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Flock Safety raises $47M
Atlanta-based neighborhood watch company Flock Safety raised a $47 million Series C round led by Meritech Capital to double their staff to 260 and increase distribution of their cameras. The startup provides solar-powered camera systems to read license plates and car details, which goes into a cloud server to help police narrow down vehicles that may have been involved in nonviolent property crimes. Flock Safety, which was founded in 2017 by CEO Garrett Langley, says it has cameras in more than 1,000 cities nationwide and provides evidence for hundreds of cases every hour. Flock Safety raised $15.8 million earlier this year and previously raised $20 million in two funding rounds in 2018. More on Atlanta Inno.
Press Sports raises pre-seed round
Press Sports, a social media platform that aims to give athletes a space to showcase their clips, closed a $750,000 pre-seed founding round led by Atlanta-based venture capital firm Overline and included participation from Central Piedmont Investment Group and Sound Media Ventures. The startup wants to become the next big social platform out of Atlanta and has two former executives from YikYak, the last social startup to blow up in the city, to help them. More on Atlanta Inno.
Optimal Tech raises $623K
Optimal Tech Corporation, an Atlanta-based startup that helps businesses reduce energy expenditures, raised $623,000 in a funding round. Founder Reginald Parker declined to disclose the investors. Parker said the company is expanding its team and adding new features to its products with the funding. Currently, Optimal Tech Corp., which was founded in 2018, has 10 employees, four of whom are interns. Parker said he and his team are working on "AI 2.0," or actionable intelligence. That feature would not only show customers their energy usage and costs but also show which areas they have optimized efficiency and which they have not. More on Atlanta Inno.
Norcross telecommunication company partners with Spectrum
Core Technologies Inc., a Norcross-based telecommunications and information technology company, partnered with Spectrum Enterprise in a deal to enhance services to government agencies. As part of the deal, Spectrum invested an $8.5 million equity investment in Core Technologies, according to Core Technologies President Debbie Binette. Spectrum Enterprise, a subsidiary of Charter Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: CHTR), partnered with Core Technologies because of the company’s 15-year Enterprise Infrastructure Solution contract with the federal government. The contract is worth $50 billion and provides federal agencies with telecommunications, infrastructure and information technology services. Spectrum will be an authorized subcontractor. More on Atlanta Inno.
Clean energy company raises $1.5M
Inventor Lonnie Johnson, a former NASA engineer who invented the Super Soaker children’s toy and is president of JTEC Energy Inc., says he created a device that can convert any waste heat, such as from solar panels, factories or cars, into energy. It’s a game-changer in clean energy and efficiency, according to JTEC Energy CEO Mike McQuary. The company raised a $1.5 million seed round to bring the product out of the lab and start real-world testing. That seed round has investments from Southern Company and General Electric executives, which McQuary said helped validate the importance of their project. McQuary declined to provide further details on the investors. More on Atlanta Inno.
Charity platform raises seed round
Charityvest, a donation platform run by Atlanta fintech startup Vennfi, closed a $2.3 million seed round ahead of the holiday season. Charityvest allows people to create tax-deductible accounts to give to charities and keep track of the amount. The platform has no fees and allows people to donate to more than 1.4 million U.S.-based nonprofits with cash or cryptocurrency. The round was led by Tom Blaisdell, a former general partner at DCM Ventures. With the seed round, co-founder and COO Ashby Foltz said the company plans to double its staff of six full-time employees by the middle of next year and increase the marketing budget. More on Atlanta Inno.
Payment processing company raises Series A extension
Atlanta-based payment processing company ConnexPay raised a $6.1 million Series A extension led by F-Prime Capital. ConnexPay, which was founded in 2017, aims to streamline payments in the travel industry by using one platform to process payments from the consumer to the travel company and the travel company to the hospitality company. F-Prime Capital is a Boston-based health care and technology venture capital firm affiliated with FMR LLC. Atlanta-based BIP Capital also backs ConnexPay. More on Atlanta Inno.
Alpharetta-based firm raises $12M
Cybersecurity firm DefenseStorm raised a $12 million Series B round to expand its platform. The round was led by Georgian, a Toronto, Canada-based fintech firm that invests in high-growth software companies. Atlanta-based TTV Capital also participated. DefenseStorm also received $7 million in growth capital financing from CIBC Innovation Banking. DefenseStorm focuses on cybersecurity solutions for community banks and credit unions. CEO Steve Soukup said the funds will be used to enhance the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities and expand the uses of its platform. DefenseStorm has about 80 clients that use its platform, and Soukup said he hopes larger banks and credit unions also start using DefenseStorm. Read more on Atlanta Inno.
Atlanta is springboard for RevLifter's U.S. expansion
London-based retail technology company RevLifter raised $4.4 million in a Series A funding round to expand its U.S. operations, using metro Atlanta as its headquarters. Gresham House Ventures and Maven Capital Partners led the round. RevLifter uses artificial intelligence to create personalized content or deals for a customer on a retailer’s website. For example, it may use the customer’s location to generate a regional deal or use items in their shopping cart to generate "similar products" suggestions. That personalization technology aims to improve the conversion rates for online sales and customer experience on different retail sites. In early 2019, RevLifter started expanding into the U.S. market, and now 60% of revenue comes from U.S. businesses, said Jim Harriman, general manager of U.S. operations. Read more on Atlanta Inno.
Acquisitions
Kobiton acquires Mobile Labs
Kobiton, an Atlanta-based software company that uses artificial intelligence to test mobile apps, acquired one of its competitors with $14 million in a funding round led by BIP Capital and Fulcrum Equity Partners, according to a press release. Mobile Labs Inc., another Atlanta-based mobile app testing company, will help Kobiton expand its on-premise device deployment. Companies such as Uber and IBM use Kobiton's mobile app testing capabilities. Kobiton CEO Kevin Lee said the acquisition will make the company the "most comprehensive mobile testing solution on the market today." Kobiton previously raised $5.2 million in a Series A round led by BIP Capital in 2019, which was used to expand its sales and marketing team.
Bayan Softwares acquires hockey software company
Atlanta-based Bayan Softwares, which acquires and grows enterprise software businesses, crossed into Canada for its most recent acquisition. RinkNet, a software company based in Ontario, provides scouting and player management solutions for hockey teams and other organizations worldwide. All 32 National Hockey League squads and 200 amateur teams and associations in North America use RinkNet, according to a press release. Jim Price founded the company in 1988. Bayan acquires software companies that serve in distinct verticals and have at least $2 million in annual revenue, high customer retention rates and positive margins, according to its website.
Atlanta-based Terminus acquires GrowFlare
Terminus, an Atlanta-based marketing platform, acquired GrowFlare, its fourth acquisition in three years. Terminus, founded in 2014, helps B2B marketing and sales teams by using account-based marketing so they can more efficiently generate revenue. GrowFlare, a predictive data company, uses AI to help B2B marketing and sales teams target specific accounts with which to work. The process is called psychographic profiling and is akin to Spotify curating specific playlists based on customer listening habits. That dynamic profiling of different accounts will help Terminus customers market to accounts that would be most interested in their products, according to a Terminus blog post. GrowFlare founder and CEO Matt Belkin will join Terminus CEO Tim Kopp and his team. More from Atlanta Business Chronicle.
