H.O. Maycotte, serial entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Molecula Corp., is on a mission “to take back our skyline” from the companies, executives and investors whom he says are invading the Texas capital from Silicon Valley.
Among the ways Maycotte is tackling such an ambitious goal is attempting to build Austin data virtualization startup Molecula into a major company.
His vision has taken a significant step forward with the Jan. 13 announcement that Molecula had closed a $17.6 million series A funding round, led by Ohio-based venture capital firm Drive Capital. Andy Jenks, a partner at Drive Capital, has joined the company’s board of directors as part of the deal.
Additional money came from Total Technology Ventures LLC, an Atlanta-based financial technology investing firm that in December closed its fifth fund worth $127 million. Chicago-headquartered venture capital firm Tensility also participated in the round, as did existing investors such as Atlanta-based venture capital firm Seraph Group; Austin-headquartered seed-investing firm Lontra Ventures; Austin-based venture capital firm Velar Capital; Austin's Tom Meredith, former CFO of Dell and a partner at private equity firm Brightstar Capital Partners; Andrew Busey, Supply Drop Online Inc. co-founder and CEO; Jason Dorsey, co-founder and president of Austin-based Center for Generational Kinetics; and Amy and John Porter, the founding partner of Skylark Private Equity Partners, a private equity firm headquartered in the Texas capital.
Previous investors who did not participate in the series A round included Hypergiant Industries co-founder and CEO Ben Lamm, Capital Factory and globally known executive coach Tony Robbins.
Molecula now has raised a total of $23.6 million to date, the company said. The startup closed a $6 million seed round in 2019.
No current plans exist to raise another round, Maycotte said, adding that the company has “plenty of runway” with the new funding. But because the sector in which Molecula operates is seeing the rapid flow of capital, the CEO said, “I’d be surprised if we didn’t move on a new round in the near future.”
Maycotte described himself as being “super excited” about the series A round closing, but also because he and his company have the opportunity to work on “the most exciting data category ever” — a data type that has come “at the world fast and hard in the last three to six months,” he said.
What Molecula does for its customers is centralize data for machine learning and artificial intelligence — called a “feature store” in industry parlance — thereby creating a data warehouse at a scale that machines may tackle, but that manpower alone cannot, Maycotte said. That enables companies to extract information from the data, the CEO said.
Another way to think about it: Molecula prepares data for analytics done by machine learning and AI, Maycotte said.
Only 1% of company data is being analyzed by AI, he said. “Businesses are drowning in data. They’re experiencing exponential growth every single second. Customer data is one example. It’s coming from and stored in hundreds of sources.”
The problem is so vast that Molecula’s automated solution could be applied to “IT projects in every single business-use case,” Maycotte said.
Drive Capital's Jenks said in a statement that “Molecula’s feature store breaks this mold by creating a new compute layer for data. The market for data readiness is as big as it gets, and we are excited to partner with Molecula to open the doors for AI and advanced analytics in every company, regardless of the environment.”
How it's using the money
While Molecula entered the market in 2019, the startup is using some of the new capital infusion “to launch a cloud-based feature store,” Maycotte said.
The company also plans to triple its current headcount of 30 by the end of the year, the CEO said. Molecula currently has 14 openings, according to its website. Senior positions include vice president of finance and vice president of growth marketing.
Unlike most companies that transitioned to remote work stance due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Molecula made that transition in early 2019, Maycotte said.
So, while the CEO plans to add to the headcount with people based in Austin, Maycotte also said he will hire from “wherever the best talent is,” be it in Africa, Asia or Europe.
The company moved into its current headquarters at The Independent condominium building in downtown Austin, at 301 West Avenue, in early 2019, “as a planned hub for a distributed team,” with rooms for Zoom screens, the CEO said. Another factor in choosing that new space was that it was large enough for Molecula’s current and planned expansion, Maycotte said.
Kevin Burns, principal and CEO at Urbanspace Real Estate + Interiors, acted as Molecula’s commercial real estate broker for the space.
"What I am most excited about is building something really big in Austin, all of the ingredients are here,” Maycotte said. “Everyone thinks we are becoming the next Silicon Valley, and, instead, we are really just being invaded by Silicon Valley. I look forward to seeing companies born and raised here develop our ecosystem by doing extraordinary things. Entrepreneurs like Julia Cheek at Everlywell are at the front of Austin’s future, and I am excited to help us move Austin forward."
Molecula boasts thousands of open-source users and “several dozen commercial customers,” such as Austin-headquartered Q2 Holdings Inc. (NYSE: QTWO), which develops digital banking and lending software for financial institutions; Austin-based Subspace Inc., an online video game network and application company; and Austin-headquartered Elligo Health Research Inc., which examines health care records to identify physicians and patients for clinical trials.
“Molecula provides the millisecond, real-time data access and query speeds we need to help us optimize internet traffic and bottlenecks for online gamers around the globe,” said Don Brown, Subspace head of data, in a statement. “With the cloud offering, Molecula is delivering a completely turnkey environment so that we can focus on running our business and getting maximum value from our data.”
Maycotte declined to share Molecula revenue figures and said the company is not yet profitable, while it focuses on growth.
“Our market opportunity is probably about as big as it gets,” he said.
San Francisco-based Tecton Inc. is among the company’s primary competitors, the CEO said. Molecula’s training program for customers so they may unlock what its features store may do differentiates it from others, Maycotte said. Another differentiator is that Molecula has the capability to help small and large companies, and is gearing its products toward currently underserved markets, such as agriculture, life sciences and health care.
Maycotte articulated the company’s ambitions when describing the reconquering by locals of the Texas capital skyline. His vision for the future is no less grand.
“We have the opportunity in this category to be the apex player,” he said. “We plan to establish ourselves as leaders, and maintain that leadership. As the category expands, the size of the market is limitless. The potential here is huge. We have the opportunity to do something global. We’re not looking for a small exit.”
