🆕 Two Week Round Up: 17 Boston Startups That Raised $230M in Private Financings
🆕 Two Week Round Up: 17 Boston Startups That Raised $230M in Private Financings
An OpenAI-powered scientific search engine, autonomous eVTOL systems for sustainable farming and telehealth for Medicare recipients with mental health issues are among this weeks' funded companies 💸
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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 that has been investing in seed-stage machine learning companies since 2015. Every two weeks, this newsletter serves to list Boston’s latest financings and highlight ecosystem players and happenings.
If you were forwarded this email, join the community of thousands of Boston’s best tech and finance folks reading alongside you!
🎆 Welcome back and happy 5th! I hope everyone is recovering nicely.
Over the last two weeks, 17 Boston-based companies across Climate, Food & Bev, Healthcare, IT, and a few other sectors raised $230M collectively in private financings. Plus, a few that had some more elusive financial announcements I didn’t include as part of the aggregate total. This week, I’d like to draw attention to the Local Highlights section below Headlines. Two incredible Boston powerhouses I wrote about this week and would encourage you to check out- David Hysong of SHEPHERD, and Monisha Misra of BoardsbyMo.
In other macro news, this week was a big one for tech M&A with almost $8B shelled out for just the 23 known-price acquisitions, including DataBricks’ massive MosaicML deal (congrats to our friends at Boston-based E14 Fund on the exit!). Meanwhile, Microsoft’s launch of AI-powered clinical note-taking for physicians, DAX, has single-handedly slashed the potential of every AI-powered medical note-taking startup we saw in last 6 months. More headlines below.
And so, with that, let’s get into it.
Boston Financings: 6/20 - 7/4
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 $230M.
Marzae | $100K | Food and Bev
Local producer of natural wines, ciders, and co-ferments, Marzae Wine, has officially launched and raised $100K from 1 investor towards a total offering for $400K. Founded by Eliot Martin, Marzae Wine utilizes minimal intervention fermentation techniques and plans to release their first vintage in November.
S2N Health | $150K debt | Healthcare IT
Provider of AI-powered analytics for med tech companies and their sales and marketing teams, S2N Health, has raised $150K on a SAFE note from 3 total investors towards a total offering amount of $500K. Founded by healthcare industry veterans, Amy Siegel and Tim Kofol, S2N Health offers consulting services and flagship platform, RepSignal for sales and marketing teams.
Exaloop | $850K | Infrastructure
Exaloop, creator of a Python compiler called Codon designed for high-performance computing, a product of MIT Ph.D.’s Ariya Shajii and Ibrahim Numanagić’s work out of the CSAIL lab, has closed $850K of a $1.5M total offering in the form of a SAFE note from 3 investors. With applications in industries like computational biology and finance, among others, Codon enables users to write code in Python that outperforms C/C++. MIT News has more.
Adaptilens | $1.6M | Healthcare
Adaptilens, a company that has developed an alternative intraocular lens (IOL) for cataract surgery using a proprietary advanced polymer, has raised a $1.6M Seed round led by Pillar VC with participation from Accanto Partners. Today’s standard of care is using a monofocal IOL, providing either near or far vision, not both. Adaptilens is led by Harvard ophthalmologist, Liane Claman alongside ex-Alcon directors, Daniel Stanley and Brett Thomes. PRNewswire has more.
Abside Networks | $2M | Telecomm
Manufacturer of hardware and software private networks equipment, Abside Networks, has raised $2M from 1 undisclosed investor. Founder and CEO, Laurent Perraud holds 13 patents and 10 publications, and last founded Nanoscale-labs after time at IBM and NewLogic as an RF engineer. The company develops networking products for large companies and government orgs with a focus on 4G LTE & 5G and other RF technologies.
