The Austin tech ecosystem closed out spring and opened up summer with a strong flow of funding and acquisition activity.
Roughly 15 startups landed significant rounds of funding. About a dozen Austin companies were acquired or acquired another startup. And a few of the most active venture capital and private equity firms in the area have reloaded their coffers.
That's just a tease of all the activity from last month. Below, we’ve listed all the local tech startup funding announcements, mergers, acquisitions and venture capital fund activity from March 2018.
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Fundings
Cipherloc, a Buda-based data protection company, reported two investments in May. The first was a $2.2 million infusion as part of a planned $15 million round. About $429,000 of that will be used for sales commissions, the filing showed. Later in May, Cipherloc reported raising $5.1 million in the latest of a pileup of Form D filings.
In its Q1 earnings release, Ticketmaster said it has made an investment in Austin’s Blink Identity, which was in this year’s Techstars music accelerator, VentureBeat reported. Blink’s tech can scan people walking through at normal walking speed at a rate of 60 people per minute.
NarrativeDx, an AI-powered health tech platform that provides insights on patient feedback, reported raising a little over $1 million in new equity funding, a new Form D shows. The startup, founded in 2014 by Kyle Robertson and Senem Guney, has previously raised money from Austin’s LiveOak Venture Partners and Capital Factory — as well as Cultivation Capital and HealthX Ventures.
Amin Bahari, founder of Austin’s Elite Sweets, won $180,000 at the WeWork San Francisco Creator Awards Regional Semi-Finals on Thursday. Bahari was one of five winners in four categories, winning a total of $742,000.
OJO Labs raised a $20.5 million Series B funding round to hire high-level engineers to advance its patent-pending AI-powered assistants. The round was led by strategic investors, including Realogy Holdings Corp., Royal Bank of Canada, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and ServiceMaster. Austin’s LiveOak Venture Partners and Silverton Partners also helped fuel the funding. OJO Labs co-founder John Berkowitz, who previously co-founded Yodle, said his company could have taken on an even larger Series B but that $20 million is the right number to ensure the company has plenty of runway and doesn’t get too diluted. Since launching in 2015, OJO has inked several deals, including client agreements with loanDepot and Realogy. In 2016, it raised a $5.8 million Series A led by LiveOak Venture Partners and Silverton Partners.
Localeur, an app and publication that helps travelers find locals’ favorite spots, reported raising $879,000 in additional equity funding, a Form D shows. The money, coming from 75 investors, brings the startup’s current round to more than $5 million. That brings Localeur’s total funding to $8.4 million, according to Crunchbase. Localeur co-founder and CEO Joah Spearman has written extensively about his fundraising work and about leading a startup on his LinkedIn page. His startup has 80 total angel investors, including Austin Mayor Steve Adler, data.world co-founder Brett Hurt, Capital Factory founder JoshuaBaer and WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner.
Amgine Technologies, which makes travel app HelloGbye, reported raising $1.6 million in new equity funding. The startup was founded by Jonathan Miller in 2015. It had previously raised about $2.9 million.
Austin’s Silverton Partners led a $4 million round of funding for Provo-based Tracking First, which makes a data governance platform to organize digital campaign data. Tracking First was founded in 2012, and as part of this new round of funding Salt Lake City-based Kickstart Seed Fund is making a strategic investment.
High Brew Coffee, an Austin-based maker of cold brew coffees, reported raising $$11.9 million of a planned $20 million round. The company recently moved to a new HQ at near Oltorf and Congress Avenue. The company had previously raised about $28 million.
TreeHouse, an Austin-based eco-friendly home maintenance and materials retailer that will soon close its Austin store and more its HQ to Dallas, raised an additional $7.5 million, according to an SEC filing. It’s part of a planned $15.7 million round, and the new investment came from a single investor. TreeHouse previously raised a $16 million round in 2015 led by Garrett Boone, co-founder of The Container Store.
