Climate change reversal startup Nori raises $4M for its CO2 offsets marketplace

Nori CEO Paul Gambill. (Nori Photo)

Nori, a Seattle-based startup striving to help reverse climate change, announced Thursday that it has closed a $4 million fundraising round.

The seed round was led by New York’s Placeholder, a blockchain-focused venture fund, which was joined by North Island Ventures, Tenacious Ventures, and others, including an unnamed agriculture giant.

Using cryptocurrency, Nori sells carbon credits to individuals and businesses to offset their carbon emissions. The startup, which launched in 2017, pays farmers to use verifiable, sustainable practices that store carbon dioxide, such as reducing the tilling of their soil and by planting off-season cover crops. The marketplace has sold offsets totaling nearly to 13,000 metric tons of CO2, with plans to sell an additional 20,000 tonnes by the end of the year.

Paul Gambill, CEO and one of seven co-founders of Nori, a startup working to reverse climate change. (Nori Photo)

The demand for offsets is seemingly vast. An increasing number of companies are pledging to shrink their carbon footprints, including Microsoft’s vow to become carbon negative and Amazon’s promise to be net carbon zero. Reaching these goals will require investments in carbon-removal programs. Amazon alone has a carbon footprint of more than 51 million metric tons.

CEO and co-founder Paul Gambill said that the new funding will be used to hire employees, add farmers to the platform, and expand their marketplace.

“Climate change is caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and farmers have the potential to store billions of tonnes of CO2 in their soil by using regenerative practices,” Gambill said in a statement. “Our marketplace creates significant financial incentives for them to adopt these practices.”

Farmers that typically participate in carbon programs grow commodity grains such as corn, soy and wheat. Nori features profiles of two farmers selling credits, one in Maryland and another in Iowa. One of the company’s big improvements internally, Gambill said, has been reducing the time needed to enroll farmers on the platform.

Nori raised $1.3 million in a “pre-seed” round earlier this year. The company is a Techstars Sustainability Accelerator graduate and has a weekly podcast featuring conversations with leading voices in carbon removal.

Nori was featured in GeekWire’s Startup Spotlight in 2018.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/climate-change-reversal-startup-nori-raises-4m-for-its-co2-offsets-marketplace/

Workforce collaboration platform Zuper raises $1.1M to help companies manage field teams

Zuper CEO Anand Subbaraj. (Zuper Photo)

Seattle startup Zuper raised a $1.1 million seed round and hired a longtime Microsoft manager as its new CEO.

The 4-year-old company sells software to more than 100 clients such as IKEA India that use Zuper to help manage field workforces. It integrates with supply chain and point of sale systems, and facilitates communication between various stakeholders. The software also enables scheduling, routing, identity management, video conferencing, and chatbots. Some companies use Zuper to run COVID-19 screenings for employees.

Customers hail from industries including residential and commercial cleaning, HVAC, electrical, internet service providers, plumbing, and landscaping.

“Zuper reduces/eliminates manual mundane work and improves efficiency and productivity, enabling service businesses to optimize the entire workforce management process and offer the best customer experiences,” said CEO Anand Subbaraj.

Zuper just brought on Subbaraj to lead the company. He previously spent 13 years at Microsoft, most recently as head of product in the Azure Data Factory.

The company has 30 employees across Seattle and Chennai, India. Prime Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Gunderson Dettemer and Gemba Capital.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/11/workforce-collaboration-platform-zuper-raises-1-1m-to-help-companies-manage-field-teams/

Bulletproof raises $13M to fuel growth of ‘high performance’ food and beverage products

(Bulletproof Photo)

Bulletproof 360, makers of food and beverage items designed to fuel a healthier lifestyle, has raised $13 million in a new funding round, the Seattle-area company announced Wednesday.

The round was led by Beliv, Rocana Ventures and existing investors CAVU Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures. The company, founded in 2014 by tech veteran Dave Asprey, has raised more than $80 million to date.

Asprey stepped down as CEO of the company last fall after leading Bulletproof’s growth, which saw it land its products in retail locations across the U.S.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Bulletproof said in a news release that consumers are increasingly looking for products to boost health optimization, including in the areas of immunity, energy, stress relief and sleep. Along with its signature coffee line — including beverages infused with grass-fed butter and energy-producing Brain Octane oil — Bulletproof’s portfolio includes collagen proteins and assorted supplements.

CEO Larry Bodner said in a statement that the new investment would fuel continued growth, including expansion of product offerings in both new and existing categories. Bodner, previously a CFO at Big Heart Pet Brands and Sovos Brands, took over in September 2019.

Bulletproof previously operated a cafe in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, but it closed this spring so the company could focus on the core business. One Bulletproof cafe is still operational in Santa Monica, Calif.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/11/bulletproof-raises-13m-to-fuel-growth-of-high-performance-food-and-beverage-products/

Seattle-area cybersecurity startup Polyverse raises $16M

Polyverse CEO Alex Gounares. (Polyverse Photo)

Bellevue, Wash.-based cybersecurity startup Polyverse raised another $16 million to help sell its software used by government organizations, defense companies, and more.

Polyverse’s main product is “Polymorphing for Linux,” which scrambles open-source code without affecting its operation, shielding it from hackers looking to exploit weaknesses in the code.

Polyverse has been validated by the U.S. Department of Defense for mitigating zero-day attacks, intrusions that occur just as a vulnerability becomes public, such as the infamous WannaCry ransomware and hacks of companies including Equifax.

The startup recently signed a partnership with SUSE, the world’s largest independent open source software company. It also sells a Polyscripting for WordPress, which aims to remove the three most common attack vectors against the popular content management system.

Its software runs on-premise, in the cloud, and on IoT devices.

Last year Polyverse made CNBC’s top 100 startups list. The company is led by CEO Alexander Gounares, a former CTO at AOL, CEO of Concurix, and Microsoft executive.

The new funding comes from primarily existing investors. Total funding to date in the 40-person company is $21 million. It recently hired Dr. Ralph Pascualy, the former CEO of Swedish Medical Group, to accelerate its healthcare offering.

