Battery startup Joule Case lands $500K after making key pivot due to the pandemic

Joule Case batteries. (Joule Case Photo)

Joule Case, an Idaho-based battery tech startup producing stackable energy storage units, landed more than $500,000 in funding.

The infusion of capital has helped the 5-year-old company shift from a sales plan that, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, was going to target events and music festivals. in the form of convertible notes.

Now the startup is focused on residential and backup-power customers. That includes food trucks, campers and RV owners, and people looking for home energy backup for solar power and in the case of electrical outages.

“In the day-to-day of trying to keep your business afloat or selling stuff, you have to be flexible and determined to make it happen,” said CEO James Wagoner.

The startup had grown to 12 employees, but had to lay off staff working specifically on the festival-related products. The company, which now has five full-time employees, is hiring for product development and sales aligned with the pivot.

In October, Joule Case was crowned Early-Stage Innovation of the Year from the Idaho Innovation Awards. Pictured are founders James Wagoner (second from left) and Alex Livingston (third from left). (Joule Case Photo)

Using lithium ion and lead acid batteries, Joule Case has created a stackable system that can be added or subtracted to depending on the amount and duration of energy needed. The batteries can replace polluting, noisy gas generators.

Joule Case products are available from the company as well as Camping World and Northern Tool, and the startup recently closed a deal to provide the batteries to a network of more than 500 electrical wholesale distributors.

The latest funding is in the form of convertible notes, debt that can be turned into equity in the future. Investors in the round include Keiretsu Forum and Park City Angels. Joule Case previously raised nearly $1 million from angel investors. The startup says it plans to pursue a Series A funding round in the near future.

As the push toward cleaner energy continues, Joule Case is part of a larger trend to establish the Pacific Northwest a major player in the growing battery tech sector.

There are numerous startups in the space, including Woodinville, Wash.-based Group14, which is using nanotechnology in battery science, and ESS, an Oregon-based manufacturer tackling grid energy storage. Lavle, a Seattle-area company developing batteries for marine and other uses plans, reported that it’s increasing its workforce by more than 50% through the end of the year. Seattle’s Zin Boats is making waves in its pitch to become the “Tesla of the sea.”

The region is also home to institutional battery expertise at the University of Washington and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and government agencies are purchasing batteries for transportation projects including Washington state’s plans to build the world’s largest hybrid-powered, auto-carrying ferries.

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Tech Moves: Leafly names CEO; early Amazon exec departs; Microsoft vet named DocuSign CTO; ex-Vicis CEO lands new gig; more

Yoko Miyashita (Leafly Photo).

— Leafly General Counsel Yoko Miyashita will take over as chief executive officer from outgoing CEO Tim Leslie.

Miyashita joined the Seattle-based online cannabis platform last year and previously spent more than a decade in corporate and general counsel at Getty Images, also headquartered in Seattle.

Leslie was appointed Leafly’s CEO in March of 2019 after serving as VP of Amazon Prime Video International. He spent more than 20 years at Amazon and will remain at Leafly for a brief transition period.

Leafly went through two rounds of layoffs this year before raising $3.6 million in May.

— Audio technology company Sonos named Microsoft Chief Product Officer Panos Panay to its board of directors. Read the story.

Kamal Hathi (DocuSign Photo).

— DocuSign announced 20-year Microsoft veteran Kamal Hathi as its new chief technology officer. In his new role, he will support the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, the publicly-traded company’s new product aimed at expanding beyond its e-signature platform.

Founded in Seattle and now headquartered in San Francisco, DocuSign joined the Nasdaq 100 in June, bumping off United Airlines. The company still has a significant workforce in Seattle.

Hathi was most recently chief product and technology officer for Trader Interactive, a provider of digital marketplaces and advertising products for the recreational and commercial vehicle industries. He remains on the board of Trader Interactive and also serves on the board of Slickdeals.

Hathi departed Microsoft in 2018; at the time he was general manager for Power BI. He previously worked on the SQL Server Analysis Services and MSN teams.

Dave Marver. (Vicis Photo)

— Former Vicis CEO Dave Marver has been appointed CEO of GTX Medical, a medical device company based in the Netherlands and Switzerland developing technology to treat spinal cord injuries.

A co-founder of Vicis, Marver stepped down from the Seattle-based high-tech football helmet maker in November last year. A month later, the company folded and its assets sold for $2.85 million in April.

