Monthly Archives: July 2021

News: The mmhmm story and how it plans to spend its $100M

• July 28, 2021
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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For our Wednesday show this week, Natasha and Alex Chris had prior Equity guest Phil Libin back for a chat. Libin was first on our show a while back to chat about his startup studio. But since then, he’s been

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

For our Wednesday show this week, Natasha and Alex Chris had prior Equity guest Phil Libin back for a chat. Libin was first on our show a while back to chat about his startup studio. But since then, he’s been a little busy.

You may recall that mmhmm, Libin’s project to build a better video communication service, raised $100 million the other week. And we here on the Equity pod made a little bit of fun at the number. It was just so very much money for a roughly one year old company. What was the company going to use it for?

Well, Libin’s folks got in touch and so we decided to just have him on to chat. And we wanted him back because he was one of the most memorable guests on the show, frankly, thanks to his candor the last time around.

So, what did we get into? A refresh on the mmhmm story, and notes from Libin about what’s ahead for his company. It certainly has the cash to pursue its vision. But as we learned, building software for a variety of platforms comes with challenges. Challenges that are ameliorated by having lots of smart staff. So, that’s where the money is going.

Regardless, it was good sporting of Libin to come back for another chat. Equity is back Friday morning with our news roundup. Make sure to follow the show on Twitter, as we’re doing the odd Twitter space that you won’t want to miss.

News: ASCAP Lab highlights a quartet of early-stage music startups

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The cohort aims to tackle wide-ranging music industry issues. Some have already laid out commercialization plans, while others came together for the program and haven’t thought that far down the road.

Music rights giant ASCAP said today that a quartet of early-stage startups/university music projects will compete in its Immersive Music Studio Challenge. The 12-week project is a partnership between ASCAP Lab and NY Media Lab (NYCML) that offers the teams grants and access to development resources. They’ll also be showcasing at the upcoming ASCAP Experience.

It’s an interesting little cohort, aiming to tackle some wide-ranging music industry issues. Some have already laid out commercialization plans, while others essentially came together for the program and really haven’t thought that far down the road.

We spoke to the founding teams to get a better sense of the projects.

Boomy

Who’s on your founding team?

Boomy was founded by serial music entrepreneur Alex Jae Mitchell and music industry veteran Matthew Cohen Santorelli in 2019.

Please describe your product. What problems in the market are you trying to address? 

Music-making is a complex skill requiring time, equipment and resources that most people don’t have. Boomy is an AI-powered music automation platform where people create and release music instantly, effortlessly, and for free — even if they’ve never made music before. Over 200,000 people are already using Boomy to create and release music, 85% of whom are first-time music makers.

Do you have any plans to commercialize? If so, what? Have you identified revenue streams?

Through the Boomy platform, users release albums to 40+ streaming services and digital retailers worldwide, including Spotify, TikTok, YouTube, Apple Music and more — all for free. Users keep an 80% share of the associated royalties, with the remaining 20% used by Boomy to power the free service.

What is your funding to date?

Boomy graduated from the Boost VC accelerator in 2019 and has raised follow-on funding from venture capital firms and music funds, but has not yet made a formal announcement regarding its fundraising.

MiSynth

Who’s on your founding team?  

MiSynth began as a fictional business proposal created by Senaida Ng in her freshman year class, “Are Friends Electric?” taught by professor Errol Kolosine. After the class ended, Ng continued with the idea and worked closely with Kolosine to bring the idea to life. She recruited Ph.D. biomedical engineer Sinem Eriksen to lead the R&D alongside the guidance of NYU Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL) researchers Pablo Ripollés and Elena Georgieva.

Please describe your product. What problems in the market are you trying to address? 

MiSynth is a revolutionary music software plugin that will allow musicians, songwriters and producers to synthesize any sounds they hear in their heads. They will bridge the gap between your imagination and your music by taking data from brain computer interfaces (BCIs) and turning them into playable MIDI instruments. The team at MiSynth strongly believes that everyone can and should have the tools to be an artist. Rather than spending hours learning about sound design and trying to re-create the perfect synth, MiSynth is making music more accessible and efficient for everyone.

