🆕 18 Boston Startups To Have Raised $369M 🔥💰
Among them, a photonic chip manufacturer hoping to revolutionize the new wave of AI computation potential (as tough as it is to admit- move over, NVIDIA). Plus, other cool startups and headlines! ✨
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If you’re new here, I’m Abigail! I’m a mechanical-engineer-turned-investor at Hyperplane, a venture capital firm in Boston investing in seed stage machine learning companies. Every two weeks, this newsletter serves to list Boston’s latest financings and highlight ecosystem players and happenings. Be sure to open this email in your browser to get the full issue.
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And so, with that, let’s get into it.
Welcome back!
🤑 This week, we have the massive funding for Lightmatter you may have heard about, a photonic chip startup developing a faster, more efficient alternative to silicon gates and transistors in traditional computing chips used to power AI computation that say, my favorite company on earth, NVIDIA, manufactures today. Plus, an MIT-founded biomanufacturing platform for the development of various advanced materials, a veteran-founded developer of custom engagement rings, and an on-demand EV charging network that was formerly a Mark Cuban-funded Shark Tank success story.
And so, with that, let’s get into it.
Boston Financings: 5/23 - 6/6
Financings are listed from smallest to largest. Biotech financings over $80M+ are usually not covered.
The total amount of disclosed funding over the last two weeks hit $369M.
Saga Education | $150K grant| EdTech
EdTech company offering in school-day tutoring is one of 33 companies to have received a grant of up to $150K from national education nonprofit, Accelerate, today for high-impact tutoring offerings. Each company to have been awarded funding will engage in research during the 2023-2024 school year, and ten grantees will participate in an Accelerate-funded research cohort led by J-PAL North America, a regional office of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Read more about the companies and Accelerate here.
Glycologix | $1.1M | Healthcare
Developer of locally delivered biopolymers for the treatment of soft tissue in cases of interstitial cystitis or bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS), Glycologix, has raised $1.1M from 25 investors towards a total offering of $1.75M. Glycologix’s approach targets the over 10M patients affected by IC/BPS in the US- predominantly women- and is reportedly targeting clinical trials for mid-2023. According to Pitchbook, they previously raised a $3.75M Seed-1 round led by eCoast Angels.
Little Sparrows Technologies | $1.6M | Healthcare
Medical device company leveraging phototherapy for their devices that target the treatment of neonatal jaundice, Little Sparrows Technologies, has raised $1.6M from 13 investors towards a total offering amount filed for $3.1M. Founded in 2013 by two Harvard Medical School doctors, Donna Brezinski, MD, and Gary Gilbert, MD, Little Sparrows have launched their first product, the Bili-Hut™, a portable, battery-operated neonatal phototherapy device designed to treat jaundice in low-resource areas.
Fixe | $1.7M | Food & Bev
Restaurant bookkeeping platform, Fixe, has raised $1.67M from 48 investors (3 of the board members on the listing are members of angel investing group, New York Angels) towards a total offering of $1.75M. Fixe was founded by restaurant operator, Ryan Handel, in 2019 and offers any sized restaurant the tools for bookkeeping, reporting, payroll, invoicing, and POS integration. Their lowest tiered pricing starts at $550/month per location, and customers include small restaurants, and even a pilates studio.
Hopewell Therapeutics | $3M | Healthcare
Gene therapy and editing company, Hopewell Therapeutics, has raised $3M from 1 investor towards a total offering amount filed for $10M. Hopewell uses lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology, a technology developed and licensed by Tufts University, for applications in genomic medicine delivery. According to Pitchbook, the company last raised $15.6M from IMO Ventures and other undisclosed investors early in 2022.
M80 | $3M | Sports Tech / Web3
Web3 esports and gaming company, M80, raised a $3M Seed round led by ExpertDojo, with participation from VT Technology Ventures and Practical Venture Capital. Launched 6 months ago, M80’s esports and gaming platform currently competes in Valorant, Rocket League and Rainbow Six Siege with more titles to come later this year. M80 plans to use the funding to explore “innovations in Web3, blockchain, and other emerging technologies,” the startup said in a statement.
