Check out the details below on three recent funding deals totaling nearly $25 million, plus a recent initial public offering.
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Austin crypto custody startup Fedi Inc. said May 4 it raised a $17 million series A funding round.
The round was led by Austin-based firm Ego Death Capital. Other backers included Austin-based Trammell Venture Parters, which specializes in crypto investments, along with Kingsway, TBD and Timechain. The new capital brings the company's total raised to $21.2 million since its founding last year.
Fedi's platform lets people form a group, or federation, with trusted people to hold crypto assets. It's an alternative to holding your own keys, which is sometimes risky, or holding crypto through an exchange, several of which have gone through a tumultuous few months with the collapse of FTX.
Fedi said groups or federations could be made up of friends, nonprofit organizations, businesses or other communities where there's enough trust to share privacy and risk together. The company's platform is built on an open-source protocol called Fedimint.
"The Bitcoin community already knows the tremendous potential of the protocol," Fedi CEO Obi Nwosu stated. "But what’s most exciting about Fedi is that you don’t have to be an existing Bitcoiner, or even particularly tech-savvy, to quickly start using this to solve real problems within your community."
Along with the new funding, Fedi said it is about to pre-launch its Alpha version for builders this month. For now, it's focused largely on storing and transferring bitcoin and communicating among federation members. The startup said its early use cases include managing remittances, savings and micro-lending in underserved communities.
Interactive Strength Inc., a fitness technology company better known as Forme Life that's based in Austin, said May 2 it closed its $12 million initial public offering.
The company, which sells sells hardware products like fitness mirrors as well as virtual personal training and coaching, sold 1.5 million shares at $8 each. The stock hit the Nasdaq April 28 under the ticker "TRNR." Aegis Capital Corp. was the sole underwriter.
Ganesh Padmanabhan and Kris Nair on May 2 announced their new startup, Autonomize Inc., has raised $4 million in seed funding. The round was led by Asset Management Ventures and included money from ATX Venture Partners, Loop Ventures and The Next Practices Group.
The startup, which employs 15, uses artificial intelligence to help doctors more quickly match patients with potentially life-saving treatments, improving the patience experience.
Austin financial-technology startup Inbanx Inc. announced May 2 a $3.6 million seed round led by The Castle Creek Launchpad Fund, a joint fund backed by 34 community banks, with additional money from Social Leverage and other earlier investors.
The Inbanx platform helps other businesses manage their employees' expense reporting to better control company spending in real time instead of waiting for the bills to add up at the end of the month. As companies around the world look to shrink their spending as they manage a year of uncertainty, Inbanx executives says their timing is solid.
"Everybody's trying to get visibility and a grasp on their spending and it's very difficult with the current financial tools," co-founder and CEO Rob Kaczmarek said. "And so we're coming in with a unified, single point solution that does a whole bunch of different things. But ultimately, it gives the business the ability to control and prevent overspend. That's huge now."
For more local deals, check out another recent funding wrap. And subscribe to Austin Business Journal for startup resources such as lists of venture capital and private equity firms, incubators and accelerators, angel investors and coworking providers.