Polyverse raised $8 million in February.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/seattle-area-cybersecurity-startup-polyverse-raises-16m/

Athira Pharma raises $204M in IPO, reaching ‘big milestone’ in fight against Alzheimer’s and other diseases

Athira Pharma CEO Leen Kawas accepts the award for CEO of the Year at the 2019 GeekWire Awards. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, and the number is projected to rise to nearly 14 million by 2050. The disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. And the economic impact is massive, with hundreds of billions spent annually fighting it.

Athira Pharma is on a mission to treat the debilitating disorder — and now it has additional capital and a bigger platform to pursue that goal as a public company.

The Seattle biotech company on Friday morning became the third Washington state company to make its initial public offering this year, debuting on the Nasdaq under the ticker ATHA. It’s the latest privately-held company to test the public markets amid a rush of IPOs in recent months, particularly in biotech and software, despite the ongoing pandemic.

“This is a big milestone,” Athira CEO Leen Kawas said Friday in an interview with GeekWire. “We are one step closer to hopefully impacting a lot of people’s lives positively.”

Athira priced its IPO on Thursday at $17 per share, which came in at the high end of its range. The company sold 12 million shares and raised $204 million in the IPO. The stock was up slightly in Friday morning trading. Athira’s valuation is now about $670 million.

Founded in 2011, Athira is in late-stage development for its lead therapeutic candidate called NDX-1017. The drug could halt or reverse the nerve damage that causes Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses including Parkinson’s and ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It uses regenerative technology that rebuilds connections between neurons.

Kawas said the company’s technology is different than anything else pursued over the past few decades.

“This is a new approach that could help a lot of people recover their life, and reduce the burden of this huge unmet medical need,” she said.

The Athira team. (Athira Photo)

The IPO marks an achievement for Kawas, who began building the foundation of Athira while earning her Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology at Washington State University nearly a decade ago. She’s an immigrant entrepreneur who moved to the U.S. from Jordan in 2007.

Kawas said she knew very little about starting companies and raising capital, let alone taking a startup public, until she was exposed to U.S. business culture and mentality. The 35-year-old CEO credited the “very special” environment for helping turn a kernel of an idea into a medical treatment that can potentially improve the lives of millions of people.

“This is a very difficult period in the U.S., but there is so much greatness here,” said Kawas, who co-founded Athira with WSU researchers Joseph Harding and Jay Wright. “We should not underestimate how amazing this ‘special sauce’ is that we have in the U.S.”

As GeekWire previously reported, Kawas is also the first woman to guide a company to an initial public offering in Washington state in more than two decades.

Kawas said she was shocked and saddened by the statistic, but also proud to be part of diversifying the industry and opening up opportunities for more people. She hopes the world changes so that her daughter will someday not be called “the first woman” to accomplish something but rather the first person.

While Kawas would be the first woman to take a company public in Washington state since 1998, there’s evidence nationally that a tide may be turning — albeit slowly — when it comes to female-led companies.

In the first half of last year, 13 women CEOs led U.S. companies to IPOs, representing 15% of the total. That was the highest proportion since 2014, and well ahead of 2018, according to analysis by CNBC.

Athira COO Mark Litton. (Athira Photo)

During today’s video interview with GeekWire, Athira COO Mark Litton took a moment to praise Kawas.

“Leen, you are an amazing role model,” he told the CEO. “You really are, for so many people. And that’s great.”

Litton joined Athira last year after previously co-founding Alder Biopharmaceuticals, another Seattle-area biotech that went public in 2014 and was acquired in 2019.

“It’s so exciting to have another Seattle biotech publicly-traded company,” Litton said, adding that “Seattle has some of the top scientists in the world, and we have a good track record of blending science and business together.”

Athira, previously known as M3 Biotechnology, plans to double the size of its 20-person team as it relocates into a larger facility in Bothell, Wash. The company said it is committed to the local biotech and life sciences ecosystem. Some of the startup’s early investors include Washington state’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund; the Washington Research Foundation; and Seattle-based the W Fund.

Athira raised a $85 million Series B round in June, bring its total funding from private investors to $100 million.

The company’s largest shareholder is Perceptive Life Sciences, which led the Series B round and has a 11.6% stake, followed by RTW Investments at 10.9%. Kawas is the third-largest shareholder with a 9.4% stake.

Athira in December presented what it described as positive initial results from a clinical trial that included patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

The company said there is promising evidence that NDX-1017 can help not only slow down disease but also improve brain function. It can also aid Alzheimer’s patients at both early and late stages of the disease.

Depending on the development and approval process, Athira’s NDX-1017 drug could come to market within 2-to-3 years.

In its IPO paperwork, Athira reported a net loss of $5.2 million in 2019, and a loss of $3.8 million through the first six months of 2020.

The company notes in its filing, “We do not have any products approved for commercial sale, and we have not generated any revenues related to our products since inception.” That reflects the traditional life cycle of biotech companies, which commonly invest in research and development for years before bringing products to market.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/08/athira-pharma-raises-204m-in-ipo-reaching-big-milestone-in-fight-against-alzheimers-and-other-diseases/

Seattle biotech startup led by Fred Hutch, Adaptive vets raises $16M for rapid drug development tech

Lumen Chief Science Officer Jim Roberts (left) and CEO Brian Finrow. (Lumen Photo)

Lumen Bioscience today announced a $16 million Series B round to help support its novel approach to rapid and low-cost drug development.

The company has come up with a way to produce orally-delivered antibodies and other biologics by using a bioengineered bright green algae called Spirulina. It has three clinical programs to treat gastrointestinal diseases including C. difficile, norovirus, and traveler’s diarrhea.

Lumen CEO Brian Finrow said the company’s technology lowers the cost of biologic drugs by a factor of 1,000 or more.

“With traditional technologies there’s nowhere near enough manufacturing capacity in the world to treat and prevent these diseases in this way, but Lumen’s technology makes it feasible,” he said.

Lumen is led by Finrow, a former senior vice president at Adaptive Biotechnologies, and Chief Science Officer Jim Roberts, the former head of basic sciences at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute. They co-founded the startup in 2017.

The 50-person company has several collaborations with organizations such as the Gates Foundation, NIH, NIAID, Fred Hutch, and others. It is currently working with the Gates Foundation to develop infectious disease drugs alongside fellow Seattle startup A-Alpha Bio.