Do you have any plans to commercialize? If so, what? Have you identified revenue streams?

Yes, we plan on continuing to build our prototype and testing it after the ASCAP NYCML Challenge and we hope to launch our software by August 2024. MiSynth will be sold as a software plugin compatible with any digital audio workstation (DAW), including Logic Pro X, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, FL Studio, Cubase and Reason. Customers can buy the license to use the software by paying either a one-time fee or a monthly subscription fee until they pay off the full price of the license.

What is your funding to date?

We are a relatively new company that began only in December 2020, but we plan on continuing to seek funding from investors, research grants and challenges like the ASCAP NYCML Challenge to continue our venture.

The Slashers

Who’s on your founding team? 

Devin Kenny – an interdisciplinary artist, writer, musician and independent curator based out of NYC – and William Leon – an AR/VR developer and teaching fellow at Cornell Tech. The founding team met through the Art Fellowship at Cornell Tech in 2020.

Please describe your product. What problems in the market are you trying to address?

Otherwards is a mixed reality album listening experience combining music with interactive 3D objects and geolocation technology, creating an explorative album experience for the listener that melds music, gaming and the world around them.

Do you have any plans to commercialize? If so, what? Have you identified revenue streams?

No plans to commercialize just yet. We are in the process of iterating on the application toolchain and doing customer discovery.

What is your funding to date?

We’ve just started working on this project and have not raised any funds yet.

Dot Dot

Who’s on your founding team?

Kate Stevenson, Elizabeth Perez, Chris White and Jacques Foottit.

Please describe your product. What problems in the market are you trying to address?

Social is a best-in-class online event platform where users can easily meet and chat with other people while exploring virtual spaces with games and live performances. We saw the need to bring serendipitous social moments and ways to spark real-life relationships into the remote, virtual experience, especially at events and live performances.

Every world comes with proximity-activated audio, live-streaming avatars, beautiful customizable visuals and unique brand opportunities. With options to showcase video content, host a social livestream, add entertaining challenges and game packages so attendees and audience members connect through playful exploration and leave wowed by the experience.

Do you have any plans to commercialize? If so, what? Have you identified revenue streams?

Social is being used commercially for product launches, conferences, team-building events, art exhibitions and performances. Revenue streams include monetization through ticketing, donation widgets and sponsorship packages. Our commercial clients include fashion and beauty brands, media, tech and finance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined how we think about virtual communication and experiences. We have seen a level of behavioral change that would typically take more than 10 years happen in just 12 months. There is now a viable market for virtual engagement and therefore an opportunity to consider a hybrid approach for how we can engage audiences as we move out of the pandemic.

What is your funding to date?

We are currently funded through white-labeled development for event companies and brands. Social is growing organically based on user needs, through pilots with physical venues, artists and passionate communities.

News: Brain Technologies raises $50M+ for the launch of Natural, a natural language search engine and ‘super app’

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Voice-based and other personal assistant apps — which use natural language and hefty AI engines in the backend to source information to address your various questions, do your e-commerce bidding, or control one electronic device or another in your home — have been around for years, but too often they have come up short when

Voice-based and other personal assistant apps — which use natural language and hefty AI engines in the backend to source information to address your various questions, do your e-commerce bidding, or control one electronic device or another in your home — have been around for years, but too often they have come up short when it comes to user experience, failing to nail the right solutions to your queries. Today a new app is launching from a startup that has largely been in stealth mode up to now to try to address that disparity. Brain Technologies is today announcing $50 million in funding, and along with that is releasing Natural, an iOS app, in the US market.

The $50 million (which is actually described as “over $50 million” by the company, with an exact number undisclosed), meanwhile, is coming from a very interesting mix of investors — backers include Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, Goodwater Capital, Scott Cook and WTT Investment, a list that underscores some of the attention that Brain has been getting, even before having released a single product.

