21 Companies Raise Over $590M, VC Raises $480M, & Lululemon Partners with Peloton
September 28, 2023's biggest news in the private markets.
Arc, a two-year-old Los Angeles startup that recently rolled out a $300,000 electric boat, raised a $70 million Series B round from Menlo Ventures as well as previous investors Eclipse, Andreessen Horowitz, Lowercarbon Capital, and Abstract Ventures. The company has now raised more than $100 million altogether.
Sierra Space, a two-year-old startup based in Louisville, Co., that's developing an inflatable space station habitat in conjunction with with Blue Origin, Boeing, and others, raised a $290 million Series B round at a $5.3 billion valuation. The deal was co-led by MUFG, Kanematsu Corp., and Tokio Marine & Nichido, with additional participation from Coatue, General Atlantic, Moore Strategic Ventures, BlackRock, and AE Industrial Partners. The company -- which was spun out of the 60-year-old private aerospace company Sierra Nevada Corp. -- has already raised a total of $1.7 billion.
Cartwheel, a one-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that partners with school systems to offer pediatric digital mental health services, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures, with Reach Capital as well as previous investors General Catalyst, BoxGroup, and Able Partners also taking part.
Evvy, a three-year-old New York startup that helps women diagnose vaginal infections through an at-home microbiome test, raised a $14 million Series A round led by Left Lane Capital, with General Catalyst, Labcorp Venture Fund, RH Capital, Ingeborg Investments, G9 Ventures, Virtue, and Amboy Street Ventures also piling on. The company has raised a total of $19 million.
Gem Security, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based cloud detection and response company, just raised a $23 million Series A round led by GGV Capital, with participation from IBM Ventures and Silicon Valley CISO Investments. It was only in February that Gem announced its $11 million seed round led by Team8, which also participated in this new round.
Kolena, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that is building tools to test, benchmark, and validate the performance of AI models, raised a $15 million round led by Lobby Capital and including SignalFire and Bloomberg Beta. The company has raised a total of $21 million.
Lumu, a four-year-old startup based in Doral, FL, that attempts to detect network threats and provide details about compromised assets, raised a $24 million Series B equity round and $6 million in debt. Forgepoint Capital was the deal lead.
Resourcify, a five-year-old Hamburg startup that analyzes the different ways companies can recycle the materials that they use rather than dispose of them as waste, raised a $14.9 million Series A round at a $53.4 million valuation, according to TechCrunch. Vorwerk Ventures led the transaction, while Revent, Ananda Impact Ventures, Speedinvest, BonVenture, and WEPA Ventures also contributed. The company has raised a total of $24.5 million.
Revefi, a two-year-old startup based in Redmond, WA, that automates data management processes such as data ingestion, data transformation, and data quality checks, raised a $10.5 million seed round led by Mayfield, with additional funds provided by GTMfund and Neythri Futures Fund.
Slope, a two-year-old business-to-business payments platform for enterprise companies, has raised $30 million in fresh funding. Union Square Ventures, which co-led the outfit's $24 million Series A last year, led the new round, which included "major participation" from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, says the company.
Timeline, a five-year-old UK startup that provides financial advisers with tools to use with their clients, raised a $12.1 million Series B round led by Blackfin Capital Partners, with MTech Capital also chipping in.
Traydstream, an eight-year-old London startup that digitizes and stores trade finance documentation, extracts the data, and checks it against trade and compliance rules, raised a $21 million Series B round. Pivot Investment Partners and e& capital were the co-leads.
Cygnetise, a seven-year-old London startup that uses blockchain technology to manage the signing of documents, raised a $3 million seed round led by Adjuvo, with Massive also ponying up. The company has raised a total of $4.4 million.
EchoMark, a one-year-old startup based in Bellevue, WA, that watermarks documents in order to identify leakers, raised a $10 million seed round. Craft Ventures was the deal lead.
Meeno, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that aims to fight loneliness through an AI-powered chatbot app, raised a $3.9 million seed round led Sequoia Capital, with AI Fund and NEA also getting in on the deal. The company has raised a total of $5 million.
NorthStar Care, a three-year-old Seattle startup that provides virtual substance abuse treatment, raised a $6 million seed round co-led by Tony Robbins and Starting Line.
Pontoro, a five-year-old startup based in Mountain View, CA, that is developing a platform that will allow investors to access a diversified pool of bank loan assets, raised a $4.6 million Seed II round led by Ulu Ventures and joined by Illuminate Financial, Nevcaut Ventures, and W11 Capital. The company has raised a total of $10.8 million.
Senser, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that uses machine learning to identify the causes of outages and service degradations, raised a $9.5 million seed round led by Eclipse, with Amdocs also chipping in.
StretchDollar, a San Francisco startup founded this year that enables small employers to set a fixed pre-tax monthly stipend of their choosing that employees apply to their health insurance premiums, raised a $1.6 million pre-seed round. Investors included Precursor Ventures, Elefund, v1vc, Kindergarten Ventures, and Westerly Ventures.
Vega, a London startup that allows high net worth individuals to build portfolios across private asset classes such as private equity, venture capital, private credit, and real assets as well as public equities, fixed income, and commodities, raised an $8.3 million seed round led by Motive Ventures, with Picus Capital and Citi Ventures also anteing up.
Faire, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that operates a B2B retail marketplace, received an undisclosed investment amount from Shopify. Faire, which counts Sequoia Capital and Dragoneer as investors, last raised money at a $12.6 billion valuation. As part of the deal, Shopify is naming Faire its “recommended wholesale marketplace.”
Cyberstarts, a five-year-old Israeli VC firm that focuses on seed deals in the cybersecurity space, just raised a new $480 million opportunity fund. It now boasts total assets under management of $663 million.
Lululemon is partnering with Peloton to produce digital content and ditching its Mirror device. (Lululemon bought Mirror for $500 million in June of 2020. Undeniably, it was a great deal for investors and founder Brynn Putnam.