Pensa Systems, an Austin maker of autonomous inventory solutions, has closed on a $2.2 million seed round. The round was led by ATX Seed Ventures, with participation from ZX Ventures, the venture arm of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Kiva Systems founder Mick Mountz and serial entrepreneur Yechiam Yemini also contributed to the round. Pensa’s first application automates on-shelf visibility and ensures products are restocked. The company is led by Richard Schwartz, who has logged four exits with venture-backed tech companies.
Genprex, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company working on cancer treatments, has raised an additional $10 million, a new Form D shows. Seeking Alpha recently reported on the company’s prospects, indicating that it uses a Florida-based auditor that’s heavily promoted on penny stock sites and noting that the company’s Phase II trial has been suspended for more than a year.
Pingboard, which makes collaborative organizational software, raised $4.3 million in new equity funding, per this Form D. The startup, led by co-founder and CEO Bill Boebel and co-founder and CTO Robert Eanes, had previously raised about $2.5 million.
Shattuck Labs Inc, a local biotech company working on cancer treatments, raised $46.6 million in new equity funding, per this filing. Last year, it raised a $7 million round, and it had previously raised nearly $3 million in debt funding.
SigmaSense, an Austin screen sensor and controls company, has raised $1.4 million in new equity funding, according to a new filing. The company changed its name from 3AxisData to SigmaSense earlier this year.
Virtuix Holdings, an Austin maker of VR gaming stations, raised $740,000 in new capital from a variety of debt and securities, a new filing shows.
Mergers, Acquisitions & IPOs
Meta Saas, an Austin software subscriptions management startup, was acquired by Illinois-based software company Flexera. As part of the acquisition, Meta SaaS, which was founded by Arlo Gilbert and Scott Hertel in 2016, will be rebranded as Flexera SaaS Manager. In a blog post, Gilbert indicated Meta SaaS will keep its Austin office. The acquisition comes about a year after Meta Saas announced its $1.5 million seed round. It has raised $2.1 million in total, according to Crunchbase. Investors have included Mark Cuban, data.world founder Brett Hurt, Barracuda Networks, Chicago Ventures, Deep Space Ventures and Capital Factory.
Digital Turbine, an Austin-based mobile OEM solutions company, is selling off its Content and Advertisers & Publishers business. It’s being sold in two transactions — one sells the content business to Australia-based Chargewave Ptd Ltd. and the other sells the ads and publishing business to Netherlands-based Creative Clicks B.V. Terms weren’t disclosed.
RetailMeNot, an Austin digital discounts company, acquired Salt Lake City-based LowestMed in a bid to capture a portion of the massive market for prescription medications. Under the deal, LowestMed will be rebranded as RetailMeNot Rx Saver. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Fluence Bioengineering, an Austin LED lighting company, has been acquired by Germany-based Osram Licht AG, the ABJ reported. Financial details weren’t disclosed. Fluence was founded as BML Horticulture in 2013 by CEO Nick Klase and Chairman and CTO Randall Johnson. The company, which makes does not appear to have reported raising any venture capital funding, later changed its name. Fluence will keep all of its 95 Austin employees.
Vuevent, Inc., an Austin-based event application and marketing intelligence platform, has been acquired by San Jose-based software company TrellisSoft Inc. Financial details weren’t disclosed. Vuevent, founded in 2014, had raised $1.4M in seed funding led by Inizio Capital and additional angel investors in Dallas, California and Colorado. Vuevent CEO Brent Shafer told me his company moved to Austin because one of its angel investors and board members, Iron Wolf founder and Libre Wireless Technologies CRO Jordan Watters lives here. Vuevent, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of TrellisSoft, has 14 employees and it plans to expand as a result of the acquisition.
Quantum Retail Technology, an Austin supply chain and inventory management company, is acquiring San Francisco-based commerce-as-a-service provider Symphony Commerce for an undisclosed amount. Quantum Retail is part of Versata, a company that is owned by Austin-based private equity and management firm ESW Capital.