Prior to this round, Brain had raised $1.5 million back in 2016 from an unnamed investor while still in stealth mode.

Jerry Yue, the young founder and CEO of Brain — a repeat entrepreneur and robotics enthusiast whose last company, a grocery delivery service in China called Benlai, is still going strong — said in an interview that he does not like to call Natural a “personal assistant” app, not because of the shortcomings of so many of these in the past, but because of the voice association many have with the concept.

“We don’t position ourselves as a voice assistant because we don’t think the future is voice only,” he said. “It should be the right combination of voice and native app experience.”

Instead, he describes what Natural is as the world’s first “generative computer interface”, the logical progression in digital information search.

That progression, in his view, started with the web, progressed to search engines, and then apps, before landing where he sees it today. Natural brings all of these together in some degree. Currently, you speak or type any kind of question or command into the app, which then provides a solution that might be in the form of links to other apps you might have.

For example, “I’d like sushi tonight,” will bring back options (in theory) for ordering sushi, and possibly your most favored dishes, from a selection of restaurants by way of food ordering apps that you use, or places to go eat it, as well as options for making that sushi yourself (and buying the ingredients online to do so, as well as a method).

Similarly, travel searches return results that dip into multiple silos from, say, airlines and airline aggregators that are easily editable and that you can buy directly from those results, if you already have payment details on your device. (While Google provides this to some degree, you eventually have to navigate to sites to buy tickets, which might end up significantly more expensive when you actually visit said sites.)

The more you use the app, the theory is that it will learn more about what you might want from your questions.

AI that anticipates what we are trying to say or do is something that has been attempted before, of course, but the difference here, Yue said, is in Brain’s approach, which is based on the concept of “one shot” learning, which he described as a kind of general purpose AI, “a tool that learns to use other tools.”

The alternative is a more labor-intensive approach that AI-based systems are typically built on today, largely based around keywords. “AIs from Google or Amazon are based on thousands of people and human coding to connect services,” he said. “This approach treats natural language processing as a classification problem.” In contrast, the breakthrough system he and his team have devised, he said, “has learned more than 4 million functions on its own.” Ironically, the end result of a successful AI like this is not to make us feel more technologically powerful, but to get us away from our devices, and spending time fussing on them, and into the world.

Given that this is a consumer app, it will be interesting to see how and if there is mass takeup of Natural, and whether the right combination of anticipatory AI with natural language and design come together to pique collective attention. The team and what they’ve built in any case will be a hot property, given that AI will continue to be a strong and growing presence in the tech landscape for years to come.

“What Jerry and his team are developing is incredibly special. I’m not aware of anyone doing more interesting work to demonstrate how fundamentally AI can enhance our everyday lives,” said investor Scott Cook, who was also the founder of financial software giant Intuit, in a statement.

“Many of us remember the first time we used an iPhone. The software felt magical, and every animation felt dynamic yet subtle,” said Tom Goodwin, a Natural beta customer. “Experiencing this app is the closest thing I’ve felt to that for a long time. I love the idea of one place to go for everything.”

News: Redwood Materials raises $700M to expand its battery recycling operation

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The company’s post-funding valuation is $3.7 billion, according to a source familiar with the investment round.

Redwood Materials CEO JB Straubel shared his aspirations last year to turn the startup he co-founded in 2017 into one of the world’s major battery recycling companies. Now, the former Tesla co-founder and CTO has the money to accelerate those plans.

Redwood Materials said Wednesday it raised $700 million from high-profile institutional investors and venture firms, providing the capital needed to expand its existing operations well beyond its Carson City, Nevada, home base to locations throughout North America and even into Europe.

The Series C round was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates and included Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Baillie Gifford, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Fidelity. Previous investors — Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund — returned to put more capital into Redwood. Valor Equity Partners, Emerson Collective and Franklin Templeton also participated, the company said.