Marver is a medical device industry veteran who spent more than a decade at Medtronic. He was previously CEO of JointMetrix Medical and Cardiac Science Corporation.

— Seattle-based Redfin announced Kerry Chandler has joined its board of directors. Chandler is currently the chief human resources officer for global entertainment and sports company Endeavor.

“Kerry’s human resources experience at high-growth businesses adds a crucial area of expertise to our board,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman.

Chandler has been a human resources executive at Under Armor, Christie’s, NBA, Walt Disney and IBM.

Former Amazon Books VP Jennifer Cast stands inside Amazon’s first physical retail location in Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo)

— Amazon’s vice president of specialty recruiting Jennifer Cast has departed the e-commerce giant. In a post on LinkedIn, Cast wrote that she is taking the summer off to plan the next stage of her career.

Cast initially joined Amazon in 1996 as the 25th employee, and departed in 2001 after a stint as vice president of books, music, video and digital. In 2014, she returned to oversee Amazon Books, the company’s first foray into physical retail. Cast transitioned to her most recent role leading specialty talent acquisition in 2018.

“I believe Amazon’s culture is stronger and employees are just as (if not more) customer obsessed now than when I first joined. Viva Amazon Leadership Principles!” Cast wrote in the post.

— Seattle startup DroneSeed added Tesla co-founder Marc Tarpenning to its board as an observer. Founded in 2016, DroneSeed uses drones to accelerate the reforestation process after wildfires.

“Technical innovations like this – that benefit both people and the larger environment – are exactly why I’m eager to be on the board,” said Tarpenning.

Tarpenning is currently a partner at Spero Ventures, a San Francisco Bay Area firm focused on early stage venture capital. Spero is an investor in DroneSeed.

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New biotech startup GentiBio lands $20M, inks licensing deals with Seattle Children’s and BRI

Boston-based biotech startup GentiBio this week announced a $20 million funding round and licensing deals with two Seattle research institutions.

The company aims to treat autoimmune, alloimmune, autoinflammatory, and allergic diseases by developing engineered regulatory T cells, or Tregs. It is licensing technology from Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI), and Israel-based MIGAL Galilee Research Institute (MIGAL).

Researchers from both Seattle Children’s and BRI helped launch GentiBio. The company is led by longtime biotech and life sciences industry exec Adel Nada.

“The technologies licensed from these premier research institutions are mature and well-differentiated, and will be further optimized in sponsored research collaborations with the scientific teams that discovered them to advance novel and potent therapeutics with the potential to treat and cure serious autoimmune and inflammatory diseases,” Nada said in a statement.

Investors in the seed round include OrbiMed, Novartis Venture Fund, and RA Capital Management.

GeekWire’s coverage this week is underwritten by BCRA

As you plan for the future, consider what spaces will cultivate employee engagement, reflect your brand, and advance your goals. Digital work will continue, but it can’t recreate the energy that physical proximity offers. Think of it this way, you can listen to an album or go to a concert. You’re hearing the same music, but each experience is unique. The same is true for a workplace, and we can help you reimagine your office to maximize your investment.

Hear more about how to rethink your future workspace here

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Seattle-area startup Ossia lands investment from Toyota Group subsidiary Toyoda Gosei

Ossia is teaming up with a Toyota Group subsidiary to fuel development of its wireless power technology.

The Seattle-area startup announced a commercial agreement deal and a strategic investment from Toyoda Gosei, a Toyota Group company that makes rubber and plastic products for customers around the world.

It’s the latest partnership for Ossia, a 12-year-old startup that has developed Cota, a long range wireless power system that it licenses to other companies.

“This is an exciting time,” Doug Stovall, chief revenue officer at Ossia, said in a statement. “This partnership will not only help advance the use of wireless power for different applications within the automotive industry, but also lead to additional wirelessly powered inventions that can be leveraged across a spectrum of commercial, consumer, and IoT uses.”

Ossia recently received FCC certifications for its technology. The company has raised $50 million from investors including Intel Capital, KDDI, Molex, and others. It was founded by Hatem Zeine in 2008 and is now led by CEO Mario Obeidat, who took over in 2017. Zeine showed GeekWire some of Ossia’s early prototypes back in 2014.

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Seattle startup Xealth lands investment from Cerner as COVID-19 accelerates digital health adoption

Xealth CEO Mike McSherry. (Xealth Photo)

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing hospital systems to adopt digital tools at record pace. They are getting help from startups such as Xealth, a Seattle-based company that just announced a key partnership with Cerner and an investment from the publicly-traded healthcare giant.

