Austin tech startups raised hundreds of millions of dollars in October, and several companies were acquired or scooped up other companies to expand their reach.
Among headline deals were the $100M round that Austin- and Akron-based RVshare reported, as well as a $60M investment for CS Disco, which had gone through layoffs earlier this year. Meanwhile, local electric truck company Hyliion IPOed, and Austin robotic barista startup Briggo was acquired by a subsidiary of Coca Cola.
In short, it was a very busy month. Stay on top of this type of news as it happens each day by subscribing to the Beat newsletter.
Alright, let's review October's local deal flow.
Funding rounds
Virdee, an Austin SaaS startup helping hotels and commercial real estate properties accelerate contactless guest interaction, raised a $2M seed round from a group of strategic investors, including former La Quinta president Rajiv Trivedi.
HUVRdata Inc., an Austin company making software for the inspection and maintenance of energy infrastructure, announced a $5M series A funding round from Houston-based investment firm Cottonwood Venture Partners.
Cerberus Interactive is a local gaming company to watch. It reported raising $400K of a total offering amount of $2M from six investors. The Austin-based game development studio says it takes the classic framework of strategy games like “Age of Empires” and combines it with modern mapping and location-based technologies.
Solar storage solution company Yotta Solar Inc. raised $6.3M from 41 investors, an SEC filing showed. The company was founded in 2017 and is run by CEO Omeed Badkoobeh.
Legal tech startup CS Disco Inc. announced it raised another $60M, bringing its total funding to $195M. The massive investment, which Disco said values it at $785M, is one of the largest funding rounds of the year. The investment was led by Georgian Partners, which also led the $83M funding round Disco announced in January 2019. Other returning investors were Bessemer Venture Partners, LiveOak Venture Partners and The Stephens Group. Breyer Capital, which recently established roots in Austin, also invested.
Austin- and Akron, Ohio-based RVshare, founded in 2013, raised a $100M-plus funding round led by KKR, along with existing investor Tritium Partners. That brings its total funding to nearly $150M. It currently has 75 employees, with 15 of them in Austin.
Austin-based SubjectWell, a startup that connects clinical trial managers with patients, raised $1.8M in new funding, the ABJ reported. Geekdom Fund in San Antonio raised the money through sidecar equity funding, federal filings show. The startup, founded in 2012 by Ivor Clarke, Joel Lucas, Kip McKenzie and Rick Westervelt, previously closed a $10M Series A in June.
Dash Energy, an Austin energy buying and selling platform for brokers and suppliers, reported raising $1.4M in new equity funding from a single investor. The company, which just formed this year, is led by CEO Tom Cameron, former CRO at Austin-based Lifesize.
Cloud-based video surveillance startup Eagle Eye Networks raised a $40M Series E round from Palo Alto-based VC firm Accel. Eagle Eye, founded by local serial entrepreneur Dean Drako in 2012, has now raised about $100M. The startup has about 200 employees globally, including about 150 in Austin. It plans to hire an additional 100 as soon as possible, including positions in engineering, sales, marketing and more.
Austin automotive repair software startup CarServ reported raising about $1M in new equity funding. Crunchbase shows that the startup, which was one of Austin Inno's 2019 Startups to Watch, has raised a total of $3.7M. Its backers have included Hatcher+, T-Mobile and Quake Capital Partners, as well as $250K from Salesforce Ventures after winning Dreampitch in 2018.
Sourced Craft Cocktails, an Austin cocktail startup that is on this year's Inno on Fire list, reported raising $1.1M in new securities and options. The federal filing follows the startup becoming the exclusive alcohol provider for the 2020 Willie Nelson 4th of July Picnic, as well as a deal with Grey Goose and the U.S. Open Tennis Championships on an official cocktail. The startup reported that it has almost doubled its projected revenue totals in 2020.
Slingshot Aerospace, a space and airspace data analytics startup that has offices in El Segundo, Calif., reported raising an $8M Series A funding round to advance its technologies. Slingshot currently has about 30 employees, including eight in Austin. It is has made several new hires, and it plans to hire additional engineers with the new money. The investment was led by Austin's ATX Venture Partners, with additional funding from Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Techstars Ventures and Okapi Venture Capital. The startup also noted the Series A includes investments from several angel investors, including former CEO of the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Keith Masback, Semetric co-founders Keith Masback, Gregory Mead and Marie-Alicia Chang, as well as wealth advisor Glenn Degenaars.
Insurtech startup Assurely, which has offices in New York and is hiring in Austin, closed a seed round led by ATX Ventures, bringing its total funding to about $3.7M. The startup was co-founded by CEO David Carpentier and Chief Insurance Officer Ty Sagalow. Carpentier, a former New York University hockey coach, was previously with Heuro Health and USI Insurance Services. Sagalow was most recently a founding member of Lemonade, which went public in one of the largest IPOs of 2020 so far. The startup already launched its first product, an insurance program targeted at companies that are looking for investment capital online via the JOBS Act. It plans to launch a second product later this year.