Consensus AI | $3.1M | AI Search
A search engine that uses AI in partnership with OpenAI to extract findings from scientific research, Consensus AI, has raised a $3.1M Seed round led by Tim Draper at Draper Associates. Consensus synthesizes expert knowledge from 200 million scientific and academic research papers and generates a plain-language summary, prioritizing sources’ authority rather than popularity and user preferences. Founded by ex-Northwestern University football players, Eric Olsen and Christian Salem, the two both worked in consumer sports tech (DraftKings and the NFL, respectively) before starting Consensus. Venturebeat has more.
General Fluidics | $4.1M | Healthcare
Developer of point-of-care testing platform for blood diagnostics, General Fluidics, has closed $4.1M in the form of convertible debt from 10 total investors towards a total offering amount of $8.4M. The platform, Axess™, combines three “gold standard” technologies to provide hematology, clinical chemistry and immunoassay test menus. The company is led by Robert Granier, the former Director of The Center for Technology at MGH, and last raised $6.7M in 2020, according to a Form D filing.
Carbonwave | $6M | Climate Tech
Developer of ultra-regenerative advanced biomaterials from seaweed, Carbonwave, has raised $6M from Pegasus Capital Advisors and the Global Fund for Coral Reef. Carbonwave upcycles the over-supply of Sargassum seaweed into biomaterials, simultaneously restoring ocean health and sequestering greenhouse gases. The company is led by founding investor and CEO, Geoff Chapin and last raised a $5M Series A in April of this year.
FastCAP Systems (Nanoramic Labs) | $7.4M | Semiconductors
Designer and manufacturer of ultracapacitor systems, Nanoramic Labs, has raised $7.4M from 33 total investors towards a total offering amount filed for $12.5M. Founded in 2009 out of MIT and since funded by NASA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense, Nanoramic develops Neocarbonix electrodes, FastCAP Ultracapacitors, and Thermexit gap filler pads for industries like electric vehicle batteries and electronics.
SOS | $7.6M various securities | Consumer Wellness
Female-founded developer of smart wellness vending machines for women’s health products, SOS, has raised a total of $7.6M in two separate strategic partnerships: a $2.6 million investment round supported by Wasserman Ventures and $5 million round led by Urban Us Capital. Founded by two ex-State Street VP’s, each SOS machine carries 10 wellness products and includes free period care products. They last raised a $3.4M Seed round led by For Later.
Causely | $8.8M | Enterprise IT
Provider of an observability and monitoring platform for enterprise cloud applications, Causely, has raised an $8.8M Seed round led by 645 Ventures with participation from Glasswing Ventures, Tau Ventures, and Amity Ventures. Causely’s platform helps businesses troubleshoot operational issues and manage application performance, appealing to DevOps and SRE users who are building and supporting apps in Kubernetes. Venture Beat has more.
Realtime Robotics | $9.5M | Hardware Enablement
Developer of a robotic design and programming enablement platform, Realtime Robotics, has raised $9.5M from Kyobo Life Insurance and Shinhan GIB as a fast follow up to their $31M Series A back in 2021. Originally a MassRobotics resident, Realtime’s platform, RapidPlan, enables robotic manufacturers to control motion planning workflows via simulation, control, task management and programming. TechCrunch has more.
Centrexion Therapeutics | $10.3M debt | Healthcare
Centrexion Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on developing non-opioid, non-steroidal therapeutics for the treatment of chronic pain, has raised $10.3M in debt financing. This marks Centrexion’s fourth round of debt financing, bringing its total debt raised since 2018 to $69.28M after their last equity raise, a $67M Series D round in 2018 led by NEA. Their total financing to date exceeds $200M.
Guardian Agriculture (“Kiwi Technologies”) | $15M | Agriculture Tech
MIT-founded developer of autonomous eVTOL systems for sustainable farming, Guardian Agriculture, has raised $15M from 10 investors towards a total offering amount of $20.5M. Guardian was founded in 2017 as Kiwi Technologies and launched their first FAA-certified production eVTOL system in 2020, the SC1, weighing 600 lbs fully loaded and measuring 15 feet wide. This summer, Guardian Agriculture will begin commercial operations to support customer Wilbur-Ellis, the largest crop-dusting fleet in the U.S. Forbes has the exclusive.