WestRiver Management and Bioeconomy Capital led the round. Avista Development, Columbia Pacific, and local angels also participated, along with the co-founders. Total funding to date is $68 million.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/05/seattle-biotech-startup-led-by-fred-hutch-adaptive-vets-raises-16m-for-rapid-drug-development-tech/

KitoTech raises $3M as demand soars for its at-home no-stitch wound closure kit

(KitoTech Photos)

Seattle healthcare startup KitoTech Medical faced a challenge at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was difficult to pitch the company’s microMend wound closure device to new hospitals and clinics, limiting the ability to grow its business.

So in response, KitoTech quickly pivoted and developed two new consumer-focused products — and the results have been “remarkable,” according to CEO Ron Berenson.

KitoTech just raised $3 million to help support its growth. The company is known for its microMend device, which was made from technology originally developed at the University of Washington. It uses tiny staples that poke into the skin on either side of a wound and is applied over a cut like a traditional butterfly bandage. The process is painless and can heal wounds up to three times faster than those closed with traditional sutures, according to the company.

Rather than just selling to hospitals, KitoTech targeted consumers who wanted to avoid going to the emergency room due to the risk of COVID-19 spread. It began selling on Amazon and the company’s vendor said microMend is its fastest-growing product ever.

KitoTech plans to use the fresh cash to expand commercialization of the microMend. The 5-person company has raised $9.5 million to date from undisclosed backers.

Berenson and former UW professor Marco Rolandi founded KitoTech in 2012 when Berenson was an entrepreneur-in-residence at the university. Berenson is a long-time Seattle-area entrepreneur who helped to build biotech companies CellPro and Xcyte Therapies. He has degrees from Stanford University and Yale Medical School.

KitoTech’s chairman is Edward Truitt III, the CEO of Lubris BioPharma and co-founder of Biological Dynamics.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/03/kitotech-raises-3m-as-demand-soars-for-its-at-home-no-stitch-wound-closure-kit/

Barn2Door raises $6M as demand rises for its software used by farmers to sell food online

Barn2Door CEO Janelle Maiocco. (Barn2Door Photo)

The pandemic is increasing demand for grocery and food delivery. Seattle startup Barn2Door is riding this trend and just raised $6 million to support its growth.

Barn2Door serves thousands of farmers across the U.S., helping them sell food directly to consumers with e-commerce software that manages sales, inventory, logistics, and more.

“Barn2Door was enjoying strong growth prior to the pandemic as farmers were looking to move to direct-to-market to capture more margin and own the customer relationship,” said CEO Janelle Maiocco. “The pandemic has simply added a tailwind to our growth.”

More people are shopping for groceries online as they get groceries delivered versus going to a physical store amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amazon, for example, said online grocery sales tripled year-over-year during the second quarter. Instacart is handling huge demand. Seattle startup Crowd Cow is seeing more interest for its online meat marketplace. And Portland, Ore.-based farm-to-doorstep delivery service Milk Run — which just launched in Seattle — said demand increased by 12 times since the outset of the pandemic.

Barn2Door is Maiocco’s second take on a startup for farmers. Barn2Door was founded soon after Maiocco pulled the plug on Farmstr, an organic food marketplace that connected consumers with farmers. Farmstr had a much larger scope: aggregating products, acquiring and marketing to customers, and managing and fulfilling food orders. Maiocco said previously that the model was too expensive to be profitable.

Barn2Door takes a narrower approach, focusing exclusively on making software that helps farmers connect with and sell to customers. The farmers are responsible for the rest of the process, including fulfilling and delivering orders.

Bullpen Capital led the Series A round, with participation from Quiet Capital, RAINE Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, Global Founders Capital, Sugar Mountain Capital, and others.

Total funding to date is $11.6 million.

Other Pacific Northwest-based food-related startups are also raising cash. Minnow raised $2.2 million for its contactless food delivery pickup stations; Shelf Engine raised $12 million to help retailers manage orders and reduce waste; and Dumpling raised $6.5 million for its technology that help entrepreneurs establish their own, independent grocery businesses.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/09/22/barn2door-raises-6m-as-demand-rises-for-its-software-used-by-farmers-to-sell-food-online/

Digital bank startup Copper raises $4.3M to help teens learn how to spend and save money

Copper co-founders Stefan Berglund and Eddie Behringer. (Copper Images)

Can tech help teens spend money smarter? That’s the bet Copper and its investors are making.

The Seattle-based digital bank startup just announced a $4.3 million seed round led by PSL Ventures, the venture capital arm of Pioneer Square Labs. Jack Brody, director of product at Snap, along with Mana Ventures and Western Technology Investment also participated.

Copper is targeting users in the 13- to 19-year-old range with a debit card and app experience that includes parents along the way. The 1-year-old company incentivizes teens to save money by giving cash in exchange for hitting a savings goal or paying back parents on time. They can also earn money by simply passing a quiz about finance.

The app allows for peer-to-peer payments, which makes it easier for parents and kids to exchange money, and offers bank-level security with FDIC protection.

Copper earns revenue by charging a subscription fee to parents whose children use Copper. It also charges a small fee to vendors running payments made via a Copper debit card.

The 11-person company is led by Stefan Berglund and Eddie Behringer, who previously co-founded Snap! Raise, a Seattle-based online fundraising platform for youth groups. They took many learnings from that experience of building trust with the teen/high school demographic and are applying those lessons to Copper. The company cited data that shows how nearly 20% of U.S. teens are not financially literate.

“Our transformative purpose as a company is to build the first financially successful generation,” said Behringer, the company’s CEO. “As lofty as this sounds, we believe the next generation is capable of making financial decisions given the right guidance and believe that a person’s first banking relationship should be created much earlier.”

Behringer said Copper has two competitors — Step and Greenlight — but that they have less than 4% of consumer accounts in the U.S. and target an older demographic.

“Unlike our competitors, we rely on teens introducing Copper to their parents and their parents approving the account,” Behringer said. “We know from our experience with Snap! Raise that this is the most effective way to get teens to actively use something new — they have to want to use it.”