Redwood previously raised $40 million in a Series B and some seed money, which brings its total raise under $800 million, according to the company.

The company’s post-funding valuation is $3.7 billion, according to a source familiar with the investment round. Redwood declined to comment on the figure.

Redwood Materials is aiming to create a circular supply chain. This closed-loop system, Straubel said, will be essential if the world’s battery cell producers hope to have the supply needed for consumer electronics and the coming wave of electric vehicles.

Redwood recycles scrap from battery cell production and consumer electronics like cell phone batteries, laptop computers, power tools, power banks, scooters and electric bicycles. It then processes these discarded goods, extracting materials like cobalt, nickel and lithium that are typically mined, and supplies those back to its customers, which today includes Panasonic at the Gigafactory in Nevada that it operates with Tesla and Envision AESC’s battery plant in Tennessee. Redwood has also partnered with Amazon to recycle EV and other lithium-ion batteries and e-waste from parts of their businesses.

“In our view, the need for these materials will grow exponentially over time as we enter the era of de-carbonization,” Joe Fath, portfolio manager of the T. Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund, said in a statement, adding that “Redwood is well-positioned to be at the forefront of tackling this emerging and critically important problem.”

Straubel sees a bottleneck coming as the whole supply chain seeks to access critical materials. That will affect the growth rate and challenge automakers like Ford, GM and Volkswagen that have laid out ambitious plans to electrify their portfolios.

That problem is likely to compound as more automakers go down the electric path. Last week, Mercedes-Benz said it will spend €40 billion ($47 billion) to become an electric-only automaker by the end of the decade. The German automaker determined it will need battery capacity of more than 200 gigawatt-hours. To meet those needs, Mercedes plans to set up eight battery factories with existing partners and one new partner to produce cells.

Straubel said it’s time for Redwood to scale more aggressively.

Those plans were already well underway even before it closed the $700 million round, Straubel noted. The company announced in June it had purchased 100 acres of land near the Gigafactory that Panasonic operates with Tesla in Sparks, Nevada. Redwood now has some operations at the site.

Redwood is also in the process of nearly tripling the size of its existing 150,000-square-foot facility in Carson City, Nevada. The new 400,000-square-foot addition onto the recycling facility is expected to be operational by the end of the year.

To support the growth, Redwood started hiring more employees, with plans to add more than 500 jobs over the next two years. Redwood employs more than 130 people today.

The company has expanded in other ways as well, including the launch of a program that allows consumers to send in personal electronics such as smartphones to be recycled.

“This additional equity to some extent helps us finish all those things, but it’s not really the primary purpose for all of it,” Straubel said.

The company is examining additional sites in North America and actively looking at entering the European market, he added without providing a specific timeline. He did say that for now, Redwood is focused on the North American and European markets. Asia would be its third market.

Redwood is also investing money into some large-scale projects that seek further improve its recycling process, specifically around material purification and how to most effectively get these raw materials back into the battery supply chain.

News: Noetic Cyber emerges from stealth with $15M led by Energy Impact Partners

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Noetic Cyber, a cloud-based continuous cyber asset management and controls platform, has launched from stealth with a Series A funding round of $15 million led by Energy Impact Partners. The round was also backed by Noetic’s existing investors, TenEleven Ventures and GlassWing Ventures, and brings the total amount of funds raised by the startup to

Noetic Cyber, a cloud-based continuous cyber asset management and controls platform, has launched from stealth with a Series A funding round of $15 million led by Energy Impact Partners.

The round was also backed by Noetic’s existing investors, TenEleven Ventures and GlassWing Ventures, and brings the total amount of funds raised by the startup to $20 million following a $5 million seed round. Shawn Cherian, a partner at Energy Impact Partners, will join the Noetic board, while Niloofar Razi Howe, a senior operating partner at the investment firm, will join Noetic’s advisory board.

“Noetic is a true market disruptor, offering an innovative way to fix the cyber asset visibility problem — a growing and persistent challenge in today’s threat landscape,” said Howe.