WOVE | $3.7M | Consumer
Veteran-founded developer of custom engagement rings, WOVE, has raised $920K of additional capital towards their $3.7M Seed round led by Springdale Ventures in November of last year. Founders and former West Point classmates, Andrew Wolgemuth and Brian Elliott, started Wove in 2021 after having designed engagement rings for fellow service members. Wove’s customized rings involve a two-week design experience and average $10K, slightly higher than the $6K national average. TechCrunch has more.
SparkCharge | $4.6M debt | ClimateTech
On-demand EV charging network and Shark Tank success, SparkCharge, has raised $4.6M of debt from 6 investors. Founded by Josh Aviv while a student at Syracuse University, SparkCharge offers portable EV chargers as well as charging-as-a-service offerings. The company raised $500K from PJC in 2018, $1M from Shark Tank in 2020, and most recently, a $23 million Series A round co-led by Tale Venture Partners and Pendulum last year. The company recently announced they are expanding their fleet offerings nationwide.
Fortify | $12.5M | Materials
Material science and additive manufacturing company, Fortify, has raised $12.5M from investors including Lockheed Martin Ventures and Raytheon’s fund, RTX, both companies also customers of Fortify. Fortify’s platform encompasses patented software, hardware, and databases of direct composite manufacturing techniques and materials for a full-stack approach to manufacturing complex materials. The company last raised a $20M Series B round in March of 2021 led by Cota Capital with participation from Accel Partners, Neotribe Ventures, and Prelude Ventures. Their official press release for this round is here.
RentalBeast | $13M | PropTech
Provider of a national rental listings database, RentalBeast, has raised $13M from 18 investors towards a total offering of $15M. RentalBeast allows participating MLS and REALTOR® Associations to see and access rental tools enabled by thousands of properties normally in off-MLS inventory. The company recently announced partnerships with Georgia Multiple Listing Service and SentriLock.
BRUNT Workwear | $15.5M | Consumer
Workwear developed and designed for the trades, BRUNT Workwear, has raised $15.5M from 3 total investors. Founded by Eric Girouard, BRUNT is a modern work boot and apparel brand designed for construction workers and tradespeople that sells only directly to consumers, intentionally avoiding large-scale retail mark-ups. BRUNT raised a $20M Series B round last year led by Stripes.
Sealonix | $20M equity+debt | Healthcare
Developer of next-gen surgical sealants, Sealonix, has raised a $20M venture round led by Excelestar Ventures. Sealonix is developing The PramStat patch, a sealant patch for abdominopelvic and orthopedic procedures designed to bioabsorb within a week following implantation. The round will be used towards clinical trial acceleration and team build out.
Manus Bio | $21.2M equity+debt | Materials
Biomanufacturing platform with the ability to produce an array of products across several industries, Manus Bio, has raised $21.2M in a combination of equity, debt, and other securities from 14 investors. Founded by MIT professor, Dr. Stephanopoulos, and Dr. Aji Parayil, Manus Bio’s core technology recreates plant processes in microorganisms for natural ingredients in chemical manufacturing applications via fermentation. The company last raised a $75M Series B round in 2020 led by Thailand-based strategic investor, BBGI Public Company Limited.
Aura | $22M | Cybersecurity
Aura, a cybersecurity company offering a suite of protections for consumers and families, has raised $22M in equity, options, and other securities from 1 total investor. Aura recently raised $205M from 13 total investors (still no press release from this round), and before that, raised a $200M Series F at a $2.5B valuation from General Catalyst, WndrCo (Jeffery Katzenberg), and Accel, among others. The company also invests in early-stage startups under the Aura Innovation Fund, which supports the growth of startups making the internet safer for those especially vulnerable to online threats, including children.