The pandemic is forcing banks to close, which has opened up opportunities for Copper. Parents are finding it more difficult to open their child’s first banking account at a physical bank, Behringer said.

“This reality coupled with the increased friction of cash and the need for financial education for our kids is driving the need for digital banking solutions that provide teens the access they need to not only use money but learn how to spend and save responsibly,” he said.

Cole Morgan, the other Snap! Raise co-founder, remains at Snap! Raise.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/09/20/digital-bank-startup-copper-raises-4-3m-to-help-teens-learn-how-to-spend-and-save-money/

Headset raises $3.2M to grow marijuana data platform as cannabis sales surge amid pandemic

(Headset Image)

Seattle startup Headset just raised an additional $3.2 million as the 5-year-old company expands its business intelligence platform used by customers across the growing legal cannabis industry.

Headset is similar to market data services from firms such as Nielsen and IRI. The company operates data platforms for cannabis retailers and suppliers, as well as a tool to analyze cannabis market data.

Headset CEO Cy Scott. (Headset Photo)

“Our real-time market intelligence data helps cannabis operators, CPG companies, financial services and more navigate the competitive landscape, find opportunity and understand the cannabis consumer through our aggregated point-of-sale derived data which includes sales, inventory, pricing, demographics and basket analytics,” said CEO Cy Scott.

The fresh cash will be used to help Headset expand into other states and provinces where cannabis is legal, including markets where the company expects new laws to be enacted with the upcoming election.

Headset is riding a wave of increased consumer spend on marijuana amid the pandemic. State such as Colorado and Illinois are seeing record monthly sales as more people stay at home and pot shops stay open as they are considered “essential.”

Headset’s own research shows average sales of cannabis products in adult-use markets up 25% this year.

Scott described the latest Headset financing as a “small insider bridge round” as it gears up to raise its Series B round in 2021. Total funding to date for the 45-person company is just under $18 million. Investors include Poseidon Asset Management, AFI Capital Partners, Hypur Ventures, Salveo Capital, and others.

Scott started Headset in 2015 with Brian Wansolich and Scott Vickers; the three previously co-founded Leafly, a marijuana strain and dispensary resource platform that was acquired by Seattle-based marijuana investment firm Privateer Holdings in 2011.

Other Pacific Northwest cannabis startups are also raising cash. Bend, Ore.-based Dutchie just raised $35 million from the likes of former Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz and hip-hop star Snoop Dogg. Dutchie, which helps cannabis dispensaries facilitate online orders, has seen a 700% surge in sales volume during the pandemic.

In an interview with TechCrunch this past June, investor Karan Wadhera described the cannabis industry as “non-cyclical” and signaled optimism for cannabis investing after a rocky 2019.

The global cannabis market is expected to reach $42.7 billion by 2024, according to a January report from Arcview Market Research.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/09/19/headset-raises-3-2m-to-grow-marijuana-data-platform-as-cannabis-sales-surge-amid-pandemic/

Hospitality startup Loge raises $15M to weather ‘uncertain times’ and expand to more locations

(Loge Photo)

Hospitality startup Loge, which promotes a love of the outdoors and adventure sports through its hip, motel-style locations, has raised $15 million in new funding.

The company, pronounced “Lodge,” which launched in 2017 and is backed by big names in outdoor recreation, said it received support from longtime investors including Round House, Brighton Jones Investment Partners, Colfam, and numerous individuals. Loge, which raised $4.5 million in 2018, said there were also also a small number of new strategic investors and funds.

Loge plans to use the new cash to ensure long term operational stability through what it calls “uncertain market times.” It is also looking at continued operational innovations and future expansion to more locations.

Loge currently has locations in Westport, Wash., Leavenworth, Wash., Bend, Ore., Mt. Shasta, Calif., and Breckenride, Colo., and caters to surfers, mountain bikers, climbers and more with rooms and camp spaces as well as rental equipment.

The travel industry has been hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic as more people stay home and avoid far-flung escapes. Loge reopened in July and promotes the road-trip accessibility of its locations in the Northwest and beyond.

“As we open back up we are more excited than ever to double down on our purpose of ‘helping people find their place by making it easy to connect, get out, and explore,’” Loge CEO Johannes Ariens said in a website post. “In light of the recent pandemic, how this happens is going to look and feel a little different. And that’s OK. We’ve figured out new ways to enable connection, because connection is essential to our survival and the need has never been higher.”

Loge has put together a code of conduct outlining how staff and guests can staff say during the pandemic. All sites have been to shifted to remote check in, with keyless room entry. Guests receive their room entry code via text and gear can be rented online, too.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/09/13/hospitality-startup-loge-raises-15m-to-weather-uncertain-times-and-expand-to-more-locations/

Founded in Seattle, fintech startup Routable raises $12M to streamline business payments

Routable CEO Omri Mor.

Routable, a fintech startup with Seattle roots, came out of stealth mode this week and announced a $12 million Series A funding round.

The 2-year-old company aims to address the pain points related to business invoices and payments by automating accounts payable and receivable processes. It is designed to involve finance, engineering, operations, support, marketing, and sales teams with the same platform. Routable’s software integrates with accounting software such as Xero and Quickbooks.

Routable, originally known as Warren, started in Seattle but is now based in San Francisco after graduating from Y Combinator. Seattle startup vet Omri Mor leads Routable as CEO. Mor previously sold ZIIBRA to Tagboard.

“Companies will be able to build their infrastructures, permissions, and workflows on top of Routable’s business payments platform and Routable is built for the whole team,” Mor said.

Mor co-founded Routable with Tom Harel, the company’s CTO who is based in Seattle. Harel was previously a data scientist at Eat24 and Yelp.

The founders started Routable after identifying roadblocks they experienced while building custom business payment software in their previous roles. The biggest issues were the time it took to process a payment and to add automation, as well as easily sharing segmented payment information across departments.

Mor said the company has been able to scale despite the ongoing economic crisis.

The pandemic has affected VC-backed fintech funding, which dropped to $6.1 billion across 404 deals in the first quarter, the lowest levels in three years, CB Insights reported.