Luminopia | $16M | Healthcare (VR)
Luminopia, a company using TV shows via VR headset to improve vision in children with lazy eye, has raised a $16M Series A led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP). Built on research from Boston Children's Hospital and MIT, Luminopia’s core product, the first FDA-approved software-based therapeutic for pediatric amblyopia, commonly known as “lazy eye,” is currently available for prescription-use and replaces eye-patching, blurring (atropine) eye drops, and other digital therapies that penalize the stronger eye. Businesswire has more.
Preply | $22.5M | EdTech
Ukrainian-founded marketplace for one-on-one online language tutoring, Preply, has raised $22.5M from 2 total investors towards a total offering amount filed for $32.5M. Founded in 2012 by Kirill Bigai, Dmytro Voloshyn and Serge Lukyanov, the founders relocated the company back to Ukraine after the initial idea started in Boston. Preply last raised a $50M Series C in 2022 led by OWL Ventures. Last week, Ukraine announced legislation to grant English the status of international language in Ukraine- 49% of the adult population does not speak English.
Author Health | $115M | Digital Health
Provider of care for Medicare Advantage recipients with serious mental illness and substance use disorders, Author Health, has raised $115M Series A led by General Atlantic with participation from Flare Capital Partners. Author addresses the one in four Medicare recipients that have a mental illness through a team-based approach to psychiatrics, and Humana will be the first to launch their services in coordination with CenterWell Senior Primary Care. Businesswire has more.
Extras…
SeaDeep | Accelerator Announcement | Climate Tech
AI-powered subsea vision for inspecting marine environments, SeaDeep, was announced as one of five startups to join Greentown Labs’ Greentown Go program for startups targeting solutions for responsible offshore wind development in partnership with Vineyard Wind and MassCEC.
General Prognostics (GPx) | Accelerator Announcement | Healthcare
Digital health startup producing the world’s first bloodless blood tests using Sony’s mSafety wearable device, GPx, has been selected as one of thirteen digital health startups building for women’s health and health equity for PharmStars Accelerator’s 2023 cohort. They last raised a $3.25M Seed round from D4V in partnership with IDEO.
Minerva Neurosciences (Nasdaq: NERV) | $20M PIPE | Healthcare
Minerva Neurosciences, a drug development company focused on central nervous system disorders, announced a $20M PIPE financing deal in a post-IPO equity offering to Boehringer Ingelheim, a global biopharmaceutical company with a mental health drug pipeline, and Federated Hermes Kaufmann Funds.
VinciVR | Accelerator Announcement | Climate Tech
A company developing VR solutions for the offshore wind industry, VinciVR, has been accepted to the Offshore Wind Innovation Hub’s accelerator, a 6 month development program for the larger offshore wind value chain. Vinci’s platform targets VR needs for workforce safety and training.
Lifebloom | Boston Public Market Award Winner | Consumer
Boston Public Market held its inaugural Entrepreneurship Forum incubator competition, and the prize went to woman, Black, and immigrant led candle developer Lifebloom. Starting September 1st, Lifebloom will occupy a rent-free space in the Boston Public Market for one year.
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:
🗓 Earnings calendar here, and full economic numbers release calendar here.
Today, we’ll get factory orders, and Fed's June FOMC meeting minutes. Thursday, initial jobless claims, U.S. trade deficit, and U.S. services PMI. Friday, unemployment and hourly wage data.
🔙 Economy watch last two weeks:
🏦 Banking update: The Fed released the results of its annual stress test on the 23 biggest US banks, which included modeling out a severe recession scenario. All banks passed and saw the lowest max drawdown on stressed capital in years.
Meanwhile, Bank of America placed some concentrated bond market bets a while back, leaving them with more than $100B in paper losses at the end of the Q1 2023.