VEIR | $24.9M | Climate Tech
Developer of a new approach to using high temperature superconductors for electricity transmission, VEIR, has raised a $24.9M Series A-2 round from 11 total investors. Founded by two employees at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, VEIR aims to alleviate electric system pain points like congestion and renewable integration by using evaporative cooling power of liquid nitrogen to cool cables of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape, enabling existing transmission infrastructure to transmit 5X more power at the same voltage. They last raised $10M Series A led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from the Engine and Congruent Ventures.
SURGE Therapeutics | $32M | Healthcare
Cancer immunotherapy company, SURGE Therapeutics, has raised $32M from 22 investors towards a total offering amount of $50M. The company develops immunotherapies that are designed to prolong the lives of cancer patients undergoing surgery to remove a tumor, currently in clinical trials with their injectable biodegradable hydrogel. The company last raised a $26M Series A round led by Camford Capital with participation from Intuitive Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Pitango Venture Capital, and 8VC, among others.
PartsTech | $35M | Automotive
B2B marketplace and ordering platform for automotive technicians ordering wholesale auto parts, PartsTech, has raised a $35M Series C round led by OpenView. PartsTech was founded by Greg Kirber and currently connects 15,000+ repair shops to 30,000 supplier locations, accelerating the parts sourcing and vehicle repair process. The company previously raised a $10M Series B from OpenView and Insight Partners, and before that, a $3M Seed round from BP Ventures.
Lightmatter | $154M | Compute
Developer of photonic processors for AI advancement and computation, Lightmatter, has raised a $154M Series C round from Google Ventures, Fidelity, SIP Global Viking Global, HPE Pathfinder and existing investors. Founded out of research by MIT PhD, Nick Harris, Lightmatter makes photonic chips that essentially perform AI computational calculations at the speed of light, instead of using charge, logic gates and transistors to record and manipulate data. The company last raised an $80M Series B round led by Viking Global Investors, with participation from HP Enterprise, Lockheed Martin, SIP Global Partners, and previous investors GV, Matrix Partners and Spark Capital.
According to TechCrunch, Lightmatter “has several pilots going with its full stack of Envise (computing hardware), Passage (interconnect, crucial for large computing operations) and Idiom, a software platform that founder, Nick Harris says should let machine learning developers adapt quickly.” Lightmatter plans to be production-ready by 2024.
All for now!
Your Macro Briefing + Headlines 📉
Covering the upcoming numbers to watch for (🔜) , the relevant numbers of last week (🔙), and the tech headlines of the last two weeks (🆕).
🔜 Economy watch this week:
📢 Number releases: Wednesday, we’ll get O.E.C.D.’s latest economic outlook for member countries, and consumer credit change. Thursday, we’ll see how wholesale inventories are doing and also get initial jobless claims data. Friday, we’ll see the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.
📣 Earnings: the most anticipated, check ‘em out:
🔙 Economy watch last two weeks:
⏰ FINALLY: Legislators approved a debt limit deal just as the Treasury’s cash balance had dwindled to a six year low. The US Treasury will now issue more than $1 trillion in new bonds- and banks will ultimately be the payers, potentially causing liquidity and performance concerns.
🛢 OPEC+ update: OPEC+ met over the weekend to discuss oil and gas production levels. Somewhat surprisingly, Saudia Arabia said it would lower production to the lowest levels since 2021.
🏦 Haven’t seen the last of it: The Fed is expected to unveil proposed tougher requirements that call for large banks to increase their overall capital requirements by up to 20% amidst the recent bank failures.
📉 📈 Earnings: 99% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported their best performance relative to expectations since Q4 2021. Morgan Stanley predicts a 16% drop in corporate earnings ahead.
🔧 A wrench in the plans: May's jobs report exceeded Wall Street's expectations with a surprising addition of 339,000 jobs. Despite this being the highest number in 4 months, the unemployment rate rose from 3.5% to 3.7%, although still a 53-year low. Traders still expect an interest rate hike in July.
