters and the NYT. GPTZero is a platform for AI-generated content detection and responsible AI adoption. The company aims to redefine the interaction between humans and AI, enabling individuals, not AI companies, to measure and define the application of artificial intelligence on their own terms. GPTZero is advancing a roadmap that includes launching and developing technologies for hallucination detection, identifying the training data behind LLM outputs, and GPTZero Docs—a new editor platform with an embedded AI that records and cites its AI usage, including education-specific functionality around limiting and watermarking AI outputs. The company plans to use the funds to further these initiatives. [Link] #Artificial Intelligence #AI Content Detection #Responsible AI #AI Hallucination Detection #AI Integrity
FUZE Technology, led by Brandon Afari, has raised an $11.5 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Beverly Pacific (William F. Payne), with participation from Palm Tree Crew, Bain Capital Ventures Scout Fund, Dream Ventures, and additional new and returning investors including Live Nation Entertainment, ASM Global, SCIENCE Ventures, Haslem Sports Group, Simon Ventures of Simon Property Group, Fenway Sports Group’s Michael Gordon, Sunday Ventures, SeaHorse Express, Locker One Ventures, Geoff Lewis of Bedrock Capital, London & NYC-based TR Ventures, Melbourne-based LK Group, Cameron Azoff, and Nicolai Marciano. Fuze Technology is an IoT company providing a pay-per-use mobile charging solution. Its flagship product, chargeFUZE, offers convenient mobile charging, while its latest product, adFUZE, delivers contextually relevant content to targeted audiences at scale by combining IoT hardware and software. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate demand and international expansion, with an emphasis on new product innovations. [Link] #Internet of Things #Mobile Charging #AdTech #Environmental Technology #Sustainability
UNIGRID Battery, led by Darren H. S. Tan, has raised a $12 million Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Transition VC (Mona Alsubaei) and Ritz Venture Capital, with participation from new investor Union Square Ventures and existing investor Foothill Ventures. UNIGRID Battery is developing advanced sodium-ion batteries, providing an end-to-end solution for low-cost sodium sulfate recycling, which gives battery supply chain customers access to critical chemicals that are cost-competitive, produced locally, and with zero carbon emissions. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate the production of their novel end-to-end sodium sulfate recycling technology to fulfill MWh-scale customer orders in the electric mobility and stationary storage markets. [Link] #Energy Tech #New Energy #Battery Manufacturing #Clean Energy #Environmental Technology #Sustainability #Energy Storage #Energy Transition #Renewable Energy
Findigs, co-founded by Steve Carroll, has raised a $27 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Nyca Partners (Jeremy Solomon), with participation from existing investors RPM Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, Expa Ventures, Activant Capital, Colle Capital, and Frontier Venture Capital. Findigs is a property technology company simplifying rental screening and leasing decisions. The company builds tools to help property managers grow their communities safely and simplifies the path home for renters across the US. The company intends to use the funds to expand their screening automation service, grow their team, and increase platform and data sophistication. Findigs has launched DecisionAssist, a full-service screening offering that leverages rich multi-source data analysis, AI, and human expertise, along with advanced fraud detection tools. [Link] #PropTech #Rental Screening Software #Artificial Intelligence #Real Estate Tech
*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!
