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Funding
Biotech startup lands seed funding
Biotechnology tools startup Lucid Scientific completed a $3 million series seed financing round led by Dynamk Capital, the company announced. Along with Lucid’s original investors and capital from the Georgia Research Alliance’s Venture Fund, the company has raised $4.5 million to date. The company's life sciences tool helps accelerate the process of drug discovery by providing researchers with insights into cellular metabolism.
Aerospace software company closes pre-seed funding round
Kayhan Space closed a $600,000 pre-seed funding round led by Overline, an Atlanta-based seed-stage venture capital firm. Investors also included Techstars and Dylan Taylor. The aerospace software company was founded in 2019 and is dually based in Boulder and Atlanta. The company has developed a software platform to help government and commercial satellite operators more efficiently and effectively avoid collisions. The funding will primarily be used to further expand Kayhan’s team and product.
Popmenu raises $17M
Popmenu, the Atlanta-based hospitality tech startup that helps restaurants turn their website menus into customer conversion engines, has raised a $17 million Series B. New York’s Bedrock Capital led the investment, with participation from existing investors Base10 Partners and Felicis Ventures, as well as new investors Mantis Ventures and Chapter One Ventures. Popmenu said in a statement that it will use the funding to expand its platform capabilities to support restaurants as they continue to navigate Covid-19.
Health tech startup Loyal raises $12.5M
Atlanta health tech startup Loyal has raised a $12.5 million Series A investment to build personalized experiences for patients. The round was led by Concord Health Partners, a health-care-focused investment firm based in New Jersey. Loyal, founded by CEO Chad Mallory in 2015, is focused on making it easier for health care providers and patients to schedule appointments and access care options within health system networks. The startup's software is used by 30-plus hospitals in the U.S., including Northwestern Medicine, Southcoast Health and UCLA Health.
Health tech startup Rialtic raises $15M
Stealthy Atlanta health tech startup Rialtic reported raising $15 million in new equity funding. The startup, which formed this year, has operated pretty quietly thus far. But its web page says it's focused enabling accurate payments in health care. It says its solution is an open market platform that works for both payers and providers. Rialtic founder and CEO Doug Williams has an extensive background in the Atlanta health and tech scene. His LinkedIn shows he was CEO at Vivra Specialty Partners leading up to 2001 when he founded iHealth Technologies, which later merged with Connolly in 2014 to create Cotiviti, which went public in 2016.
Grayshift digital forensics company raises $47M
Atlanta-based startup Grayshift, a digital forensics company that provides law enforcement with the technology to hack into iPhone data, has raised a $47 million Series A investment to expand its sales and products. Founded in 2016 by David Miles, Braden Thomas, Justin Fisher and Sean Larsson, its goal is to allow law enforcement and government agencies to quickly gain access to encrypted data in iPhones to help with criminal investigations through its access tool, GrayKey. Philadelphia-based PeakEquity Partners led the funding round. Atlanta-based venture capital firm TechOperators also participated. Jim Sheward and Justin Reger, of PeakEquity, and Tom Noonan, of TechOperators, will join Grayshift’s board of directors.
Bluefin payment security company raises $25M
Atlanta-based payment security company Bluefin has raised $25 million in growth financing led by Macquarie Capital Principal Finance. Bluefin, led by CEO John Perry and founded in 2007, specializes in securing payment data and personal information through point-to-point encryption and data tokenization. Macquarie joins Napier Park Global Capital and Camden Partners as investors in Bluefin. The fintech company will use the funds to grow its product and its geographical reach. Bluefin currently has 130 partners across 32 countries.
Fintech student loan company raises $14M in debt and equity funds
Funding University, an Atlanta-based fintech company, announced $4 million in equity from Deciens Capital, Valor Ventures, MacKenzie Scott, Next Act Fund and The JumpFund. The startup also secured $10 million in credit from Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group. The company provides loans to students based on achievement rather than credit score or income level in order to help underrepresented students from low- and moderate-income households have access to higher education. Funding U was founded in 2016 by Jeannie Tarkenton.
Aerospace startup Hermeus raises $16M
Hermeus, an Atlanta-based hypersonic jet company intent on making air travel five-times faster, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners. Rich Boyle, of Canaan Partners, will join the board of directors. Canaan Partners joins Khosla Capital, Bling Capital and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund as investors. The funding will help Hermeus develop and test an engine that could power a Mach 5 aircraft, which can fly at more than 3,000 miles per hour and cut the flight time from New York to London to an hour-and-a-half rather than seven hours.
