Get details below on recent funding deals: In the past week, three Austin-area companies reported a combined total of nearly $164 million in funding secured. These kinds of deals are a useful gauge of a company's evolution, and are sources of leads for real estate pros and other service providers.
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Austin financial-technology startup Routefusion Inc. announced Jan. 19 a $10 million seed round. The investment was led by San Francisco Bay Area firm Canvas Ventures and Austin's Siliverton Partners. Other investors included Haymaker Ventures, Initialized Capital, Jeeves co-founder Sherwin Gandi and Novel Bank co-founder Aldrin Clement. The company, which has now raised $14 million since last year, has developed an international payments platform, providing an alternative to traditional banks. Its platform focuses on neo-banks, payroll providers, cryptocurrencies and marketplaces operating globally. Its customers include Jeeves, Novel, PaymentLabs and Wyre.
The new funding will go toward new hires and marketing efforts. As part of the deal, Canvas Ventures co-founder Rebecca Lynn joined Routefusion's board of directors. Routefusion was co-founded in 2018 by CEO Colton Seal and CTO Richard Scappaticci.
Children's smart phone maker Pinwheel announced Jan. 20 it has lassoed $3.5 million in seed funding from Drumbeat Ventures, Circadian Ventures and Central Texas Angel Network. The money will help the team build new features on its smartphone for kids. The startup, founded by Dane Witbeck in 2019, has removed web browsers, social media and other potentially damaging features from its phone, instead using apps curated by a team of therapists. It also allows parents to manage and monitor activity on the phones, which cost between $149 and $329. The new funding came the same week Pinwheel was picked as a finalist for the SXSW Pitch competition. The company operates legally as Firepit Inc.
In last week's largest funding, telehealth startup Wheel said it raised a $150 million series C round. The company, which operates legally as Wheel Health Inc., has raised $216 million since launching in 2018. Wheel has created a virtual health care marketplace, connecting patients with companies and clinicians across the care spectrum. Services facilitated by Wheel include telehealth, lab testing and remote patient monitoring — using smart devices to help a diabetic patient virtually calibrate an insulin sensor, for example. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Wheel saw "two times the amount of patients than we did in all of 2020," said Michelle Davey, co-founder and CEO. The company has also roughly doubled the size of its client portfolio, and is now "serving some of the largest enterprises in health care today," she added.
Get ABJ's latest list of local venture capital firms here, and see the list of angel investors here. A list of local startup incubators can be found here.
