The holiday season is here but the deals keep flowing as we get ready to enter a new year. Get details below on funding deals from the past week-plus, when companies reported more than $100 million in venture and credit deals.
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The University of Texas has been playing a big role in Austin's startup community for decades. Now, it can add the UT Seed Fund to the list of resources for emerging entrepreneurs. The $10 million UT Seed Fund was created by UT's research and commercialization branch, Discovery to Impact. The fund will make three to four investments a year, with a max of $250,000 per company. Its first investment was in Jurata Thin Film, a startup that grew out of research by UT College of Pharmacy Professor Maria Croyle. The company's thin films store at room temperature for up to three years and maintain the potency of vaccines and other meds. UT's investment was part of a $4.8 million round. The company is led by CEO Sheila Mikhail and co-founder Jude Samulski. They previously worked together building Asklepios BioPharmaceutical Inc., aka AskBio, and Bamboo Therapeutics Inc., both of which had successful exits.
An Austin biotech company fighting Alzheimer's raised $50 million from institutional investors in a direct offering of about 1.6 million shares at $30 each. Cassava Sciences Inc., which trades on the Nasdaq, said Nov. 22 that the investment totaled about $47 million after subtracting fees. The new money will help the company in its development of simufilam, a clinical-stage drug that treats Alzheimer's by stabilizing a critical protein in the brain. H.C. Wainwright & Co. was the exclusive placement agent for the offering, with JonesTrading Institutional Services LLC and Perella Weinberg Partners LP as independent capital markets advisors.
Get a closer look at the company in ABJ's October feature that explored its rollercoaster stock prices, controversies it has faced and an update on its promising trials.
Austin-based Wander.com, a short-term luxury rental startup, said Nov. 29 it has secured a $100 million credit facility with Credit Suisse. That will help the startup expand its network of vacation homes equipped with smart home technologies. The credit comes as the company launches its vacation rental real estate investment trust program that lets Wander customers become partial property owners. Wander, founded in 2021, is led by founder and CEO John Andrew Entwistle, who was previously co-founder and CEO of Austin-based Coder. The startup has raised over $30 million in venture funding.
"We're seeing a tectonic shift in consumer behavior where travelers are demanding the quality of a luxury hotel paired with the comfort and space of a vacation home," Wander Chief Marketing Officer Kyle Tibbitts stated. "This foundational financial infrastructure unlocks a powerful flywheel where invested capital allows us to launch new markets, new markets open up access to new customers and those customers can invest back into our ecosystem to drive more growth."
Disclo Inc., an Austin startup that helps verify and manage health disclosures and employee accommodation requests, on Dec. 1 reported raising $6.7 million in new equity funding. The SEC filing doesn't note who invested. But the startup, led by co-founders Hannah Olson and Kai Keane, has listed online several major VC firms among its backers. Those include Bain Capital, Lere Hippeau, Lightspeed Scouts and Graph Ventures. The startup, founded in 2019, previously operated as Chronically Capable Inc.
Want to see more deals? See our funding round up from last week.
An earlier version of this story reported that Infinitum added $10.4 million in new equity to its existing $168M funding to date. However, the paperwork filed with the SEC was part of the previous $30 million raise we had reported on. The total stands at $168 million.