The Massachusetts-based startup claims to be taking a new approach to the cyber asset management problem. Unlike traditional solutions, Noetic is not agent-based, instead using API aggregation and correlation to draw insights from multiple security and IT management tools.

“What makes us different is that we’re putting orchestration and automation at the heart of the solution, so we’re not just showing security leaders that they have problems, but we’re helping them to fix them,” Paul Ayers, CEO and co-founder of Noetic Cyber tells TechCrunch.

Ayer was previously a top exec at PGP Corporation (acquired by Symantec for $370 million) and Vormetric (acquired by Thales for $400 million) and founded Noetic Cyber with Allen Roger and Allen Hadden, who have previously worked at cybersecurity vendors including Authentica, Raptor and Axent. All three were also integral to the development of Resilient Systems, which was acquired by IBM.

“The founding team’s experience in the security, orchestration, automation and response market gives us unique experience and insights to make automation a key pillar of the solution,” Ayers said. “Our model gives you the certainty to make automation possible, the goal is to find and fix problems continuously, getting assets back to a secure state.”

“The development of the technology has been impacted by the current cyber landscape, and the pandemic, as some of the market drivers we’ve seen around the adoption of cloud services, and the increased use of unmanaged devices by remote workers, are driving a great need for accurate cyber asset discovery and management.”

The company, which currently has 20 employees, says it plans to use the newly raised funds to double its headcount by the end of the year, as well as increase its go-to-market capability in the U.S. and the U.K. to grow its customer base and revenue growth.

“In terms of technology development, this investment allows us to continue to add development and product management talent to the team to build on our cyber asset management platform,” Ayers said. 

“The beauty of our approach is that it allows us to easily add more applications and use cases on top of our core asset visibility and management model. We will continue to add more connectors to support customer use cases and will be bringing a comprehensive controls package to market later in 2021, as well as a community edition in 2022.”

News: Insurtech startup Spot brings in $17.5M equity, debt to fill insurance gaps for accidental injuries

• July 28, 2021
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Spot is tackling affordable healthcare with a digital, on-demand injury insurance product that can be as-is or as a compliment to traditional health insurance.

Affordable healthcare continues to be a major problem in the U.S., with roughly 30 million people without comprehensive healthcare and high medical costs causing many to go into debt. Spot is tackling this issue with a digital, on-demand injury insurance product that can be as-is or as a complement to traditional health insurance.

Headquartered in Austin, the company raised $15 million in equity and $2.5 million in debt in a round of seed funding led by GreatPoint Ventures, with participation from Montage Ventures, Mutual of Omaha, MS&AD and Silverton Partners.

The idea for the company came from a conversation founder Maria Goy and Matt Randall had back in 2018. Randall is married to Goy’s best friend, and one night, they started talking about Goy’s job at the time, in insurance at New York Life, and how there needed to be a product that provided affordable insurance. That led to a discussion about how to also have healthcare that was accessible.

“Every major market was disrupted by some change of distribution, like Netflix and Airbnb,” Goy told TechCrunch. “We are setting the foundation to drive change and the distribution of insurance.”

Spot’s business model takes a holistic approach by providing customized injury insurance policies through both direct-to-consumer and strategic partnerships with companies and organizations. For example, one of the company’s first partners was the Austin Marathon, selling one-time injury policies to the participants. Randall wasn‘t sure if people would buy them, but they ended up selling over 1,100 policies.

That led to applying the same idea across youth sports, ski resorts and cycling organizations. It now has over a dozen partners, including USA Cycling, Powder Mountain, USA BMX, National Ski Patrol and athleteReg, and covers tens of thousands of people.

The policies start at $25 and work like a monthly subscription. Family plans are also available. Spot covers up to $20,000 each time the customer is injured. The company will also coordinate with any existing healthcare insurance. Customers can use any licensed physician, hospital or urgent care clinic.