In response, markets shot up on Friday, reflecting a positive indication from investors. Bullish wagers on tech stocks are approaching the highest level since late 2022.
🏙 Localize it: 'Tis the season for confusing economic data releases, including the drop in Boston-area unemployment rates to 2.3% in April, 1.1% lower than the national rate- currently a 53-year low- despite macro market turmoil and massive layoffs.
🆕 AI Headlines (because at this point, we need a separate section):
📈 Abigail’s NVIDIA update: My favorite company to talk about. NVIDIA hit $1T market cap, trading at nearly 70x EBITDA NTM. They’ve been doubling in revenue every 7 months, although it may be worth asking how long this is sustainable for? I welcome any thoughts or discussion! Reach out.
🐂 Bullish: OpenAI competitor, Anthropic, recently announced a $450M Series C round led by Spark Capital. This is the second biggest generative AI deal of the year since OpenAI’s financing in January.
📉 The first to fall short: AI software startup C3.ai- also one of the most searched-for stocks in 2023- fell short of expectations after reporting Q4 earnings. Year-to-date, its stock price has soared 258% and after earnings, its stock price fell 21%.
🦅 Falcon (I know, that emoji is an eagle), a large language model developed by the Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi, claims to offer better performance than LLaMA, a GPT-level large language model developed by Meta. Falcon uses a modified Apache license and is reportedly the most powerful open-source language model to date.
🕸 The web expands: According to an exclusive by Fortune, Google Ventures has announced they are “promoting four partners to general partner to take on the wide range of areas GV is funneling cash into—including, of course, generative A.I.”
🆕 Headlines
🔥 Who is Lisa Su? A badass. But also the CEO of AMD, a semiconductor giant. She turned their ship around in 2014, ultimately beating Intel, AMD’s main competitor, in market cap. AMD will now enter into GPU chip production, going after NVIDIA’s chip business in hopes of breaking the near-monopoly the now-$1T market cap conglomerate holds over processing.
🍎 Highly anticipated: A recap of products announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday.
🐘 Mike Pence, Chris Cristie enter the chat: Former VP Mike Pence formally announced he was throwing his hat in the ring for the 2024 presidential race, and so did ex-Trump lover, Chris Cristie.
🪞 Looks familiar: The largest global cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is the latest now-infamous player to be accused of fraudulent behavior and misuse of customer funds across over a dozen charges amidst a seemingly never-ending wave of exposed crypto schemes.
🌳 Did anyone really know what carbon credits were anyways? A UN draft document has ignited debate around the definition of a carbon offset. The discussion revolves around what is eligible to be a counterbalance to carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, it was found that for the world’s top carbon credit issuer, Verra, more than 90% of their popularly corporate-issued rainforest offset credits are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.
🇺🇦 Ukraine’s anticipated pushback: Ukrainian military forces have reportedly begun “large-scale offensive on five sectors of the front in the southern Donetsk area” − where Bakhmut, the "epicenter" of hostilities, is located.
The collapse of a major dam in southern Ukraine, a core source of cooling for the large nuclear power plant nearby, collapsed this morning, triggering floods, endangering Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and threatening drinking water supplies.
🐦 Twitter’s PR tragedy: The 2023 Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation rankings of top companies cited Twitter as having one of the worst reputations, while Patagonia and Costco topped the list with the best reputations.
🍳 Cooking up an IPO: Fast-casual chain, Cava, is set to start marketing an IPO this week, priced as high as $2.2 billion.
🐠 An aquatic acquisition: Goldman Sachs has offered $598.8 million in cash to buy Norwegian aquaculture service group Froy, amounting to a 72% stake in the company.
🐻 An insurance apocalypse: Allstate and State Farm no longer sell new home, condominium or commercial insurance policies in California because of risks posed by climate change such as wildfires and the resulting cost of repairing homes.