Routable’s investors include Y Combinator, Founders’ Co-Op, Lee Fixel, Box Group, Liquid 2 Ventures, Jason Gardner, Gokul Rajaram, Aaron Schildkrout, Sam Hodges, Immad Akhund, and others. Total funding to date is $16 million.

Routable was part of the University of Washington’s fintech incubator in 2018. The 25-person company has four employees in Seattle.

The Seattle region has a growing cohort of fintech startups, and firms such as Madrona Venture Group are making an effort to expand Seattle as a fintech hub.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/09/08/founded-in-seattle-fintech-startup-routable-raises-12m-to-streamline-business-payments/

Atomo Coffee raises $9M and will build a Seattle roastery for its molecular brew near Starbucks HQ

The Atomo Coffee team, including co-founders Jarret Stopfort and Andy Kleitsch front and center. (Atomo Photo)

That’s a lot of beans. Or, lack of beans.

Seattle-based Atomo Coffee has raised $9 million in new funding to power its idea around molecular coffee that can be reverse engineered without the bean. The round announced Tuesday was co-led by Horizons Ventures and S2G Ventures and follows $2.6 million raised by the startup a year ago.

The money will be used to bring “the future of coffee” right to the doorstep of Starbucks, with a new Atomo production roastery just blocks away from the coffee giant’s headquarters south of downtown Seattle.

Driven by a desire to remove the bitter taste from coffee and answer to climate change and deforestation that is a threat to the global coffee industry, Atomo relies on science and technology to create coffee in a more sustainable way.

“Our flagship grounds formula is made of upcycled plant materials such as pits, seeds, and stems from locally grown agriculture, mirroring the process of traditional coffee beans” Jarret Stopforth, co-founder and chief scientist, said in a news release. “Atomo’s magic comes from our proprietary bioreactive and thermal processes.”

Upcycling is defined as the creation of foods “using ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.”

(Atomo Coffee Photo)

Atomo’s 12,000-square-foot roastery — which scales the company way up from bench-top small batches made in its current lab — will produce Atomo’s “secret sauce”: molecular coffee concentrate for ready-to-drink beverages, as well as Atomo Grounds.

The plan is to come to market in 2021 and produce regional launches for specialty retailers, Atomo said.

The startup, which promised to “hack the coffee bean” when it got going with a Kickstarter in February 2019, was co-founded by Stopforth and Andy Kleitsch, a tech vet who once worked at Amazon among other places, and who leads entrepreneur workshops at the University of Washington.

“Seattle is the perfect confluence of tech and craft coffee, it only makes sense that coffee is reinvented here.” Kleitsch, who serves as CEO, said in a statement. “Our tech creates a great tasting cup of coffee, that provides consumers with a sustainable choice, as well as greater value for our farmers.”

Atomo presented during the “Inventions We Love” segment of the 2019 GeekWire Summit and was also a finalist for Innovation of the Year during the 2020 GeekWire Awards.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/09/06/atomo-coffee-raises-9m-and-will-build-a-seattle-roastery-for-its-molecular-brew-near-starbucks-hq/

Another unicorn in Seattle: Digital remittance startup Remitly raises $85M at $1.5B valuation

From left to right: Remitly co-founders Josh Hug, Matt Oppenheimer and Shivaas Gulati. (Remitly Photos)

The unicorns are sprouting up in Seattle.

The latest newly-minted billion-dollar startup in the Emerald City is digital remittance platform Remitly, which just announced an $85 million funding round that pushes its valuation to $1.5 billion.

Earlier this month file data startup Qumulo became a unicorn with a $125 million round. Other Seattle-area companies including Outreach, Auth0, and Convoy passed the $1 valuation mark over the past two years with new investments.

Remitly is the latest to join the exclusive club. Its mobile technology lets people send and receive money across borders, including immigrants in the U.S. and U.K. who support families back home in countries such as the Philippines, India, El Salvador, and others.

The service eliminates forms, codes, agents, and other fees typically associated with the international money transfer process dominated by Western Union, MoneyGram, and other longstanding providers.

Global remittances have been on the rise for the past two decades and account for 5% of the GDP in at least 60 countries, but are expected to drop by 20% this year due to the economic crisis caused by COVID-19. Even so, Remitly saw customer growth spike 200% year-over-year this past May.

People still need to send money overseas — perhaps even more during the pandemic — but many traditional remittance solutions such as brick-and-mortar providers are closed. There are also fears about leaving the home, or that COVID-19 can spread through the exchange of physical currency (there is little evidence of this).

As a result, more users are turning to services such as Remitly or its competitor TransferWise, which is now valued at $5 billion after another round of funding reported this week that included Seattle-based Vulcan Capital.

The investor interest in both companies reflects the growth opportunity for digital remittances, despite the ongoing pandemic.

There is more than $600 billion sent in remittances every year globally, and 60-to-70% is still sent offline, said Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer.

Fresh off his Big Tech CEO of the Year win at the GeekWire Awards, Oppenheimer said the company’s new valuation is a reflection of how large Remitly has grown. Its service allows people to move money from nearly 20 “send” countries to nearly 60 “receive” countries. Remitly has served more than three million customers to date and has thousands of bank and cash pickup partners.

Oppenheimer said Remitly’s robust back-end software has helped create trust with customers, particularly those who might be wary of using an online remittance service. He also noted how the pandemic is affecting immigrants — 75% of migrants work in nations where three-quarters of the COVID-19 cases have been reported, the World Economic Forum reported. Immigrant communities are likely to be “among the hardest hit” by the pandemic, The Washington Post reported.

Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer. (Remitly Photo)

“There is a lot of meaning in what we do,” Oppenheimer said.

Remitly is expanding beyond remittances. Earlier this year the company rolled out a new banking service for immigrants called Passbook.

“The funding helps us continue to grow the remittance business, but it also helps us invest in new products and services,” Oppenheimer said, adding that there is opportunity to “solve a lot of customer pain points.”

TransferWise announced last month that it plans to offer investment products. It’s not clear if Remitly plans to do something similar, or even become its own bank.

Remitly is one of many fintech startups aiming to disrupt decades-old financial processes. TechCrunch reported that total funding to fintech startups dropped in 2019 from $40.8 billion to $34 billion as VC firms look to back later-stage companies.