Xealth will team up with Cerner, a leading electronic health record (EHR) tech company, to help hospitals incorporate digital health programs. Cerner also made a $6 million investment in the startup, along with LRVHealth, a health-focused VC firm based in Boston.

Founded in 2017 by two Seattle startup veterans and spun out of Providence Health & Services, Xealth uses patient data to recommend services from a variety of vendors for possible prescription. The company lets doctors and nurses issue digital prescriptions such as apps and digital media. It also routes the flow of data from services back into the hospital’s EHR.

“Clinicians easily find and order the right digital tools and programs from within their current EHR workflows, send these digital health orders to the patient’s smartphone or computer, and then monitor patient engagement, analyzing the effects of the tools on patient care,” said Xealth CEO Mike McSherry.

Xealth is already integrated with Epic, and the deal with Cerner means Xealth is now working with the two largest hospital EHR vendors in the U.S.

“Cerner’s investment is a realization and commitment that digital health, telehealth/remote monitoring is now part of care delivery going forward,” McSherry said.

McSherry said the pandemic has “really turned digital tools into must-haves” as hospitals aim to treat patients safely without risking exposure to COVID-19.

“We worked practically around the clock to help our customers, including Providence, stand up COVID-19 specific workflows and automation in just days around telehealth visits, remote patient monitoring, behavioral health and supporting in-patient visits,” he said.

Xealth customers include Providence, Duke Health, UPMC, Atrium Health, Partners and The Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network.

The startup makes money by licensing its platform to healthcare providers. Competitors include Redox and Sansoro Health, both of which integrate third-party applications into EHRs.

(Xealth Image)

Xealth is one of many digital health startups that have seen demand rise this year. Venture funding for the U.S. digital health sector is expected to break a new record in 2020; companies already raised $5.4 billion through June, according to RockHealth.

“While the pandemic appears to have stoked investors’ appetite for digital health companies in particular, their focus could shift in a longer term economic downturn,” RockHealth said in a recent report. “On the other hand, there’s never been a greater need — or demand — for technology-enabled healthcare, a viewpoint the digital health investor community has so far this year resoundingly affirmed.”

Tech giants including Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are also investing heavily in digital health products and services.

McSherry started Xealth with co-founder Aaron Sheedy. The pair have been working together for more than two decades, tracing their roots back to a shared office at Microsoft in the 90s. They worked together at Swype, the popular texting keyboard maker that raised investment from Nokia and Samsung and sold to Nuance Communications in 2011. McSherry was CEO at Swype and became Nuance’s VP of advertising and content and Sheedy its VP of mobile product.

They took the plunge into healthcare after McSherry was invited by Providence CEO Rod Hochman to be an entrepreneur-in-residence at Providence Ventures in 2015.

The company received a $1-to-$2 million loan from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program. It had a small number of layoffs to help manage costs, given that its customers have lost billions of dollars in revenue due to the pandemic with cancelled or delayed procedures, surgeries, and doctor visits, McSherry said.

Xealth now employs 58 people. Total funding to date is $28.5 million. Other backers include Atrium Health, Cleveland Clinic, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin, MemorialCare Innovation Fund, Providence Ventures, and UPMC, as well as McKesson, Novartis, Philips, and ResMed.

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Seattle-area startup Ossia lands investment from Toyota Group subsidiary Toyoda Gosei

Ossia is teaming up with a Toyota Group subsidiary to fuel development of its wireless power technology.

The Seattle-area startup announced a commercial agreement deal and a strategic investment from Toyoda Gosei, a Toyota Group company that makes rubber and plastic products for customers around the world.

It’s the latest partnership for Ossia, a 12-year-old startup that has developed Cota, a long range wireless power system that it licenses to other companies.

“This is an exciting time,” Doug Stovall, chief revenue officer at Ossia, said in a statement. “This partnership will not only help advance the use of wireless power for different applications within the automotive industry, but also lead to additional wirelessly powered inventions that can be leveraged across a spectrum of commercial, consumer, and IoT uses.”

Ossia recently received FCC certifications for its technology. The company has raised $50 million from investors including Intel Capital, KDDI, Molex, and others. It was founded by Hatem Zeine in 2008 and is now led by CEO Mario Obeidat, who took over in 2017. Zeine showed GeekWire some of Ossia’s early prototypes back in 2014.

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