Spot has grown 800% in policies from last year and 300% in partnerships, including bringing on Mutual of Omaha. Spot is the first startup the insurance giant has invested in, and “having them alongside Maria is beyond a powerhouse team to say the least,” Randall said.

The company’s policies are available in 42 states via the DTC model and nationwide on group coverage, Goy said. The new funding round will be used to triple Spot’s team of 25, go after new partnerships and develop a go-to-market strategy. Randall also plans to raise a Series A round in the next nine months.

“We are focusing on bringing additional products that fill in holes and gaps in insurance and provide more education to the market,” Goy added. “We are getting requests for alternative coverage. For example, people would rather have acupuncture instead of surgery, which is not easy for a typical policy. Ultimately, our big mission is how to create a community within our customers and drive engagement.”

As part of the investment, Mike McCormick, principal at GreatPoint Ventures, will join Spot’s board of directors. He said in an interview that his firm is on the lookout for things that make healthcare better, including companies rooted in rethinking how to keep people well.

Spending much of his time in both healthcare and insurtech, McCormick wanted to find an answer to the problem of how the U.S. is spending so much money, on a per capita basis, and getting what he called “meh results.”

There are also the issues of most care being fee-for-service, and insurance for most people being attached to employment, while high deductibles have become a big feature, he said. He likes Spot because it is offering a product, for example, to someone young who is unlikely to get diabetes or cancer soon, but could incur $10,000 in medical costs breaking a leg skiing.

“What Spot is doing for the underinsured and uninsured makes sense,” McCormick added. “Maria and Matt are incredible people building an incredible company with growth and product-market fit. In terms of the partnership and direct-to-consumer models, they could build either one into a $10 billion company and both will work.”

 

News: Launch vehicle startup Isar Aerospace lands an additional $75M in funding

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A slew of launch startups have emerged in recent years to help meet growing demand from satellite providers, biotech companies and others looking to send payload to space. One such startup is Germany’s Isar Aerospace Technologies, which is focused on building orbital launch vehicles designed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit.

A slew of launch startups have emerged in recent years to help meet growing demand from satellite providers, biotech companies and others looking to send payload to space. One such startup is Germany’s Isar Aerospace Technologies, which is focused on building orbital launch vehicles designed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit.

The startup made headlines last December – including here at TechCrunch – for scoring a $91 million Series B, the largest round to date in the European space launch scene. Now the company says it has raised an additional $75 million in a Series B extension, bringing the total round to over $165 million.

The extension round was led by HV Capital, Porsche SE and banking group Lombard Odier. Existing investors Earlybird Venture Capital, Lakestar, Vsquared Ventures, Apeiron Investment Group and UVC Partners also participated, with Earlybird subscribing the largest amount. Earlybird and Airbus Ventures led Isar’s $17 million Series A in December 2019.

Participation by Porsche SE – a major shareholder of Volkswagen – is particularly interesting as it signals growing interest from established mobility investors in connectivity and space-enabled technologies.

“As an investor focusing on mobility and industrial technology, we are convinced that cost-effective and flexible access to space will be a key enabler for innovations in traditional industries as well as for new and disruptive technologies and business models,” Porsche SE executive board member Lutz Meschke said in a statement. “Therefore, we are excited to back Isar Aerospace on its way to become the leading European small-launcher and to meet the increasing appetite for launch services.”

The funding will likely provide a significant boost for continued development and manufacturing as the company nears its planned first test flight in 2022.

Isar began production of its inaugural launch vehicle, the Spectrum rocket, this year. Spectrum is a two-stage vehicle that’s designed for lightweight delivery to low Earth orbit. The idea is to create a launcher that can move quickly and at a low cost to small satellite companies. Isar is aiming to conduct engine tests in Kiruna, Sweden, and launch operations in nearby Andøya, Norway, thanks to a 20-year agreement with Andøya Space for exclusive access to one of its launch pads. Notably, Isar has already secured its first paying customer, Airbus Defence and Space, and said in a statement that it plans on announcing more contracts soon.