Remitly, ranked No. 3 on the GeekWire 200 list of top Pacific Northwest tech startups, has more than 1,000 employees across its Seattle HQ and six other offices in Spokane, Wash., London, Cork, Krakow, Manila, and Managua. It has avoided layoffs amid the pandemic and is hiring.

Oppenheimer helped come up with the idea for Remitly while working for Barclays Bank in Kenya. He founded the company in 2011 with Josh Hug and Shivaas Gulati; the original name for the startup was Beamit Mobile.

Prosus’ PayU led the Series F funding round; PayU also led a $115 million investment in 2017. Existing backers DN Capital, Generation Investment Management, Owl Rock Capital, Princeville, Stripes, Threshold Ventures, and Top Tier also invested.

Total funding to date, which includes a $220 million cash infusion from July 2019, is nearly $400 million.

Despite the pandemic, venture capitalists are pouring money into Pacific Northwest tech companies at unprecedented levels, significantly outpacing the number of deals and dollars invested in the first half of 2018 and 2019, according to a recent GeekWire analysis.

A recent survey of 37 chief financial officers from Seattle-based companies indicates that the city’s tech industry remains strong amid the COVID-19 crisis.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/08/24/another-unicorn-in-seattle-digital-remittance-startup-remitly-raises-85m-at-1-5b-valuation-2/

Life-and-career path platform OwnTrail raises $250K, builds ‘work from garage’ office space

The OwnTrail crew working on their garage-based office, from left to right: Carolyn Dunn, vice president of engineering, Rebekah Bastian, co-founder and CEO, and Kt McBratney, co-founder and chief brand officer. (Photos courtesy of Max Bastian)

Seattle-based OwnTrail launched in February, just before COVID-19 turned the world upside down — but the startup is weathering the pandemic largely unscathed.

“We’re about helping women make it through hard things,” said co-founder and CEO Rebekah Bastian.

The platform allows women to plot their career and life paths, calling out milestones in their careers, personal relationships and health, while sharing the routes pursued by other women to provide insights and lessons from their journeys. The underlying message is that there is no right way to find happiness.

OwnTrail has grown to include 1,000 registered users and more than 350 profiles in which users share their career and life paths. The business is partnering with organizations including Future For Us, Built By Girls, Women In Product and others to help the groups provide activities and a space for their members to connect.

The OwnTrail team works together in a reimagined garage that is now an office space.

The startup recently closed a $250,000 fundraising round and initiated a crowdfunding campaign that runs through late August to raise an additional $20,000. Bastian said the company opted for crowdfunding “to build awareness and test out demand for our business models.” It is more than 70% toward its funding goal.

The OwnTrail team recently moved into a converted garage at Bastian’s Seattle home. The office plan was in the works as a way to keep costs down before COVID struck. The three full-time employees— Bastian; Kt McBratney, co-founder and chief brand officer; and Carolyn Dunn, vice president of engineering — have created an inner circle of safe contact and work together in person.

Bastian was previously at Zillow for 14 years, leaving her role as vice president of community and culture to start OwnTrail, whose concepts she explores in a book called “Blaze Your Own Trail.”

OwnTrail is one of 26 tech startups joining the Washington Technology Industry Association’s latest Founder Cohort Program. The entrepreneurial cohort was announced last month.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/08/18/life-and-career-path-platform-owntrail-raises-250k-builds-work-from-garage-office-space/

JetClosing raises $8.5M as pandemic highlights demand for digital title and escrow service

JetClosing CEO Dan Greenshields. (JetClosing Photo)

Social distancing rules due to the COVID-19 pandemic are driving up demand for JetClosing‘s digital home closing service.

The startup just landed $8.5 million in a Series B round from existing investors. Funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates led the round; Pioneer Square Labs and Trilogy Equity also invested again. Total funding to date is $35 million.

Founded in 2016 and spun out of Pioneer Square Labs in Seattle, JetClosing digitizes the home closing process for buyers, sellers, and realtors, removing paper forms and bringing everything to the cloud. The company charges a flat escrow fee to both sides for each transaction and makes additional revenue on issuing owners and lenders title insurance policies. It also helps homeowners refinance.

JetClosing is part of a growing trend in real estate to shift the homebuying experience online — one that has accelerated due to the global health crisis. Redfin reported today that nearly half of people who bought a home in the past year made an offer on a property hadn’t seen in person, up from 28% in 2019.

JetClosing CEO Daniel Greenshields said people are now “dependent” on digital tools to skip in-person meetings and complete home transactions from anywhere in the world.

Order activity on the company’s platform increased 124% from April to July. This month there have been a record number of new orders — half for home purchases, and half for refinancing.

Greenshields added that the pandemic has accelerated adoption of digital notary services, a key feature of the company’s offering.

JetClosing uses machine learning, serverless computing, and other technology to digitize the closing process. Its competitors — incumbent title and escrow services — can do the same job, but JetClosing does it faster, cheaper, on mobile, and with more transparency, according to the company.

Real estate agents using JetClosing can provide real-time notifications and messaging to homebuyers about the progress of a close. JetClosing can deliver seller proceeds in 60 minutes. The company also offers its own property title scoring system called JetScore, similar to a FICO score for credit services, and recently partnered with CertifID to bolster its fraud and security protections.

JetClosing is now licensed to operate in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.

The company’s largest competitors are firms such as Rainier Title and Chicago Title, which is owned by Fidelity.

The 83-person startup landed a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan between $1 to $2 million, GeekWire reported earlier this month. It made some “tough staffing decisions” at the onset of the pandemic, Greenshields said, but is now hiring again and plans to open a new office in the coming months.

Greenshields previously spent nearly 15 years helping run ShareBuilder, a company now owned by Capital One which digitized and sped up the process of buying stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401(K) plans, and more.

JetClosing is one of several startups in the Seattle region building tech for the real estate industry. Others include Flyhomes, Knock, Remarkably, Pro.com, Porch, MoxiWorks, IMPREV, Faira, Picket Homes, Modus, and more — not to mention industry giants such as Zillow Group and Redfin.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/jetclosing-raises-8-5m-as-pandemic-highlights-demand-for-digital-title-and-escrow-service-2/

JetClosing raises $8.5M as pandemic highlights demand for digital title and escrow service

JetClosing CEO Dan Greenshields. (JetClosing Photo)

Social distancing rules due to the COVID-19 pandemic are driving up demand for JetClosing‘s digital home closing service.

