#16: (7/29/24) 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:
Cowboy Clean Fuels, led by Ryan Waddington, has raised approximately $13 million in Series B funding round. Cowboy Clean Fuels utilizes depleted Coal Bed Methane (CBM) wells and infrastructure in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to generate carbon-negative RNG from agricultural byproducts. These byproducts are converted into CO2 and renewable methane through a biogenic process in deep, geologic coal formations. The commercialization of this technology, termed “Biomass with Carbon Removal and Storage, plus Renewable Natural Gas (BiCRS+RNG),” represents a scalable, capital-efficient solution in the renewable energy sector. The round was led by Machan Investments (Dan Dinges). The funds will be used to support the development of CCF’s first commercial project in Wyoming, the Triangle Unit Renewable Energy and Carbon Capture and Storage (TRECCS) Project. [Link] #ClimateTech #Carbon Capture #Renewable Energy #Energy Transition #Environmental Technology #Carbon Sequestration
Star Catcher, led by Andrew Rush, has raised a $12.25 million Seed funding round. Star Catcher specializes in space-based energy generation and aims to eliminate power constraints on satellites and other spacecraft by constructing the Star Catcher Network, a space-based energy grid. The company intends to use the funds to validate and demonstrate its power beaming services for customers, beginning with ground demonstrations, followed by an on-orbit demonstration in late 2025, and deployment of commercial service. The round was led by Initialized Capital (Andrew Sather) and B Capital (Howard Morgan), with participation from Rogue VC. [Link] #Space Tech #Satellite Energy #Energy Generation #Environmental Technology
Mytra, led by Chris Walti, has raised a $78 million Series B funding round. Mytra builds software-defined warehouse robotics solutions designed to automate the most common industrial tasks in logistics, such as moving and storing material. The company intends to use the funds to grow its team, scale its technology to meet customer demand, and deploy its next generation of systems to the largest blue-chip companies to automate applications that today remain highly manual and labor-intensive. The round was led by Greenoaks (Neil Shah), with participation from Eclipse (Seth Winterroth), 515 Ventures (Frederic Kerrest), Humba Ventures, Garry Tan, Lachy Groom, and other individual and corporate partners. [Link] #Warehouse Robotics Solutions #Industrial Automation #Environmental Technology #Deep Tech #Hard Tech #Artificial Intelligence
Micropep, led by Thomas Laurent, has raised a $29 million Series B funding round. Micropep specializes in micropeptide technology, developing natural solutions addressing global challenges with a key focus on agriculture. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its go-to-market strategy through partnerships, complete regulatory studies of its first biofungicide molecule, and expand its pipeline of micropeptide active ingredients on the Krisalix™ platform. The round was led by Zebra Impact Ventures (Lionel Artusio-Payot) and BPI Green Tech Investment, with participation from existing investors Fall Line Capital, FMC Ventures, Sofinnova Partners, Supernova Invest, and IRDI Capital Investissement. [Link] #Agriculture #AgTech #Micropeptide Technology #GreenTech #AI Discovery Platform #Environmental Technology #Artificial Intelligence
Sojo Industries, led by Barak Bar-Cohen, has raised a $10 million Series A funding round. Sojo Industries is a mobile automation and robotics manufacturer for food and beverage assembly, delivering efficient packaging and assembly solutions. The company plans to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. The round was led by Schreiber Ventures (Ron Dunford) and Tech Council Ventures (Steve Socolof). [Link] #Mobile Robotics #Food & Beverage Assembly #Track and Trace Platform #Industrial Automation #Environmental Technology
Code Metal, led by Peter Morales, has raised a $16.5 million Seed funding round. Code Metal specializes in AI-powered development workflows for the edge, bringing algorithmic breakthroughs to hardware applications to accelerate development. The company plans to use the funds to continue building modular and verifiable agentic workflows and expand its team of experts. The round was led by Shield Capital (Michael Brown). The company also raised a $3.45M pre-seed round, led by J2 Ventures (Alexander Harstrick), with support from Fulcrum Venture Group, Underdog Labs, and others. [Link] #Edge Computing #Verifiable Transpiler #Environmental Technology #Artificial Intelligence
TigerBeetle, led by Joran Dirk Greef, has raised a $24 million Series A funding round. TigerBeetle operates an open source Apache 2.0 database which provides debit and credit primitives out-of-the-box for specialised high-performance online transaction processing (OLTP). The round was led by Spark Capital (Natalie Vais) with participation from Amplify Partners, Coil, and other angel investors. [Link] #Distributed Financial Accounting Database #FinTech #Financial Services