Video game streaming startup Shotcall raises $2.2M
Atlanta-based startup Shotcall aims to connect video game streamers and fan together by working alongside streaming platforms to create virtual “events” to put those players in the same space for coaching sessions, tournaments and more. Shotcall has raised $2.2 million in a seed round led by Initial Capital to enhance the company’s technology and grow its team from four to 15. New Stack and Lerer Hippeau joined Initial Capital as investors. Georgia Tech alumni Thomas Gentle, Gordon Li and Riley Auten founded the company about two years ago.
Mergers
Health tech companies complete merger
A health tech deal announced back in September has closed. Revint and Triage say they completed their merger and relaunched as Cloudmed, which is based in Atlanta. The combined company will offer revenue Intelligence and a data driven platform that combines machine learning algorithms with industry experts to allow customers to realize more revenue. The new company is led by CEO Lee Rivas.
Fintech firm Paya goes public
Paya, an Atlanta-based fintech and payments firm, made its public debut last week after it completed its merger with FinTech Acquisition Corp. III in Philadelphia, which was announced in August. That merger prompted the company to go public and values it at $1.3 billion. It's listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the new symbol “PAYA.” The payments provider processes more than $30B in transactions for more than 100K customers annually. The company reportedly had an annual revenue of $205M this year, according to a filing with the SEC. The company is run by Paya CEO Jeff Hack.
Acquisitions
Americold acquires Alpharetta-based company
Alpharetta-based Agro Merchants Group, the world's fourth-largest operator of temperature-controlled warehouses, was acquired by Atlanta’s Americold, the largest publicly traded REIT focused on temp-controlled warehouses, for $1.74B. Agro operates 46 facilities in 10 countries and was previously owned by asset management firm Oaktree Capital Management.
Atlanta startup acquired by ZoomInfo
Vancouver, Wash.-based ZoomInfo, a database of business leads and contact information, has acquired Atlanta’s Clickagy, a provider of A.I.-powered buyer intent data. ZoomInfo will use this acquisition to anchor the launch of its new Streaming Intent product, a solution that identifies companies with above-average search volume on business-to-business topics within minutes of their web activity. Clickagy was founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneur Harry Maugans. ZoomInfo IPO’d in early June, the first tech IPO of the COVID-19 era. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Leading patient check-in system makes tech acquisition
Atlanta-based Clearwave, a healthcare company specializing in digital check-in and eligibility verification, has acquired of New York's Odoro, a provider of digital patient-access solutions in the healthcare space. By adding Odoro’s multi-channel scheduling capabilities, Clearwave aims to deliver a comprehensive patient-engagement platform to help transform the patient experience. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Capstone Logistics acquired
A Miami-based private equity firm is moving to buy Capstone Logistics for the second time. HIG Capital is under contract to buy Peachtree Corners-based Capstone Logistics for an undisclosed price, according to a news release. Capstone is a national provider of outsourced supply chain services to distribution centers catering primarily to the grocery, food service, retail and consumer packaged goods industries. HIG, which manages $40B in equity capital, is acquiring Capstone from an affiliate of New York City-based The Jordan Company LP. HIG previously sold Capstone to The Jordan Company in 2014.
Atlanta startup Oznr acquired
Oznr, an Atlanta-based craft beverage marketplace startup that was part of the prestigious Y-Combinator program, is being acquired by Charlotte-based Next Glass, which operates the Untappd software suite and is backed by Providence Strategic Growth. Oznr, formerly known as CraftCellr, manages day-to-day operations for to-go sales, memberships, can/bottle release pre-sales and random draws for high demand releases. Oznr was founded in 2017 by Eric Thelen, Dharmesh Patel and Colin Gray.
Splunk acquires Atlanta-based company Rigor
Splunk, a leading enterprise software company, has acquired Rigor, an Atlanta-based software company that gives businesses the ability to monitor the digital experience of their users. San Francisco-based Splunk also announced it will acquire Plumbr, an application performance monitoring company based in Estonia. Rigor helps customers find, fix and prevent web performance issues that impact the front-end experience with synthetic monitoring and performance optimization. Splunk provides a "Data-to-Everything Platform" which allows development, operations and IT teams to analyze data from any source so companies can use that information to have more efficient software.
Anexinet acquires Atlanta-based SereneIT
Philadelphia-based Anexinet will acquire Atlanta-based SereneIT to expand its data centers, artificial intelligence, automation and cloud IT services. SereneIT CEO and founder Greg Tinker bootstrapped the company in 2017 because he saw a need for more advanced IT services to keep up with the rapidly advancing technology that other companies were using. Anexinet is a tech consulting company that helps businesses with IT, cybersecurity, data and other services. Anexinet CEO Todd Pittman said the acquisition of SereneIT will deepen the company's expertise in IT services for its clients and help expand the company into the Southeast.