The startup just landed $8.5 million in a Series B round from existing investors. Funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates led the round; Pioneer Square Labs and Trilogy Equity also invested again. Total funding to date is $35 million.

Founded in 2016 and spun out of Pioneer Square Labs in Seattle, JetClosing digitizes the home closing process for buyers, sellers, and realtors, removing paper forms and bringing everything to the cloud. The company charges a flat escrow fee to both sides for each transaction and makes additional revenue on issuing owners and lenders title insurance policies. It also helps homeowners refinance.

JetClosing is part of a growing trend in real estate to shift the homebuying experience online — one that has accelerated due to the global health crisis. Redfin reported today that nearly half of people who bought a home in the past year made an offer on a property hadn’t seen in person, up from 28% in 2019.

JetClosing CEO Daniel Greenshields said people are now “dependent” on digital tools to skip in-person meetings and complete home transactions from anywhere in the world.

Order activity on the company’s platform increased 124% from April to July. This month there have been a record number of new orders — half for home purchases, and half for refinancing.

Greenshields added that the pandemic has accelerated adoption of digital notary services, a key feature of the company’s offering.

JetClosing uses machine learning, serverless computing, and other technology to digitize the closing process. Its competitors — incumbent title and escrow services — can do the same job, but JetClosing does it faster, cheaper, on mobile, and with more transparency, according to the company.

Real estate agents using JetClosing can provide real-time notifications and messaging to homebuyers about the progress of a close. JetClosing can deliver seller proceeds in 60 minutes. The company also offers its own property title scoring system called JetScore, similar to a FICO score for credit services, and recently partnered with CertifID to bolster its fraud and security protections.

JetClosing is now licensed to operate in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.

The company’s largest competitors are firms such as Rainier Title and Chicago Title, which is owned by Fidelity.

The 83-person startup landed a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan between $1 to $2 million, GeekWire reported earlier this month. It made some “tough staffing decisions” at the onset of the pandemic, Greenshields said, but is now hiring again and plans to open a new office in the coming months.

Greenshields previously spent nearly 15 years helping run ShareBuilder, a company now owned by Capital One which digitized and sped up the process of buying stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401(K) plans, and more.

JetClosing is one of several startups in the Seattle region building tech for the real estate industry. Others include Flyhomes, Knock, Remarkably, Pro.com, Porch, MoxiWorks, IMPREV, Faira, Picket Homes, Modus, and more — not to mention industry giants such as Zillow Group and Redfin.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/08/01/jetclosing-raises-8-5m-as-pandemic-highlights-demand-for-digital-title-and-escrow-service/

Another unicorn in Seattle: Digital remittance startup Remitly raises $85M at $1.5B valuation

From left to right: Remitly co-founders Josh Hug, Matt Oppenheimer and Shivaas Gulati. (Remitly Photos)

The unicorns are sprouting up in Seattle.

The latest newly-minted billion-dollar startup in the Emerald City is digital remittance platform Remitly, which just announced an $85 million funding round that pushes its valuation to $1.5 billion.

Earlier this month file data startup Qumulo became a unicorn with a $125 million round. Other Seattle-area companies including Outreach, Auth0, and Convoy passed the $1 valuation mark over the past two years with new investments.

Remitly is the latest to join the exclusive club. Its mobile technology lets people send and receive money across borders, including immigrants in the U.S. and U.K. who support families back home in countries such as the Philippines, India, El Salvador, and others.

The service eliminates forms, codes, agents, and other fees typically associated with the international money transfer process dominated by Western Union, MoneyGram, and other longstanding providers.

Global remittances have been on the rise for the past two decades and account for 5% of the GDP in at least 60 countries, but are expected to drop by 20% this year due to the economic crisis caused by COVID-19. Even so, Remitly saw customer growth spike 200% year-over-year this past May.

People still need to send money overseas — perhaps even more during the pandemic — but many traditional remittance solutions such as brick-and-mortar providers are closed. There are also fears about leaving the home, or that COVID-19 can spread through the exchange of physical currency (there is little evidence of this).

As a result, more users are turning to services such as Remitly or its competitor TransferWise, which is now valued at $5 billion after another round of funding reported this week that included Seattle-based Vulcan Capital.

The investor interest in both companies reflects the growth opportunity for digital remittances, despite the ongoing pandemic.

There is more than $600 billion sent in remittances every year globally, and 60-to-70% is still sent offline, said Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer.

Fresh off his Big Tech CEO of the Year win at the GeekWire Awards, Oppenheimer said the company’s new valuation is a reflection of how large Remitly has grown. Its service allows people to move money from nearly 20 “send” countries to nearly 60 “receive” countries. Remitly has served more than three million customers to date and has thousands of bank and cash pickup partners.

Oppenheimer said Remitly’s robust back-end software has helped create trust with customers, particularly those who might be wary of using an online remittance service. He also noted how the pandemic is affecting immigrants — 75% of migrants work in nations where three-quarters of the COVID-19 cases have been reported, the World Economic Forum reported. Immigrant communities are likely to be “among the hardest hit” by the pandemic, The Washington Post reported.

Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer. (Remitly Photo)

“There is a lot of meaning in what we do,” Oppenheimer said.

Remitly is expanding beyond remittances. Earlier this year the company rolled out a new banking service for immigrants called Passbook.

“The funding helps us continue to grow the remittance business, but it also helps us invest in new products and services,” Oppenheimer said, adding that there is opportunity to “solve a lot of customer pain points.”

TransferWise announced last month that it plans to offer investment products. It’s not clear if Remitly plans to do something similar, or even become its own bank.

Remitly is one of many fintech startups aiming to disrupt decades-old financial processes. TechCrunch reported that total funding to fintech startups dropped in 2019 from $40.8 billion to $34 billion as VC firms look to back later-stage companies.

Remitly, ranked No. 3 on the GeekWire 200 list of top Pacific Northwest tech startups, has more than 1,000 employees across its Seattle HQ and six other offices in Spokane, Wash., London, Cork, Krakow, Manila, and Managua. It has avoided layoffs amid the pandemic and is hiring.