🌎 Global economies: The European Central Bank received mixed data as Eurozone inflation dropped more than expected. The core rate at 5.4%, is still well above target rates of 2% and is expected to stay high through 2023.
🤑 M&A activity: Tech acquirers shelled out nearly $8 billion in just the known-price acquisitions for 23 companies last week, according to Crunchbase. IBM took $4.6B of that in the Apptio deal, and Databricks got MosaicML for $1.3B.
🆕 AI Headlines (because at this point, we need a separate section):
💰 Big fundings: Inflection AI raised $1.3B for a chatbot named Pi led by Microsoft and NVIDIA. Typeface raised a $100M Series B, Runway raised a $141M Series C, and Databricks acquired MosaicML for $1.3B last week (congrats to Boston-based E14 Fund on the exit!).
👀 One to watch: NVIDIA acquired a company that simplifies ML models, OmniML- potentially part of an effort to enable compute-intensive AI to run on devices, not the cloud.
💽 An OG modernizes: Boston-based Indico Data announced the launch of its integration with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Indico’s co-founder, Alec Radford, published the seminal generative AI paper on DC-GANs, still one of the most cited papers in the space.
📝 The first of many: Microsoft announced the release of Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) Express, an OpenAI-powered clinical note-taking app. Extremely relevant for the startups we’ve seen in recent months pitching similar ideas.
Abigail’s two cents: Definitely not the first you’ll hear of a big player leveraging massive market share and resources to wipe out an entire category of hyped-up startups (or force them to pivot). At this point on the adoption curve, investment in early-stage AI startups should be guided by the assumption that most startups building above the infrastructure layer will need to pivot as a result of these big player moves. At the early (pre-seed and seed) stages, this dynamic will lead investors to heavily lean on markets and qualitative founder traits.
🆕 Headlines:
📣 The stuff you’ve already heard about, reframed with food for thought:
🪂 Adventurous or dumb: After the catastrophes of submersible Titan and Greek ship Adriana, the NYT reported that adventure tourism is expected to bring in more than $1T in global revenue by 2030, so what does that mean for the industry of travel insurance?
💼 SCOTUS: The decisions to strike down affirmative action prompts companies to think about future diversity initiatives. Potential alternatives include U.C. Davis’ use of “adversity scoring”, ranking applicants by the disadvantages they have faced. Is this a start?
💧 Parched: 3M agreed to pay $12.5B in what would be the largest settlement for a "health risk”, more than anything seen from tobacco or opioids, to multiple cities in the US that claim contaminated drinking water due to PFAS chemicals in firefighting foam.
⭐️ The best restaurant in the world: Central, in Lima, Peru, was named the world’s best restaurant in 2023 by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, one of the world’s most prestigious food awards. I made a res for 3 for February 2027 - let me know if you want to come.
🇺🇦 Ukraine: Now well into the fourth week, the NYT gives us a glimpse into the anticipated road ahead for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
The leader of Russia’s Wagner military group, a former Putin ally, led an uprising in Moscow last week after challenging Putin on a number of sensitive topics. The Kremlin exiled Wagner’s leader to Belarus and now faces untangling the web of the 100+ Wagner-controlled companies that originally helped Putin amass international influence.
China hinted at supporting Ukrainian efforts to win back territory.
🍎 Big Kahuna: Apple closed with $3T in market cap, the first publicly-traded company to pass that threshold. They hit this for a second in January of 2022 but didn’t close there.
🛒 [abuse-of-] Power player: FTC set to launch a major antitrust suit against Amazon, claiming Amazon has used its status to reward e-comm vendors that use its logistics services while penalizing merchants who don’t.
💼 Watch out, SEC: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case scheduled for next session that challenges the SEC’s enforcement power using in-house jurors.
🇨🇦 These guys might be on to something… Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship launched their first-ever Tech Talent Strategy that includes several measures making it easier for Canadian tech companies to employ foreign national talent.
🦄 A unicorn tour?: Say what you want about Taylor Swift, but her ability to generate interest (and money) from an entire demographic is undeniable. Her Eras Tour is on track to generate $1B.