The startup was spun out of Munich Technical University, where co-founders Daniel Metzler, Josef Fleischmann and Markus Brandl were studying engineering. While many of the new wave of launch companies are based in the United States, Isar is leading a parallel wave in Germany.

“A competitive and diverse space ecosystem will be crucial for humanity in the decades to come,” Isar CEO Daniel Metzler said in a statement. “We are convinced that European cooperation, a level-playing field for all players, and a demand-driven approach will provide customers with access to different and internationally competitive launch capabilities for a broad spectrum of payloads. The US has shown that cornerstone contracts based on demand – instead of political parameters – are preparing the ground for innovation and growth in the space sector.”

News: Customer engagement platform Dixa raises $105M Series C led by General Atlantic

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European customer engagement platform Dixa has raised a Series C funding round of $105 million, led by growth equity investor General Atlantic. Existing investors Notion Capital, Project A, and Seed Capital also participated. In February last year, it raised $36 million in Series B funding, led by Notion Capital, with support from existing investors Project

European customer engagement platform Dixa has raised a Series C funding round of $105 million, led by growth equity investor General Atlantic. Existing investors Notion Capital, Project A, and Seed Capital also participated. In February last year, it raised $36 million in Series B funding, led by Notion Capital, with support from existing investors Project A and Seed.

As well a product development, Dixa plans to use the cash injection as a war chest to roll-up other products. It already acquired Melbourne-based Elevio in January 2021.

Founded in Denmark in 2015 and launched in 2018, Dixa says it enables brands to stay connected with customers via messaging, live chat, email, or voice.

Mads Fosselius, founder and CEO of Dixa said: “For today’s customers, channels have ceased to matter. The way they engage now is holistically blended into what is called ‘multiexperience’. This is how we’re empowering brands to continuously stay true to their values.

Tom Hussey, Vice President in General Atlantic’s Technology sector focused on B2B software added: “Customer service software is undergoing a fundamental transformation, moving away from disjointed, transactional approaches towards longitudinal, conversational engagement. Dixa has helped to define and lead this multiexperience approach.”

News: MedRhythms raises $25M to get patients back in tune after a stroke

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The company’s digital therapy platform works to measure and improve someone’s ability to walk after they have experienced a neurologic injury or disease.

MedRhythms secured $25 million in Series B funding to advance its digital therapy platform aimed at measuring and improving someone’s ability to walk after they have experienced a neurologic injury or disease.

Morningside Ventures and Advantage Capital co-led the round, with participation from existing investor Werth Family Investment Associates, to give the Portland, Maine-based company $31 million in funding to date.

Company co-founder and CEO Brian Harris was a neurologic music fellow at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, treating people with stroke and brain deficits with music. He began getting questions from patients and families on how they could access similar care outside of the hospital. Not seeing a suitable alternative, he started MedRhythms with entrepreneur Owen McCarthy in 2016.

The company’s platform uses sensors, music and software, along with an evidence-based intervention called “rhythmic auditory stimulation,” to target the neural circuitry that controls movement. The technology taps into “entrainment,” a neurologic process in which the auditory and motor systems of the brain are coupled in synchrony with an external rhythmic cue, which over time, can lead to improved walking functionalities.

“There is no other stimulus that engages the brain like music does,” Harris said. “When someone is engaging in music, it aids in neuroplasticity to create new connections and strengthen old ones. Neuroplasticity is how we can learn new things or why people with brain deficits can improve.”

A year ago, MedRhythms’ digital therapeutic product received Breakthrough Device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat chronic walking deficits resulting from a stroke. It is the first in the company’s pipeline, which is also looking at using music to treat neurological conditions like Parkinson’s, acute stroke and multiple sclerosis. To that effect, it is participating in a neuroimaging study with Massachusetts General Hospital.

Harris intends to use the proceeds from the Series B funding to get the product to market, expand the team and the treatment pipeline. The company is preparing for submission to the FDA so it can do a commercial launch of the technology and begin clinical trials.

