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 News for the week ending 9/16 including the NYC startup fundings, NYC startup exits, and NYC Tech events including news for UiPath, Trumid Financial, Ro, Ternio, EasyKnock, The Clear Cut, Boldstart Ventures, Human Ventures, and much more…
Direct-to-consumer healthcare company Ro which operates Roman (erectile dysfunction treatment) and Zero (smoking cessation) has raised a whopping $88M in Series A funding from investors that include General Catalyst, FirstMark, Initialized Capital, and SignalFire after raising its $3.1M seed round less than a year ago. Ro was founded by Rob Schutz, Saman Rahmanian, and Zachariah Reitano in 2017 and has now raised a total of $91.1M.
Full coverage of Ro’s Series A round.
Robotics process automation startup uiPath has landed an additional $225M in funding from investors that include Accel, Sequoia Capital, and CapitalG. This round comes at a pre-money valuation of $2.8B. The company had raised $153M in just March at a $947M pre-money valuation. Founded by Daniel Dines and Marius Tirca in 2005, uiPath has now raised a total of $408M in funding over four funding rounds. Here’s a link to our coverage of uiPath’s Series B round from March.
New York-based Enigma links internal data with real-world data to bring contextual intelligence to bear on critical decisions. Enigma has now raised a total of $129.64M in reported equity funding since being founded in 2011. Full coverage of Enigma’s Series C round.
According to a recent SEC filing, Boldstart Ventures, the enterprise-focused early stage venture fund founded by Ed Sim in 2010, has held its first close for Fund IV at $40.65M. The filing indicates that there were 50 LPs participating in the first close and the total offering amount for Fund IV is listed at $75M. Boldstart closed Fund III in November of 2016 at $47M. The firm has over 80 investments including in companies such as Rapportive, BigID, Kustomer, SecurityScorecard, HYPR Corp, Emissary, and Karma.
Bread, the flexible financing solution for retailers and consumers, has raised an additional $60M in funding from investors that include Bessemer Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, RRE Ventures, Kinnevik AB, Cue Ball, and Colle Capital Partners. Founded by Daniel Simon and Josh Abramowitz in 2014, Bread has now secured $200.3M in funding over three rounds.
An impressive roster of investors including Peter Thiel, Deutsche Borse, George Soros, and Singapore Exchange Limited have invested $53M in Ronnie Mateo’s startup Trumid Financial, a trading platform for credit products founded in 2014. TruMid has now raised slightly over $135M.
Lakehouse Ventures, an early stage venture firm founded by WorkOf founder John Neamonitis in 2016, is looking to raise $25M for Fund II. The firm is an investor in Billie, Rhino, MixLab, Smalls, Knaq, and Dirty Lemon.
Ternio, the blockchain platform focused on high-speed transactions starting with the advertising industry, has raised $10M in funding. Ternio was founded by Bryant Maroney, Daniel Gouldman, and Ian Kane in 2017.
Yumble, the meal delivery service for kids, has raised $7M in Series A funding from investors that include LaunchCapital, RiverPark Ventures, Danone Manifesto Venture, Sonoma Brands, Martin Lautman, Observer Capital, and Apple Core. Founded in 2016 by Dan Treiman, David Parker, and Joanna Parker, Yumble has now raised a total of $8.5M in funding over two rounds.
Rucker Park Capital is looking to raise $50M for Fund I. The filing lists Marissa Campise (Greycroft, Venrock, SoftBank) and Wesley Tang-Wymer (SoftBank, Point72, Morgan Stanley) as General Partners.
According to a recent SEC filing, Risk Labs has raised $3.9M in funding. The filing lists Hart Lambur, Xuelin Lu, and Christopher Burniske of Placeholder as Directors. The filing indicates that there were 10 investors in the round.
Real estate tech platform EasyKnock that provides sales-leaseback programs for homeowners looking to unlock their equity has raised $3.5M in Seed funding from investors that include Blumberg Capital, Montage Ventures, and Crestar Partners. The news comes with an announcement that the company has also secured $100M in debt funding. EasyKnock was founded by Ben Black and Jarred Kessler in 2016.
Public Goods, the direct-to-consumer brand that sells healthy everyday products, has secured an additional $3M in funding from investors that include Listen Ventures, Day One Ventures, and Yes VC.
Quick Takeaways from the Bloomberg Data for Good Exchange 2018
Look out for some serious improvements and discoveries in medical treatment, diagnosis, and prevention thanks to data from the UK Biobank. The biobank has half-a-million gene sequences from voluntary participants, and it has already sequenced over 50K DNA samples.
This is an international health resource that will be released to the public domain via an application process. The Biobank hopes to answer questions like:
Can we identify an individual who has mutations in genes and how is he/she affected by it? Can we find something novel about a particular disease? What have we misdiagnosed individuals with who have a genetic disorder that manifest itself in a general way?
Human Ventures, the venture studio founded by Heather Hartnett, Joe Marchese, and Megan O’Connor in 2015, is looking to raise $50M for its first fund according to a recent SEC filing.
The pay-as-you-go liability insurance, Jones, helps contracts get the absolute best rate and it just raised $2.8M in Seed funding from JLL Spark, MetaProp Ventures, Groundup Ventures, and 500 Startups.
The Clear Cut, the startup helping couples find the perfect engagement ring, has raised $664K in funding according to a recent SEC filing. The Clear Cut was founded by Olivia Landau and Kyle Simon last year. The filing indicates that there were 25 participants in the round and the total offering amount is for $1M.