📱 Social media shutdown: Social media app IRL shut down after an internal investigation by IRL’s board of directors found that 95% of users were “automated or from bots.” IRL recently $170M Series C led by Softbank in 2021- ouch.
🪙 Lightening up?: Federal prosecutors in New York said they would drop several criminal charges against disgraced crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried if the judge agrees to try him later on those charges.
Local Highlights
📍 Boston Tech Startup Feature: SHEPHERD: D2C Oncology
David Hysong is the Founder and CEO of SHEPHERD and coincidentally, he was also my SAT tutor nearly 10 years ago. He is now building the first consumer-facing oncology company after battling a rare case of the disease himself, and his story is truly incredible.
A bit on David before we get to SHEPHERD: David is a Forbes 30U30 honoree and worked as an undercover investigator against the sexual enslavement of children in Southeast Asia. He was in training in Special Operations in the U.S. Military, in the pipeline to become a US Navy Seal, when he was diagnosed with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma, a rare head and neck cancer in 2015. When he found out his form of cancer does not respond to chemotherapy and has no approved targeted therapies, he founded SHEPHERD “for the millions of people battling rare cancer.”
Now, on SHEPHERD: SHEPHERD, inclusive of both the SHEPHERD Foundation and SHEPHERD Health, aims to discover, develop, and connect cures for rare cancer patients through technology. SHEPHERD Health aims to be the first DTC oncology company that patients ask for by name, identifying the full impact of a therapeutic and the RNA characteristics necessary for maximum efficacy on any patient with any type of cancer at any stage of disease. The foundation has created a global repository for rare cancer patients supported by a world-class team of experts. SHEPHERD has a ton of exciting initiatives in the pipeline, be on the lookout for more information re: this soon…
⭐️ Add ‘Em' To Your Radar: Monisha Misra, Founder of BoardsbyMo ⭐️
Monisha is our second powerhouse Boston feature. She started her charcuterie board catering business, BoardsbyMo, as a side hustle, and has since grown the business into a full time career. Since launching the business into a full-time endeavor, BoardsbyMo has served thousands of charcuterie boards, catered hundreds of events, and taught 2,000+ people in charcuterie workshops. While growing her charcuterie business, she decided to start sharing her business growth and knowledge with other women in the community. To date, Monisha has taught over 1,000 entrepreneurs how to start their own small businesses through consulting courses, and has been recognized by Boston Magazine, Boston Business Journal, Edible Boston, Boston Globe, Hub Today, VistaPrint x Celtics, and more for her efforts in entrepreneurship and empowering women in the community to do the same.
Events
🧑💼 Tech and Biz
Wednesday, July 26th 10-12PM: Greentown Labs hosts Innovation Intersection: Human Health and Climatetech at the Lab Bench.
Tuesday, July 11th-July 12th: Reuters hosts the US Offshore Wind Conference 2023 at the Hynes Convention Center.
🤗 Other
Every Wednesday at 6PM and Friday at 12PM: Summer concerts in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library!! (yes, I just linked an Instagram reel…)
Free outdoor fitness classes this summer (because who needs an Equinox spin class…)
Fitness on the Greenway (HIIT, yoga, Tai Chi, even Kung Fu)
Seaport Sweat (full calendar here)
Fit in The Fenway (usually weekdays at 6:15pm, weekend mornings but check the link for full schedule)
CX Fit (every Wednesday at 6PM and Saturday at 10AM at Cambridge Crossing)
November Project (Harvard Stadium stair workouts on Mon, Wed, Fri mornings)
Relevant Reads (Just a few!)
An awesome series by Matt Crane of MGMT Boston newsletter: The Endeca Effect - Special Report (1/5)
TIME 100’s Most Influential Companies List
A 2017 analysis from the NYT on the cost of not picking up your prescriptions.
A TechCrunch Market Analysis of Vertical AI: The next logical iteration of vertical SaaS.