Austin continues to mint new startups, as well as attract founders and their teams from across the nation. In November, we saw a few startups emerge in Austin, including one led by a former partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and another stealthy company that is creating a platform for cohort-based courses.
Meanwhile, ZenBusiness, ActivTrak and Ambiq Micro each reported $50M or more in new funding in November.
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Alright, let's review the local deal flow, acquisitions and VC firm activity from November 2020.
Funding rounds
Endomag, a U.K.-based biotech startup that has offices in Austin, raised $20M in Series D funding. The round was led by Draper Esprit, and the money is expected to expand access to breast surgery technologies. The company has now raised a total of $43M.
SIERA.AI, an Austin company that does business under the name Stocked Robotics, reported raising more than $4.5M in new equity funding. The company, led by CEO and CTO Saurav Agarwal, was founded in 2017. It provides AI-driven software that helps autonomous vehicles in warehouses operate more safely. When it was founded, it was supported by a small grant from the National Science Foundation. It later raised $2.1M across four rounds of funding from investors including James Kuffner and Dorm Room Fund, according to Crunchbase. More recently, it announced a strategic partnership with UniCarriers Americas to use SIERA.AI's safety and autonomy tech in its material handling equipment.
Amy Sun, a former partner at Silicon Valley investment firm Sequoia Capital and former product manager at Facebook and Uber, launched a new startup called Daylight Labs. And it's planting its roots in Austin, TechCrunch reported. The stealthy startup has already raised $3.8M, even though we don't yet know much about what it will do — beyond helping gig workers make more money. You can learn more about Sun in this 2019 Q&A.
ZenBusiness raised a $55M Series B funding round led by Cathay Innovation, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund affiliated with Cathay Capital Private Equity. San Francisco-headquartered GreatPoint Ventures, Breyer Capital and California-headquartered Omega Venture Partners also chipped in. It ranks among the largest venture capital rounds for an Austin company this year. ZenBusiness has raised $75M to date.
Austin startup ClosedLoop, which uses AI and machine learning to identify risk factors among a group of patients, is starting its next chapter of development, backed by a new, $11M Series A investment co-led by Greycroft and .406 Ventures, with additional backing from Silicon Valley Bank and Meridian Street Capital. That brings the startup's total funding to around $15M since its founding in 2017 by CEO Andrew Eye and CTO Dave DeCaprio.
Austin-based workforce productivity software company ActivTrak has raised a $50M Series B. The round, one of the largest in Austin this year, was led by Palo Alto-based Sapphire Ventures. Austin-based Elsewhere Partners also invested in the round, which brings the company's total funding to $77.5M. ActivTrak, which moved its HQ from Dallas to Austin a couple years ago, plans to use its new capital, in part, “to scale go-to-market activities in sales, marketing, and channels, and expand platform capabilities using [artificial intelligence]-driven analytics to help companies better understand and optimize how digital work gets done,” according to the funding announcement.
Austin-based robotic cleaning startup Maidbot raised a Series B funding round, although it didn't disclose the amount. The funding comes from Reckitt Benckiser, or RB, which is a big player in the hygiene market with brands including Lysol. An announcement says the two companies will develop innovative commercial cleaning solutions together. Also in on the round was Octave Ventures, a Peter Thiel-backed firm that led Maidbot's Series A. The startup was founded in 2015 by CEO Micah Estis Green, a 24-year-old who got the idea for a robotic cleaner while working as a room attendant at The Statler Hotel on Cornell University's campus. Green later moved the company to Austin.
Resideo Technologies, a spinoff from Honeywell that's focused on smart home devices and put its HQ in Austin in 2018, said it would 17M shares of its common stock, which could raise hundreds of millions, though it hasn't set a price on the shares yet. It plans to use the funds to repay borrowings and potential acquisitions.
Stealthy edtech startup Didactic reported raising $4.3M in equity funding from 46 investors. The startup is led by co-founders Gagan Biyani, who was a co-founder of online corse provider Udemy, and Wes Kao, who co-founded altMBA along with Seth Godin. Though still in stealth mode, the startup says it is creating a platform for cohort-based courses. In an online post, the company also noted its lead investor was First Round Capital's Bill Trenchard, and it listed other investors here, including Backstage Capital founder Arlan Hamilton, AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant and Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph and his son, Logan.
Austin customer incentives startup Buzz Points reported raising $874K in new equity funding. Back in 2017, we reported that Buzz Points raised $3.7M in debt funding, which followed a $2.9M round of equity funding that same year. Crunchbase shows the company has raised $4.7M in total, which doesn't appear to include the most recent round. Buzz Points was founded in 2009 and is led by CEO Dwayne Spradlin.
AppBrilliance, an Austin startup that helps businesses bypass traditional payment processes, raised $3M in seed funding to build out its technology. The company, founded by C. Eric Smith, David Fruhling and Sergio Ayestaran, plans to use the new funding to grow its sales and engineering teams. The round was led by New York-based Studio VC, with participation of other, unnamed fintech investors.
Solar storage solution company Yotta Solar Inc. closed on a $5M seed round backed by Fiftysix Investments, EDP Ventures, Skyview Ventures and other undisclosed investors. The company was founded in 2017 and is run by CEO Omeed Badkoobeh.
