Welcome back and happy 2015!
With so much going on in the city’s thriving ecosystem, it is easy to miss some of the happenings in the space. We keep you abreast of a few of things that you may have missed in NYC Tech this week including the fundings, exits, and events.
CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED IN SILICON ALLEY THIS WEEK
Apploi, which makes in-store kiosks to help employers in the services industry with “walk-in” applications, as well as pushing job listings out to users’ phones based on their location, has raised $7.4 million in Series A funding, including from Mistral Equity Partners’ managing partner Andrew Heyer, as well as investor Simon Jacobs.
It’s annual report time, and Warby Parker not only gives you a snapshot of their year in review. They’ve also put together a simple DIY Annual Report Generator so you can see what your past year was like. OK, so it’s not exactly scientific, but it is specific, potentially enlightening, totally fun and completely sharable.
Our friends at Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator announced their latest and greatest class. We took a look at these 10 startups and we must say we are impressed – Meet the 10 Killer Startups Who Made ER Accelerator #8
X.ai, an AI-powered personal assistant that can schedule meetings on users’ behalf, has raised $9.2 million in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, CrunchFund, and earlier investors.
The company had raised $2.1 million in seed funding in May (a month after it was founded) from investors including Lerer Hippeau Ventures, IA Ventures, and SoftBank Capital.
Insight Venture Partners, one of the leading full-service venture capital firms in New York, is raising its ninth fund and has so far received $2 billion in commitments, according to SEC filings first flagged by VentureWire. The New York firm has a pair of offerings: Insight Venture Partners IX LP has closed on $1.51 billion to date, and Insight Venture Partners (Cayman) IX LP has raised $596 million.
Image credit: CC by Howard Lake
InSensi, a team of designers and engineers who are stealthily working on the next generation of smart devices, has raised $825,000 in funding, and evidently, they’re staying in stealth about the funding details, too.
This week, Uber was ordered to suspend operations in five of its six dispatch bases in New York until they hand over trip records that had been demanded by the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission. Since it does have one NYC base that is still legally allowed to operate, Uber is still doing business in New York.
Image credit: CC by Roberto
Online digital distribution platform VHX, which helps independent artists and filmmakers to sell video content and connect directly with their fans, has raised $5 million in a Series B funding round led by Comcast Ventures. Previous investors, including Union Square Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and Reddit Chairman Alexis Ohanian, also participated in the round.
New York Digital Health Accelerator alum Noom, which offers smartphone apps that promote healthy living by monitoring the progress of its users, and providing advice on weight management, has raised $15M in Series B funding from six investors, including seed investor RRE Ventures and TransLink Capital. The company raised its Series A in February of 2014.
Reonomy, whose platform makes commercial real estate (CRE) property and market-level research simple, coupling comprehensive and validated data with powerful analytics, to help CRE investors and lenders make faster, more secure, and informed decisions, has raised a $13M Series B round led by Bain Capital, with participation from existing investors SoftBank Capital, Resolute Ventures, High Peaks Venture Partners, KEC Ventures and FinTech Collective, as well as Solon Mack Capital, the family office of William Mack, Richard Mack and Stephen Mack.