Last week, during Austin Startup Week, a group of local investors said that they've been making more deals in the past few months than during the first half of the year. It's a bit of good news for Austin startups and venture capitalists during a year that has otherwise marked a dramatic fall off in funding compared to the booming years of 2021 and 2022.
Meanwhile, we tracked about $105 million in new deals, anchored by a $60 million round for an AI startup that's just beginning to make itself known.
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Black Ore, a stealthy Austin-based startup with an AI platform for tax accounting and financial services, said Nov. 7 it has raised $60 million in fresh funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz's a16z and Oak HC/FT. Additional backers included General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Trust Ventures, LionBird, SciFiVC and SV Angel.
Several tech executive angel investors also pitched in. That group includes former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, PayPal founder Max Levchin, Marqeta founder Jason Gardner, PayPal executive Mark Britto and Doordash executive Gokul Rajaram. Black Ore is led by co-founder and CEO Eyal Shinar.
Paradromics Inc., a Neuralink competitor that's developed a brain-computer interface, or BCI, recently reported raising $17 million in additional equity funding. The new tranche adds to a $33 million series A round led by Prime Movers Lab that was announced in May. The new Form D filing shows the overall $50 million round includes 53 investors, but it wasn't immediately clear if the additional $17 million included any new firms.
Dotwork, a newly launched Austin startup that has developed a software platform that leverages AI to cobble together unstructured data, software stacks and key metrics, said Nov. 7 that it has raised a $12 million series A funding round to make key hires and advance its product. The funding came from founder and CEO Steve Elliott, along with a group of investors including Jim Crane, owner of the Houston Astros and CEO of Crane Capital Group, as well as Hunter Nelson, a partner at Houston-based Milton Street Capital LLC.
OpsLab Inc., an Austin-based startup that helps airlines, drone companies and the defense industry manage schedules, operations and logistics, reported raising about $6.3 million in new equity funding on Nov. 6. The startup, founded in 2018, was formerly known as SkySchedule. It is led by founder and CEO Arun Nair, who was previously a senior solutions architect and engagement lead at Broadway Technology. Back in August, the company announced it secured a contract with Aviano Air Base, a NATO partner in Italy. The company's AI-powered software has also been deployed at Luke, Minot and Davis-Monthan Air Force bases.
Locally based startup Pipedream Laboratories Inc. reported Nov. 7 that it has raised $9.4 million in new equity funding. Pipedream Labs develops autonomous underground deliveries, including a project with fast food chain Wendy's to deliver meals through underground tunnels to customers' parked cars. The technology uses autonomous robots to transport meals underground and deliver at the car-side instant pickup kiosks. It also is developing systems in housing and commercial developments to deliver goods to tenants. The company was founded in 2020 by co-founders Drew Bellcock and Garrett McCurrach.
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