Spruce, an on-demand housekeeping and services startup that moved from Houston to Austin last year, raised $8M in Series A funding to continue its geographical expansion. Houston-based Mercury Fund led the investment, with participation from San Francisco-based firm Sweat Equity Partners. The startup previously raised a $3M round in 2019 led by New Jersey-based Fitz Gate Ventures, along with Mercury Fund, Capital Factory and the Houston Angel Network. It also raised a $2M round in 2018.
TelcoDR, a startup that helps telecom businesses move to the public cloud, reported raising $5M in new equity funding. The company is led by founder Danielle Royston, who was previously CEO of Optiva. Prior to that, Royston was a management consultant at Upland Software and a portfolio CEO at ESW Capital, according to her LinkedIn account.
Flourish Change, an Austin startup that helps nonprofits with round-up fundraising campaigns, reported raising $2.1M in equity funding. The company, led by CEO Braden Fineberg, acquired a similar Austin startup, RoundUp App, in March this year for an undisclosed price.
Ambiq Micro, maker of low-power semiconductors that work in wearables, chip cards and IoT devices, reported raising $55.8M in new equity funding, per an SEC filing. The company was co-founded by Scott Hanson, Dennis Sylvester and David Blaauw in 2010. The company had previously raised $131.8M, according to Crunchbase. Prior investors include Kleiner Perkins, Arm Holdings and EDBI.
Mergers and acquisitions
Austin-based IT solutions company Spiceworks Ziff Davis said it acquired Aberdeen, a behavior-based marketing company based in Waltham, Mass. No word on the financial details. For now, Aberdeen will operate independently as a wholly-owned subsidiary and division of SWZD.
Austin's Zilker Technology, a digital consulting and customer experiences startup, was acquired by Ernst & Young for an undisclosed price. The company, founded in 2014 and led by co-founder and CEO Rob Thomas, reported raising $2.5M in equity funding in 2019. And in 2018, it announced a strategic investment from Cleveland-based private equity firm Next Sparc. Zilker now has 360 employees across offices in Austin, Cleveland, San Francisco, Serbia and India.
Austin-based digital health startup Point Health moved to acquire The Karis Group, an Austin-based health care navigation and bill negotiation company that was founded in 1996. The two combined companies will be called Point Health in Q1 next year. Terms of the deal weren't announced. Point Health is led by The Karis Group's CEO, Matt Dale. In a Twitter video, Dale said Point Health is a startup he's been working on for about eight months. Dale was VP of strategic planning at The Karis Group before becoming CEO in March this year, according to his LinkedIn page.
Austin-based Your Fare, a platform that helps restaurants manage and track online orders, acquired local digital marketing startup Beyond4 to enhance its suite of tools for restaurants. Beyond4 offers its clients the ability to target their customers with tailored messaging through SMS and email, a service that will allow Your Fare to build towards being a one-stop-shop for restaurants.
Austin-based work management software company Planview is being acquired by private equity firm TPG Capital for $1.6B. The company's existing majority shareholder, Thoma Bravo, will retain a minority stake. Planview, which has more than 700 employees and is led by CEO Greg Gilmore, was acquired by Thoma Bravo in 2017 for an undisclosed price. Planview was founded in 1989. Its most recent big move was the acquisition of Austin-based AI work management startup Aptage in July.
Austin legal and compliance software company Mitratech is acquiring California- and India-based INSZoom, which provides management solutions for law firms and nonprofits working on immigration cases. It's one of several acquisitions for the company, founded in 1987, this year. It scooped up Acuity ELM in September, Tracker Corp in July, CMPG Risk Solutions in June and ClusterSeven in January.
Austin auto body repair software startup Mobile Tech RX made another acquisition, this time scooping up fellow Austin startup Claimbot for an undisclosed price. Claimbot, co-founded by CEO Miguel Fernandez and CTO Kristian Muñiz in 2016, has a virtual chat engine used by automotive and insurance professionals to communicate about claim filings, roadside assistance and payments.
Austin-based government digitization company Calytera is being acquired from Austin-based BuildGroup by Granicus, a civic engagement company with offices in St. Paul, Denver, Washington, D.C., and the U.K. Terms of the deal weren't revealed. Calytera, founded in 1989, is led by Double Line Partners founder Zeynep Young, who was appointed as CEO in April.
Venture capital firm activity
Fixx, a Toronto-based AI computerized maintenance management system company, is being acquired by Rockwell Automation Inc. Fiix, founded in 2008, is partially backed by Austin-based BuildGroup, which was an investor in Fixx's $12M round in 2018. Terms of the acquisition weren't released.
Women@Austin, a nonprofit organization founded by Jan Ryan in 2014, is rebranding as Beam to match the name of its affiliated Beam Angel Network. Along with that news, it announced it has secured $1.1M in commitments from investors and community partners to fuel women-led startups in Texas, which is an expansion from its prior Austin focus. Investors in the fund include Notley, LiveOak Venture Partners, The Artemis Fund, Logic Monitor CEO Kevin McGibben and Saurabh Khetrapal through his family office. If you're interested in seeking funding, now's the time to get going. Beam has already received more than 100 applications, with nine companies being vetted currently. Beam expects to announce its startup investments early next year.