🪐 🔭 Galactic game changer: Space startup, Hubble Network, plans to launch a constellation of 300 satellites that any Bluetooth-enabled device from anywhere in the world can connect to. Their initial batch of four satellites will launch with SpaceX’s mission in January 2024.
🥊 Meta vs. Apple: Meta revealed it is not giving up its tight grip on the Metaverse as it announced its newest VR headset, the Quest 3, priced at $499 and set to launch this fall. Strategically timed, Apple reveals theirs today. Compare them here. Some have called this Apple “Blackberrying” the Meta headset.
Local Features
📱 Boston Tech Startup Feature: Groops
Groops is group psychology for teams, bringing experts in group psychology to the office to lead team development programs on a subscription basis. Their solution aims to bridge group psychology with existing workforce technology, and aims to be the global hub of workplace connection. Think: Dr. Wendy Rhoades from Billions + tech + community. Groops is led by CEO Bobbi Wegner, a globally recognized expert in group psychology and lecturer at Harvard, having spent her career teaching corporate leaders how to bring clinical skills to the office. Groops is a female-founded company with a female-led team. Go check them out!
🌟 Add ‘Em To Your Radar: Dorm Room Fund’s Diversity Track Programs
Context: Established by First Round Capital, Dorm Room Fund is a $10 million fund focused on investments in student-run startups. These programs are an amazing launch pad for underrepresented students interested in careers in startups and VC. Past speakers have included Sam Altman (Open AI), Rebecca Kaden (USV), Elliott Robinson (Bessemer Venture Partners) & more.
Programs: Blueprint Investor Track: A 6-week masterclass for aspiring student VCs who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or Latino. Prism Track: A summer program for aspiring student VCs and founders who identify as LBGTQ+. Female Investor Track: A 6-week masterclass for aspiring student VCs who identify as female. Female Founder Track: A 6-week masterclass designed to help female-identifying early-stage founders scale their projects and equip them with the skills to raise their first capital
How to Apply: Applications for our various programs are open through the May and can be found here (If you need an extension, send a note to caroline@dormroomfund.com)
Select Events
🧑💼 Tech and Biz
Wednesday, June 7th 6PM: Capital Z Boston’s Rooftop Networking for early-stage founders, funders, and operators.
Wednesday, June 7th 6PM: Wine Wednesday Ecosystem Partner Networking hosted by Innovation Studio.
Thursday, June 8th 5PM: Techstars Boston hosts Meet Techstars! Bring a Founder Friend at Trillium Brewery on the Greenway.
Tuesday, June 13th 8:30-10:30AM: Pivots & Pastries panel that includes David Frankel of Founder Collective, Meghan Verena Joyce, of Duckbill Technologies, and Jaide Jensen, of Arcaea hosted by the Inno Crew.
Wednesday, June 14th 6PM: TiE ScaleUp’s Investor Showcase for their 9th cohort.
Tuesday, June 20th 5:30PM: Boston DAO Meetup hosted by 186 Ventures.
🤗 Other
All summer: A list of outdoor concerts in Boston this summer! (Select ones include Fenway’s Zac Brown Band and Morgan Wallen back-to-back in August, and Boston Jazz Fest at the end of August)
Every Wednesday morning 5:55AM, 6:30AM: The November project- a workout class running the Harvard Stadium stairs every Wednesday morning with other psychopaths who do it for fun (and sanity). I’ll be there to try it in the next few weeks!
Relevant Reads (Just a few!)
Armentum's John Markell on the difficulty of raising venture debt in the post-SVB era.
Financial Times reports on the question of, how small chips can really get? Where does Moore’s Law see a tapering of progress?
Pitchbook’s Q1 ‘23 Healthcare IT report came out, with key takeaways that include key partnerships for generative AI integrations, the movement of PE firms into later-stage VC rounds, and the key problems being solved with generative AI in healthcare IT today.