Get details below on deals from the past week, including a $55 million funding round for a local startup focused on maritime technologies.
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Austin-based Bedrock Energy, a geothermal energy startup, said Oct. 11 that it snagged $8.5 million in seed funding led by Wireframe Ventures, a San Francisco firm focused on sustainability. Other investors include Overture Climate VC, Long Journey Ventures, Cantos, Toba Capital, First Star Ventures, Divergent Capital and Climate Capital.
Bedrock Energy is developing an autonomous drilling rig that uses subsurface physics modeling software to construct heating and cooling systems for buildings new and old – and in places where geothermal energy wasn't previously feasible, such as dense urban settings. Bedrock said its approach triples the speed of geothermal projects.
"For decades, geothermal heat pumps have been the most energy-efficient form of HVAC, but adoption has historically been slow due to the upfront cost, time, and space required to construct the borefields that provide such stellar thermal efficiency," Bedrock co-founder and CEO Joselyn Lai stated. "We believe our technologies fundamentally change the equation."
The startup said its services can also be offset by federal incentives that can cut initial costs by up to 60%. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been asking oil and gas companies to consider geothermal energy projects and Congress has increased funding for research and development in the field.
Austin is roughly three hours from the ocean, but it has a perhaps surprising number of startups focused on maritime technologies.
Saronic Technologies, which makes autonomous vehicles that float atop the ocean's surface, said Oct. 10 that it raised a $55 million series A funding round. It was led by San Francisco firm Caffeinated Capital. Other backers include Austin-based 8VC, as well as U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Silent Ventures, Overmatch Ventures, Ensemble VC and Cubit Capital. That brings its total raised to $70M, according to Crunchbase.
Saronic's maritime drones are geared toward military applications, with an eye toward helping the U.S. and its allies build an expansive, high-tech fleet of ocean-going vehicles in an effort to outpace China. It is developing six- and 13-foot vessels that it said can carry "diverse payloads in communication-denied and GPS-denied environments." They can be deployed from airdrops or out of other ships. Read more here.
Blackdot, an Austin-based automated tattooing company, said Oct. 12 it has raised about $4.6 million in venture funding led by FusionX Ventures.
It plans to seek out future accredited angel investors to help fuel future funding rounds, founder and CEO Joel Pennington said, though it will also consider institutional investments, as well.
Blackdot said its tattoo machine starts by injecting a small number of concealable test dots in a person's skin and compares the depth of those dots with a database of different skin types to select the optimal depth for the tattoo ink. Then machine vision is used to identify the location of the tattoo, typically on a semi-flat part of the body, such as forearm or tricep. The machine uses suction to remove any excess ink. Read more here.
Austin-based startup MDisrupt said Oct. 10 it has raised $3 million in seed funding led by The Venture Collective. Other investors included Capita3, 3plus VC, Geek Ventures, Mindshift Capital, The BFM Fund, Zane Venture Fund, Emmeline Ventures and Growth Factory.
The company, founded in 2019 by CEO Ruby Gadelrab, connects healthtech and life science companies with health care industry experts who can help them build and commercialize their products.
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.