Oppenheimer helped come up with the idea for Remitly while working for Barclays Bank in Kenya. He founded the company in 2011 with Josh Hug and Shivaas Gulati; the original name for the startup was Beamit Mobile.

Prosus’ PayU led the Series F funding round; PayU also led a $115 million investment in 2017. Existing backers DN Capital, Generation Investment Management, Owl Rock Capital, Princeville, Stripes, Threshold Ventures, and Top Tier also invested.

Total funding to date, which includes a $220 million cash infusion from July 2019, is nearly $400 million.

Despite the pandemic, venture capitalists are pouring money into Pacific Northwest tech companies at unprecedented levels, significantly outpacing the number of deals and dollars invested in the first half of 2018 and 2019, according to a recent GeekWire analysis.

A recent survey of 37 chief financial officers from Seattle-based companies indicates that the city’s tech industry remains strong amid the COVID-19 crisis.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/08/01/another-unicorn-in-seattle-digital-remittance-startup-remitly-raises-85m-at-1-5b-valuation/

Shelf Engine raises $12M to help Whole Foods, Target, Kroger manage orders and reduce waste

(Shelf Engine Photo)

Food waste is a big problem amid the pandemic. Disruptions to the food supply chain and consumer purchasing changes have forced farms to destroy millions of pounds of fresh goods while grocers deal with spoilage issues.

Shelf Engine Co-founders Bede Jordan and Stefan Kalb. (Shelf Engine Photo)

Shelf Engine wants to help.

The Seattle startup just landed a $12 million investment round to fuel growth of its software that helps more than 1,000 grocers — including giants such as Whole Foods, Target, and Kroger — manage food orders for deli, bakery, cut produce, meat, and other categories.

The company’s AI technology aims to get the right amount of product on the shelf at the right time, said Shelf Engine CEO Stefan Kalb. More than 30% of highly perishable foods in grocery stores such as meat and vegetables expire before the sell-by date, according to Shelf Engine.

“Shelf Engine guarantees the sales for grocers since it’s set up as a scan-based trade (SBT),” Kalb explained. “That means, Shelf manages the orders, pays the vendor, and only charges the retailer for what sells.”

Shelf makes money by marking up the product from the vendor to the retailer.

Since the COVID-19 crisis began, the startup is seeing big demand from grocers that “flock to us just because managing orders became that much harder,” Kalb said.

The 46-person company, which graduated from Y Combinator in 2018, plans to add another 90 employees with the fresh funding. It recently inked a lease for new office space in downtown Seattle; the company plans to keep the office during the work-from-home phase and eventually return.

GGV Capital led the Series A round, which included participation from Initialized Capital, Foundation Capital, Correlation Ventures, 1984, Founders’ Co-op, and Liquid 2 Ventures. Total funding is $17.3 million to date.

“We see inefficiencies of the food supply chain as well as lack of agility to respond to market changes in real time as a global opportunity ripe for transformation,” Hans Tung, managing partner at GGV Capital and a new Shelf Engine board member, said in a statement.

Kalb got the idea for the company through another startup he co-founded: Molly’s, which provides healthy food to hospitals, grocery stores, coffee shops, gyms and offices. Kalb noticed the difficulty of building efficient fresh food orders and decided to build software that helped Molly’s purchase the right amount of bulk food to fulfill customer requests.

Kalb, who was born in France and graduated from Western Washington University with degrees in mathematics and economics, co-founded Shelf Engine in 2016 with Bede Jordan, a Microsoft veteran who was most recently the principal software engineering lead for the company’s HoloLens team.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/shelf-engine-raises-12m-to-help-whole-foods-target-kroger-manage-orders-and-reduce-waste/

Tasso raises $17M for self-sample blood test; CEO says pandemic increases demand for at-home tests

(Tasso Photo)

Seattle startup Tasso closed a $17 million investment round to help grow its at-home blood collection platform.

The company’s blood sample device, called Tasso OnDemand, lets people take their own blood at home and mail it to a lab directly rather than go to a clinic. This allows for more frequent testing to monitor a drug’s effects on the blood, for example, and also lets people submit samples without going into a physical office.

Tasso was started by Dr. Ben Casavant and Dr. Erwin Berthier, who both received doctorates in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the surging demand for more diagnostic solutions that are patient-friendly and can be deployed easily at home,” Casavant, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. “The Tasso OnDemand devices are enabling people to be tested for COVID-19 and many other routine diagnostic applications, from anywhere at any time.”

Tasso has pilot programs with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Cedars-Sinai, and others. It is working with Fred Hutch to test for COVID-19 antibodies in serum as part of a study, with samples being mailed back from patients who don’t need to come into a clinic.

The 8-year-old company and Techstars grad developed its platform using $13.1 million of grant funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Quest and LabCorp dominate the diagnostics industry, which a number of startups have tried to disrupt through at-home or direct-to-consumer testing. EverlyWell, a startup that received funding through “Shark Tank” and offers a menu of health tests based on samples collected at home, has drawn scrutiny from experts over its accuracy. EveryWell sells an FDA-approved COVID-19 at-home test.

Other competitors include Scanwell, Thriva, WellnessFX, Baze, myLAB, LetsGetChecked, and more. A pair of Portland startup vets recently launched Reperio Health, a subscription service that will deliver a kit containing devices for testing health metrics.

Hambrecht Ducera Growth Ventures led the Series A round, which included participation from Foresite Capital, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Vertical Venture Partners, Techstars, and Cedars-Sinai. Elizabeth Hambrecht, partner at Hambrecht Ducera Growth Ventures, has joined Tasso’s board.

“With its talented team and proven technology platform, Tasso is poised to transform the traditional, painful, in-person blood draw process, which has been the standard of care for the past six decades,” Hambrecht said in a statement.

To date, Tasso has raised $38.6 million to date in grants, private investments, and co-development collaborations. It previously raised a $6.1 million round in March 2019.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/07/26/tasso-raises-17m-for-self-sample-blood-test-ceo-says-pandemic-increases-demand-for-at-home-tests/