Financial deals, mergers and acquisitions in the tech ecosystem are mentioned daily in the Atlanta Inno Beat newsletter, along with insights on how personnel moves may impact a startup’s future. Sign up for the Beat to get it each day in your inbox.
Check out the most important mergers, acquisitions and investments from Atlanta technology companies from February 2020. Did we miss a deal? Let me know at mhogan@americaninno.com.
Several student startups walked away with investments during Georgia State University’s first Main Street Entrepreneurs Seed Fund Demo Day. For the seed stage companies, EcoDrop Technologies, a recycling solutions company with a mission to simplify and incentivize recycling, came in 3rd place with a $2.5K prize; Bukhari Tutoring & Health, a STEM-based service that strives to promote academic success and a healthy lifestyle for tis members, won 2nd place with a $5K investment; and ArteHub, an art marketplace for independent artists and first-time moderate and nontraditional art buyers, won 1st place and a $7.5K investment. In the startup stage category, ArtzyBella, a subscription box that helps people make art and enjoy making crafts to reduce stress, won 1st place and a $10K investment. Totem Agency Co., a free, open platform that helps customers create and manage visuals for branding, websites, photos and videos, came in 2nd place and won a $7.5K investment, and was followed by SweatPack, an app that connects people to group workouts and sports leagues, in 3rd place with a $5K prize.
BoxLock, an Atlanta-based startup that provides smart padlock devices for home deliveries to thwart porch pirates, has raised a $4.5M round led by transportation, logistics and tech industry veterans. Dan McHugh, former CEO of Livingston, Southern Air and DHL Asia Pacific, Michael Monahan, former CFO/COO of Pitney Bowes, and Robert Williams, a former Amazon and Microsoft executive have joined the round and secured seats on the company board. Other investors include current and former C-level execs from DHL, TNT, uShip, Aramex, InXpress and Maersk. BoxLock has raised a little over $1M in funding prior to this raise.
Vyne, an Atlanta-based health care IT company, has acquired Renaissance Electronic Services, an Indianapolis-based provider of claims processing and revenue cycle services to dentists. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the acquisition will aide Vyne’s offerings for electronic management of dental claims and claims attachments.
Advanced Claims Technologies, Inc., a Woodstock-based company that uses aerial imagery sources to sketch roofs following weather damage, has raised $400K in funding, according to a filing with the SEC.
Atlanta-based smart chat startup Toucan AI has raised an undisclosed amount from backers including MTT Ventures, Silicon Road, Seraph Group and angel investors, WRAL TechWire reported. The company was founded by Arjun Devarajan and Vishnu Menon, and it recently announced its ecommerce chatbot is on the Shopify app store.
CREATE-X at Georgia Tech announced Crescendo, an AI-powered interactive music trainer that facilitates focused practice and immediate feedback, was acquired by Ultimate Guitar, the world’s largest guitar community that provides chords and tabs for more than 1.1M songs to 240M users. Ultimate Guitar will leverage the artificial intelligence within Crescendo’s app to enhance user experience within a suite of apps for aspiring musicians.
Atlanta-based robotic lawn maintenance and software startup Greenzie landed a $750K round led by Atlanta Ventures. Others in the round included Matt Lowe (Swiftstraw),TechSquare Labs, Glenn R. Beyerl (KPM), Reliance Advisors (Dan Campbell), Carswell Distributing Company (Will Parsley), Tom Noonan, Kyle Porter, Allen Graber, and Raul Velarde. The company, which makes software for autonomous lawn mowers, launched out of theAtlanta Ventures Studio.
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., a financial market company, has agreed to acquire Alpharetta-based Bridge2 Solutions, a provider of loyalty solutions for merchants and consumers. Following the completion of the transaction, Bakkt, an Atlanta-based cryptocurrency exchange that is also a majority-owned subsidiary of ICE, intends to acquire Bridge2 Solutions from ICE using proceeds from Bakkt’s Series B round of funding. Bakkt expects to close its Series B later this quarter.
Haste, a software startup in the esports space, has raised $4.04M in funding, according to a filing with the SEC. According to Crunchbase, the startup has raised a total of $2.5M before this equity round.
Vertify, an Austin sales and marketing software company founded in 2017, announced it acquired Atlanta-based B2B data tech company Synthio. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Synthio, founded in 2012, had raised nearly $15M. That included an $8.5M Series C led by Fulcrum Equity Partners in 2017. It was valued at about $33M at the time. The company will maintain its Atlanta office.
RentPath, an Atlanta-based digital marketing services company that caters to the apartment sector, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and entered into a $588M sale agreement with Washington, DC-based CoStar Group Inc. CoStar provides commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, RentPath owns websites, including ApartmentGuide.com, Rentals.com and Rent.com. RentPath reports assets between $100M and $500M and liabilities between $500M and $1B in its bankruptcy filing. The company will stay open as it tries to reorganize its debt.
CREATE-X, an entrepreneurial program teaching students at Georgia Tech how to launch startups, has partnered with Amazon to support student startups and promote advancements in voice technology and conversational AI. The school is the fifth university awarded support through Amazon’s Alexa Fund. The fund provides up to $200M in venture capital to fuel voice technology innovation.
MacStadium, an Atlanta-based cloud hosting company backed by Summit Partners and Noro-Moseley Partners, has hired Goldman Sachs to find a buyer, according to PE Hub. It’s reported a number of buyers are interested.
Loupe Art, an Atlanta-based online visual art platform, has raised $450K of a $1M round, according to a filing with the SEC. The funding was raised from eight investors.
Code Zero Consulting, an Atlanta-based consulting firm focusing on Salesforce configure-price-quote and billing solutions, has been acquired by Cognizant, a management and tech consultancy firm. Code Zero has offices in Atlanta and Charlotte. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to a news release.
The Wall Street Journal reported Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the Atlanta-based company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, made an offer to purchase eBay for a price that values the company at more than $30B. The offer was $2B over eBay’s $28B valuation and this wasn’t the first offer ICE has thrown at eBay. But just as soon, the offer was withdrawn and eBay shares began to fall earlier this morning. ICE stated in a press release it has “decided to cease exploring opportunities with eBay,” after holding conversations with investors. ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher—who is also married to Kelly Loeffler, the CEO of Bakkt and recently appointed senator—said the company felt the need to address the deal following the Journal’s report.
Elastic Audio, an Atlanta-based computer software startup that builds lightweight tools for audio solutions, has raised $130K of equity and debt from a $350K round, according to a filing with the SEC.
The Cyber List, an Atlanta-based startup that offers companies cybersecurity protection through education, training and phishing exercises, has raised $180K of a $2M round, according to a filing with the SEC.
OneTrust, a privacy, security and third-party risk technology platform, announced Thursday the company has raised $210M in a Series B round, bringing it to a $2.7B valuation. The round was led by Coatue and previous investor Insight Partners. To date, OneTrust has raised $410M in funding and surpassed 5K customers.