Hostway, an Austin-based managed cloud hosting provider, is acquiring lines of business from MyHosting.com and Mail2Web, which were owned by Ingram Micro. MyHosting and Mail2Web are in Toronto, and their parent company, Ingram Micros, is in Irvine, California.
Prologic Technology Systems, an Austin-based edtech payroll and benefits company founded in 1998, is being acquired by Malvern, Pa.-based Frontline Education. Financial details were’t provided. No word on how this might impact Prologic employees, but Frontline says it will maintain the current Prologic infrastructure and solutions.
ePatientFinder, an Austin healthtech startup that helps healthcare providers with clinical trials, has sold its clinical trial exchange platform to Elligo Health Research. Financial details weren’t provided. The company, co-founded and led by Tom Dorsett, has raised about $11.4 million from strategic investors.
FloSports has made a name for itself by broadcasting some of the top non-big league sports out there, including wrestling, track and gymnastics, as well as basketball and football events. Now it’s making one of its biggest plays yet by acquiring The Rugby Channel from Rugby International Marketing. This gives FloSports full rights to all the matches that had been on the Ruby Channel. It’s a huge move to build on FloRugby, which FloSports launched last year.
CLINK, an Austin-based event production company, has been acquired by San Antonio-based event company Capers. No financial details provided. The companies have been affiliated for a few years through membership partnerships.
Venture Capital Firm Activity
Moneta Ventures, a Sacramento-based early-stage venture capital firm, has quietly opened an Austin office and plans to invest about $20 million into Austin- and Texas-based tech startups. The local office is led by Moneta Ventures Partner Aasim Hasan, a long-time Austinite with an extensive resume working with large tech companies. Moneta Ventures is looking to invest $500,000 to $2 million into edtech, health tech and enterprise and consumer tech startups that have reached $500,000 to $10 million in annual revenue. The firm is poised to announce its first Austin investment in the coming days — a roughly $1.25 million investment as part of a $2 million round for QuickStart, an online IT certification edtech startup that spun out of 360Training before that company was acquired via private equity.
Genesis, a venture capital-like fund created at the University of Texas, has raised more than $1.2 million in donations. As we noted last week, Genesis Fund is unique in that it operates similar to a venture capital fund while keeping students involved. Student partners conduct due diligence on the startup they meet with, access risks and decide which companies to back. It’s different than venture capital in that the money they invest comes with no strings attached — the startups don’t have to give up a share of their company and the Genesis Fund focuses on philanthropic-based returns by building an entrepreneurial culture on campus and helping the startups they fund succeed.
Silverton Partners, and the firm just announced it has closed on its fifth fund — a $108 million pool to fuel startups in Austin and beyond. In February last year, the firm set out to raise $100 million. But, after seeing several of Silverton’s portfolio companies cruise through significant exits, Silverton seems to have drawn even more interest, surpassing their initial target by $8 million. Silverton also highlighted how several of its portfolio companies have had successful exits that have generated more than $1.1 billion in market capitalization since the start of this year. Those exits (full and partial) include WP Engine, SpareFoot, Favor, YouEarnedIt and Watermark. Silverton’s investors and others vested in those companies may be the financial beneficiaries, but this is strong news for Austin overall because other investors will see that series of successful exits and perhaps be a bit more likely to fish for interesting deals in the 512.
Vista Equity Partners, the Austin-based private equity firm known for buying out software companies, is said to be raising $12 billion for its newest fund, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s hot news for software startups in Austin and across the country. Vista has acquired or invested in a bunch of Austin companies, including PeopleAdmin, Main Street Hub and SecureLink. And, most recently, it made a strategic investment in YouEarnedIt. The new fundraising comes as fellow buyout firm Thoma Bravo is seeking $10 billion for its new fund. And both those moves come as other firms bulk up for buyouts.