DocketAI, led by Arjun Pillai, has raised a $15 million Series A funding round. DocketAI provides AI-driven revenue enablement solutions, leveraging generative AI as a virtual Sales Engineer to provide revenue teams with instant technical support and personalized document generation capabilities. The funds will be used to expand operations and its development efforts. The round was led by Mayfield (Patrick Salyer, Navin Chaddha) and Foundation Capital (Ashu Garg, Jaya Gupta), with participation from additional investors. [Link] #AI Revenue Enablement Software #Generative AI #SalesTech #Virtual Sales Engineer #Artificial Intelligence
Lakera, led by David Haber, has raised a $20 million Series A funding round. Lakera is a real-time generative AI (GenAI) security company providing protection that doesn’t slow down AI applications, stays ahead of AI threats with continuously evolving intelligence, and implements centralized AI security controls. The funds will be used to invest further in product development and expand its presence in the US. The round was led by Atomico (Sasha Vidiborskiy, Bryce Keane), with participation from Citi Ventures, Dropbox Ventures, and existing investors including Redalpine. [Link] #Privacy & Security #Cyber Security #GenAI Security #AI Security Controls #Generative AI #Artificial Intelligence
Splight, led by Thomas Vadora, has raised a $12 million Seed funding round. Splight is an AI startup specializing in grid operations technologies that address the global challenge of clean energy at scale through AI-based technology for advanced grid operations. The funds will be used to expand its North America and EU presence and grow its development, implementation, and leadership teams. The round was led by noa (formerly A/O) (Kia Nejad) with participation from EDP Ventures, Elewit, Draper Cygnus, Draper B1, Ascent Energy Ventures, Fen Ventures, Reaction Global, Barn Investments, and the UC Berkeley Foundation. [Link] #Grid Operations Tech #Smart Grid Tech #Power Grid #CleanTech #Energy Tech #Environmental Technology
SirenOpt, led by Jared O’Leary, has raised a $6.6 million Seed funding round. SirenOpt specializes in materials characterization by leveraging cold atmospheric plasma, machine learning, and predictive analytics to non-destructively create a distinctive, multifaceted material fingerprint in real-time. The funds will be used to expand operations and its development efforts. The round was led by Voyager Ventures (Sarah Sclarsic) and Visionaries Tomorrow (Sebastian Pollok) with participation from Climate Club, Union Labs, Berkeley Skydeck Fund, Wireframe Ventures, Impact Science Ventures, Access Industries, Courtyard Ventures, and Climate Capital. [Link] #Manufacturing Intelligence #Machine Learning #Advanced Manufacturing #Predictive Analytics #Environmental Technology
Uplimit, led by Julia Stiglitz, has raised an $11 million Series A funding round. Uplimit specializes in AI-powered enterprise learning, enabling companies to train their employees and customers on the skills of tomorrow. The funds will be used to expand its enterprise platform offerings to upskill organizations and employees. The round was led by Salesforce Ventures (Adrianna Alterman, Claudine Emeott), alongside existing investors GSV Ventures (Deborah Quazzo, Michael Cohn), Greylock Partners, Cowboy Ventures, and new investors Translink Capital, Workday Ventures, and Conviction. [Link] #AI-powered Enterprise Learning #Generative AI #EdTech #Artificial Intelligence
Momentum, led by Santiago Suarez Ordoñez, has raised a $13 million Series A funding round. Momentum provides a customer intelligence platform that enables enterprise listening and automation, automatically capturing customer intelligence via call recordings, emails, and Slack, and turning that data into actionable insights. The funds will be used to expand operations and its development efforts. The round was led by FirstMark Capital (Amish Jani, David Waltcher) with participation from Stage 2 Capital (Mandy Cole) and existing investors including Basis Set Ventures and Leadout Capital. [Link] #Customer Intelligence Platform #Artificial Intelligence #SalesTech #MarTech
rift, led by Fil Twarowski, has raised a $5 million seed funding round. rift is a sales platform focusing on automating operational sales work, automatically correcting mistakes during data import, and requiring no work for the sales rep. The funds will be used to expand operations and its development efforts. The round was led by Sequoia (Stephanie Zhan), with participation from Y Combinator and Soma Capital. [Link] #SalesTech #Sales Automation Software #Sales Productivity Software
*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!