Steadily, an Austin insurtech startup, exited stealth mode by announcing it closed a $3.8M seed round. San Francisco-based VC firm Matrix Partners led the round. Other investors included Austin-based venture capital firm Next Coast Ventures; Nine Four Ventures, a real estate technology fund headquartered in Chicago; and SV Angel, a San Francisco-based seed fund. Steadily’s online platform helps residential landlords quickly get quotes and buy insurance policies without using an insurance agent.
Mergers, acquisitions and IPOs
Cedar Park-based Hyliion, an electric truck company that works to make big rigs more environmentally friendly, announced that it will begin trading on the NYSE on Oct. 2. The company will trade under the ticker HYLN. Hyliion is going public through the merger with Tortoise, a SPAC that announced the acquisition in early September. The merger was approved by Tortoise shareholders this week, leading to Hyliion’s public debut.
FlashParking Inc. has completed its second buyout. The company, which raised $60M earlier this year and makes systems for parking garage access and revenue control, announced Sept. 29 its purchase of Denver-based Mountain Parking Equipment. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OJO Labs Inc. is making its first foray into the fintech sector with its recent acquisition of Digs, a Chicago-based personal finance platform, for an undisclosed price.Digs has built an FDIC-insured app that helps consumers set and track savings goals and understand credit. In an Oct. 15 announcement, OJO suggested the acquisition will help its customers, especially Black and LatinX customers that have been systematically discriminated against in the homebuying process, learn more about how they can afford a home.
Austin-headquartered Elo Entertainment Inc. has a need for speed. The video-game data analytics company, co-founded in 2012 by CEO Sabina Hemmi, announced it acquired Speedrun.com, an online resource for video game speedruns — when people play through games as quickly as possible.
Austin-based Astrotech Corporation, a science and tech commercialization company that trades on the Nasdaq, announced an offering of about 7.8M shares of its stock at $2.30, an effort to generate about $18M. The company says it plans to use the investments for operating expenses and working capital.
Austin online ordering management startup Your Fare, which is one of our Inno on Fire companies this year, has acquired two fellow Austin startups -- Beyond4 LLC and Pronto. Terms of the deals weren't disclosed. Your Fare, co-founded in 2015 by CEO Christopher Monk and Meghan McNamara, is an online ordering management platform for restaurants with a dashboard that tracks order details, accounting data and customer information. It raised a $2.4M funding round from Band of Angels, Sierra Angels, Capital Factory, Houston-based Texas HALO Fund andHouston Angel Network in February. Beyond4 is a multi-channel marketing company founded by Creed Ford, who is joining Your Fare's board as part of the deal.
Austin-based cybersecurity company Forcepoint is being acquired by San Francisco-based Francisco Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed. The move comes after Raytheon bought out Vista Equity Partners' shares in the company earlier this year in a $588M deal. Raytheon had acquired its stake in the business for about $1.7B in 2015.
Austin-based construction estimating software maker Esticom has been acquired by California-based Procore Technologies. The move brings Esticom's estimating functions to the Procore pre-construction software offerings. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. For now, Esticom will be a partner on the Procore marketplace. It will be fully integrated into Procore next year. Esticom was co-founded by Chris Lee and Rob Hock in 2015, and it doesn't appear to have raised venture funding.
SolarWinds, an Austin-based software maker, said it plans to buy Charlotte-based SentryOne, which makes database performance monitoring software and similar tools. SolarWinds said the deal "complements the on-premises and cloud-native database management offerings SolarWinds has..."
A subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company scooped up Austin-based startup Briggo, maker of robot coffee kiosks. Terms of the deal, which quietly happened earlier this year, weren't disclosed. The company tweeted earlier this week that it will be rebranding as Costa Coffee BaristaBot. Briggo has been on a steady rise in recent years, bring its robotic coffee stations to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the Austin Convention Center, as well as inside large tech offices. Costa Coffee is a British company with nearly 4K retail locations throughout the world, according to Coca-Cola's website. The Atlanta-based beverage titan completed a $4.9B acquisition of Costa Coffee in January 2019.
Other VC and PE firm activity
Austin-based private equity firm Cotton Creek Capital has acquired Fort Worth’s ConeCraft, a leading engineer and manufacturer of customized equipment for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries.
Robert Smith, an Austin billionaire serving as chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, has reportedly reached a $140M settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice related to undeclared offshore accounts, according to the Wall Street Journal.The $140M settlement consists of an $85M penalty, about $30M in back taxes and about $25M in interest, according to the WSJ.
An entity related to investment firm Unbundled Capital LLC has raised $4.15M, according to an Oct. 15 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Unbundled Capital Skimmer LLC reported raising the money from 21 investors for a pooled investment fund. Peter Freeland, the founder and managing partner of Unbundled Capital, is listed as the director of the entity.