Stephen Bruso, investment partner at Morningside, said he has known the team at MedRhythms for a year. The firm is active in the digital health space and has followed the company closely since then.

COVID served to fundamentally shift healthcare in how to deliver care. The hospital and clinic models were robust, but resistant to change until the pandemic forced care to telemedicine visits at home, he said. It also forced innovation on the industry, and at-home therapy is an area where Bruso expects to see improvement in both patient compliance and recovery, and MedRhythms is capitalizing on that trend of shifting care to the home.

What intrigued the firm for the last couple of months was the idea of affecting the brain via non-pharmaceutical needs.

“MedRhythms using musical intervention to drive changes and improvements in neurologics is compelling,” Bruso added. “Emotional memory is tied to music. Its use provides a richer experience than taking a drug, and the company exists to tap into that.”

 

News: Search API startup Algolia raises $150 million at $2.25 billion valuation

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Algolia has raised a $150 million Series D funding round at a post-money valuation of $2.25 billion. Compared to the Series C round from October 2019, the company’s valuation has more than quadrupled. It means that Algolia is now a unicorn with a valuation above $1 billion. The company is best known for its search-as-a-service

Algolia has raised a $150 million Series D funding round at a post-money valuation of $2.25 billion. Compared to the Series C round from October 2019, the company’s valuation has more than quadrupled. It means that Algolia is now a unicorn with a valuation above $1 billion.

The company is best known for its search-as-a-service product. It lets you integrate real-time search in your app or website using a developer-friendly API. Using an Algolia-powered search feature feels like using Spotlight on a Mac. Results load with each keystroke and appear in just a few milliseconds.

The company now has over 10,000 customers, including some big names, such as Slack, Stripe, Medium, Zendesk and Lacoste. Right now, the company handles over 1.5 trillion search queries per year — that’s a 1,500,000,000,000 if you want to see all the zeros.

Lone Pine Capital is leading today’s funding round. Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, STEADFAST Capital Ventures, Glynn Capital and Twilio also participated in the round. But that’s not all, some existing investors also put more money on the table, such as Accel, Salesforce Ventures, DAG, Owl Rock and World Innovation Lab.

While the company doesn’t share revenue numbers directly, Algolia says that its annual recurring revenue has increased by 180% year over year.

“The future is API-first – a reality underscored by the growth seen by Twilio, Stripe, Algolia and others in the API economy. A huge part of our success has, and will continue to be, our relentless focus on developers with our PLG strategy — enabling them to build search into their websites and apps, so they create the most relevant and dynamic digital experiences.” Algolia CEO Bernadette Nixon said in a statement. “And we’re excited to continue to solve customers’ problems as we continue to expand beyond search with Algolia Recommend and Predict.”

In addition to its search API, Algolia has expanded to other real-time APIs. For instance, you can provide real-time product recommendations on your e-commerce website with Algolia Recommend. This is part of a strategy to diversify the company’s product offering.

In particular, the company is now trying to analyze the visitor’s intent to predict whether they’re likely to purchase something on not. Companies can then leverage that info to refresh content dynamically, send a push notification, display a special offer, etc.

Originally founded in France, the company has grown tremendously over the past few years. Algolia is now a big enterprise-focused company with a solid business. Last year, its co-founder and CEO Nicolas Dessaigne decided to transition to a non-operational role.

And the company has recruited quite a few senior executives over the past 18 months — Michelle Adams (chief revenue officer, formerly of Dropbox), Carlton Baab (chief financial officer, formerly of Alfresco), Piyush Patel (chief business development officer, formerly of Capgemini), Jim Schattin (chief customer officer, formerly of Alteryx), Jason McClelland (chief marketing officer, formerly of Salesforce and Adobe) and Bharat Guruprakash (chief product officer, formerly of Twilio).

As you can see, it’s a long list of talented people, which means that Algolia is focused on building a long-term company instead of building cool technology and optimizing for an acquisition. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn about an IPO down the road.