Allen Chamberland is a papercut artist who is featured on ArtLifting.
Get a daily dose of Boston funding news in The Beat. Sign up here. New Money is BostInno's report on all the tech funding deals this week. Check back for updates with more new money.
KICVentures (Malden)
- Amount: $300,000 in debt, according to a Form D filing.
- Investor: One unidentified investor.
- Details: KICVentures is a health-tech VC firm. The Form D filing shows the $300,000 is part of a $20M fund it's looking to raise, meaning it still has another $19.7M to go. The firm's portfolio companies include SenseDriver, AxioMed, Prove Yourself, Less Institute, Spine Frontier and HealthTech Venture Network.
QD Vision (Lexington)
- Amount: $14.7M in equity, according to a Form D filing.
- Investor: Two unidentified investors.
- Details: QD Vision develops quantum dot technology for QLED displays, what it says is a "superior next-generation alternative to LED and OLED displays." The company, which was founded in 2004 by MIT researchers, raised an $8.6M round and a $28.8M round earlier this year.
Desktop Metal (Cambridge)
- Amount: $14M, according to Scott Kirsner.
- Investor: New Enterprise Associates, Kleiner Perkins, Founder Collective, Lux Capital and Bolt.
- Details: As we told you in the BostInno Beat in September, Desktop Metal is a metal 3D-printing startup that was founded by Ric Fulop, formerly of North Bridge Venture Partners; MIT Materials Science head Chris Schuh; and Yet-Ming Chiang, Fulop's co-founder at A123 Systems.
Litmus (Cambridge)
- Amount: $49M
- Investor: Spectrum Equity
- Details: The funding is the first major round for Litmus, which provides testing and tracking for email campaigns, since its founding in 2005. We covered the debut of a new email testing product from Litmus earlier this month, and in 2013 I covered Litmus as an example of a Boston company that was successfully bootstrapping. “We’ve always liked having complete control of our direction,” Litmus founder Paul Farnell told me at the time. The new funding will be used to expand Litmus' 40-person team, according to a blog post from Farnell. As for why the company decided to take outside funding now, Farnell said the money "will allow us to lead the industry and bring the next generation of email design and analytics tools to marketers. We’ll be able to make investments in our product without any boundaries."
ArtLifting (Boston)
- Amount: $1.1M seed round
- Investors: Blake Mycoskie (TOMS Shoes founder), Eric Ries (The Lean Startup author), angel investor Joanne Wilson, entrepreneur Jeremy Hinman, and San Francisco-based urban impact accelerator Tumml
- Details: ArtLifting is an online art marketplace that provides homeless, disabled and other disadvantaged people an outlet for selling their artwork. We profiled the company, which also has deals with the likes of Staples and Harvard, last month. The seed funding marks the first outside investment for ArtLifting since its founding in 2013 by Liz Powers and her brother, Spencer. ArtLifting is also launching a new website today.
