In the past couple of weeks, funding deals worth about $172 million combined were announced or reported in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Incline P&C Group said June 8 it raised $125 million in growth equity funding from investment firm Braemont Capital Management LLC. Austin-based Incline focuses on the program insurance market, working through intermediaries known as managing general agents to provide insurance services. Much of its business is personal auto insurance, said Chris McClellan, Incline president and CEO.
Incline, founded in 2015, provides insurance programs covering "lines including private passenger auto, cargo, commercial auto, flood, homeowners, motorcycle, pet and workers’ compensation insurance," according to the announcement. The company expects to expand its services with the fresh funding while continuing to add staff. It is currently hiring for roles in accounting, finance, legal and more.
Striveworks Inc., a machine learning startup focused on highly regulated industries, in a June 1 securities filing reported raising $32 million in equity funding. The startup was co-founded in 2018 by Chief Technology Officer Craig Desjardins, Chief Science Officer Eric Korman, Principal Anthony Manganiello and CEO Jim Rebesco. This appears to be the startup's first reported fundraise, based on a search of SEC documents and Crunchbase. The company's headquarters is in Austin, and it has a satellite office in New York City.
Last year, the company was awarded a basic ordering agreement by the U.S. Army Contract Command for its Data Readiness for Artificial Intelligence Development program. And, earlier this year, Striveworks partnered with Neural Magic to integrate Neural Magic's core offerings into Striveworks' Chariot MLOps platform.
Contoro Inc., an artificial intelligence robotics startup founded last year, reported in a June 7 securities filing raising $6 million in equity funding. It appears to be the company's first round. The startup is led by founder and CEO Youngmok Yun, who was previously co-founder at Austin-based Harmonic Bionics Inc. The company appears to be working on remotely operated robotics and human interfaces. The company's website says its approach "uses various AI technologies and allows human operators to help in situations where the AI fails."
App0 Inc., an Austin startup with an AI-powered customer messaging platform, reported in a May 30 securities filing raising nearly $3.9 million in new equity funding. The company was founded last year by Darpan Saini and Kothanda Ramaswamy. Saini, who is CEO, was most recently general manager at Q2 Lending. Before that, he co-founded Cloud Lending Inc., which was acquired by Q2. Ramaswamy was most recently senior VP of engineering at Oportun.
Afia LLC, an Austin-based maker of frozen Middle Eastern food, said June 6 it secured a $3 million series A round. Investors in the equity financing round included Embree Capital Markets Group, Semillero Partners, MJR Ventures and Roya Capital.
The funds will be used to open a manufacturing facility and headquarters in Taylor, north of Austin, later this year, and to scale up production. It makes falafel in multiple flavors as well as kibbeh filled with ground meat and grain.
"This early investment will be pivotal in supporting our expansion plans which include a new manufacturing facility and a new line of products," co-founder and CEO Yassin Sibai stated.
This follows a $1 million injection in 2020 from Austin-based Unorthodox Ventures.
A new startup called Keep Aware Inc. emerged from stealth June 6 with $2.4 million in initial funding led by Austin-based LiveOak Venture Partners. The deal also included Runtime Ventures and angel investors.
The startup is led by founder and CEO Ryan Boerner. He was previously a cyber security engineer at IBM and cyber tech specialist at Darktrace.
Keep Aware said the investment will accelerate its product development and go-to-market programs. The startup is focused on web browsers, which is where many of us increasingly operate nearly full-time across a variety of sites and browser-based apps.
The company has recently been building its team, hiring for roles including software engineering and user experience engineering.
The startup is one of several security-oriented companies in LiveOak's portfolio. The firm has also invested in local cybersecurity startup Spyderbat and Chainguard, along with several other companies that focus on privacy and fraud detection.
"The web browser has become the new Operating System for most of our work, yet security teams have near zero visibility into what happens within it and employees continue to face a barrage of threats," LiveOak Partner Creighton Hicks stated. "Keep Aware is uniquely positioned to prevent attacks that leverage the browser. Their solution fills this visibility gap and provides an innovative approach to prevent sophisticated phishing and social engineering threats."
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.
