From Cogito''s website.
New Money is BostInno's report on all the tech funding deals this week. Check back for updates with more new money. Or, get a daily dose of Boston funding news via email in The Beat. Sign up here.
Cogito (Boston)
- Amount raised: $5.5 million in equity
- Investors: Two undisclosed investors.
- Details: Founded in 2007, the company develops software that analyzes the behavior of phone professionals and gives them realtime feedback to "deliver a more engaging and caring customer experience," according to its website. The Form D filed by the company this week indicates the sale of the $5.5 million offering closed in late October.
MorphLab (Cambridge)
- Amount raised: $750,000 in equity
- Investors: Nine undisclosed investors.
- Details: MorphLab appears to be an MIT spinout. According to its F6S profile, the startup is "creating scalable technologies that enable the effortless reconfiguration of interior spaces, with a focus on solutions to dramatically increase the efficiency, affordability, and functionality of urban micro-apartments." The Form D filed by the startup this week indicates the sale of the $750,000 offering closed in September.
Eager (Cambridge)
- Amount raised: $1 million seed round
- Investors: Round led by Charles River Ventures.
- Details: Founded by former HubSpot employees Adam Schwartz and Zack Bloom, Eager develops an app store that lets non-technical website owners add new features, like image sliders and loading bars, to their site, streamlining a process that typically involves a lot of code. The Boston Business Journal reported that the startup plans to use the seed funds to scale and develop the app store platform. We wrote about them last year.
CrowdComfort (Somerville)
- Amount: $1.4 million
- Investors: 15 angel investors, led by Jeffrey Chizmas, owner and CEO of investment firm Chizmas Holding Company
- Details: The Greentown Labs-based company has developed a messaging app that lets employees convey when they’ve encountered a problem in the office to the right person. The startup has also come up with an indoor mapping approach that relays the precise location where the issue is taking place. Companies that are using CrowdComfort include GE, National Grid, Massachusetts College of Art & Design and Taconic Investments (at Google in New York)
Echolor (Maynard, Mass.)
- Amount raised: $822,500 in debt
- Investors: 18 undisclosed investors.
- Details: Founded in 2001, Echolor has developed "proprietary ballast water treatment systems that have been specifically designed to safely and economically eliminate the worldwide transfer of aquatic invasive species." The Form D filed by the company this week indicates the company raised $822,500 out of a total $2.5 million debt offering. The date of the offering's first sale closed on Oct. 27.
QED Labs (Billerica, Mass.)
- Amount raised: $3 million
- Investors: 10 undisclosed investors.
- Details: Founded in 2009, QED Labs "is an early stage startup developing hardware and software systems leveraging the incredible computational power of today's GPUs, according to its website. The tech targets "military embedded sensor systems where GPU use can decrease power draw, lower weight and decrease size, while providing orders of magnitude computational improvement over existing systems." The Form D filed by the startup this week indicates the sale of the $3 million offering closed at the beginning of October.
BeaconsInSpace (Boston)
- Amount raised: $150,000 in debt
- Investors: Nine undisclosed investors. DataXu CEO Mike Baker possibly included.
- Details: We hinted in last Friday's BostInno Beat that DataXu CEO Mike Baker is leading a BOSS syndicate round for BeaconsInSpace, a Boston-based startup that lets app developers rent wireless transmitting beacons (aka indoor GPS). A Form D filed by the startup this week shows that it has raised $150,000 out of a $400,000 debt offering. That means it has $250,000 left to raise, according to this filing.
M.Gemi (Boston)
- Amount raised: $18 million, on top of $14 million it had previously.
- Investors: Accel Partners, plus earlier investors including General Catalyst Partners, Forerunner Ventures and Breakaway.
- Details: After officially launching in late March, designer shoe startup M.Gemi – helmed by Ben Fischman of Lids and Rue La La fame – has enjoyed swift growth largely on the back of pushing quality and limited-run exclusivity. The direct-to-consumer luxury footwear brand started with women's shoes but, according to BetaBoston, will be expanding to offer men's shoes in 2016. And that's a win for everyone. As Fischman told us in March, “These shoes will stand up to any shoe made anywhere in the world.”
Green D Angels II (Dartmouth College)
- Amount: More $1.5 million committed
- Investors: Nearly 50 Dartmouth College alumni.
- Details: Launch Angels is a Boston firm that helps alumni raise funds to support startups connected to their alma mater. It announced Thursday morning that it completed the initial close of its second fund for Dartmouth College-connected, early-stage startups, called the Green D Angels. (The fund is not affiliated with Dartmouth, however.) While nearly 50 Dartmouth alumni have already committed more than $1.5 million to the Green D Angels, the fund expects to have 100 alums participating by the time of its final close in early 2016. Michael Collins, lead manager of the fund, said he expects the fund to make 10 to 15 deals a year, with each investment ranging from $100,000 to $500,000. Launch Angels is also raising funds for ventures connected to Yale College and the University of New Hampshire.
SnapApp (Boston)
- Amount: $12 million, Series A Round
- Investors: Providence Equity Partners
- Details: SnapApp develops a SaaS platform that lets B2B marketers create, publish, manage and measure interactive content, which includes calculators, quizzes, interactive infographics and interactive videos. The startup said it will use this round of funding to make its content more accessible to marketing "without the time and expense of custom development or agency outsourcing," according to its press release. SnapApp's platform has integrations with Oracle, Salesforce, HubSpot and other marketing tech companies. "The SnapApp team has invested deeply in understanding and meeting the needs of B2B marketers focused on delivering ROI,” Mark Hastings, partner at Providence Equity, said in a statement. "The platform is a key addition to the marketing technology stack, serving as a bridge between content creation activities and business metrics. We believe that experiences will increasing be front and center for marketers of all shapes and sizes and SnapApps impressive traction is proving that out."
Handy (New York; local investors in the round)
- Amount: $50 million
- Investors: Fidelity Management and Research Company of Boston (led the round); taking part were TPG Ventures, General Catalyst, Highland Capital and Revolution Growth
- Details: The on-demand cleaning service startup was founded in Boston by students at Harvard Business School in 2012, originally as Handybook. The company has now raised about $111 million in funding, and is valued at $500 million, according to TechCrunch. The company's plan will be "to invest more in the 28 markets where it is already active — they include major cities across the U.S., plus some international markets like London — before expanding to new cities and countries at the end of 2016," TechCrunch reported.
Confer Technologies (Boston)
- Amount: $17 million, Series B round
- Investors: Foundation Capital (led the round), Matrix Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners
- Details: Confer offers sensors for monitoring for cyberattacks and software that analyzes the behaviors, with the goal of letting customers detect, prevent and investigate attacks. The company employs 30 in Massachusetts and is planning to use the funding in part to double that headcount over the next 12 months. Confer has now raised $25 million in total funding since its launch in 2013. Press release.
ClearSky Data (Boston)
- Amount: $27 million, Series B round
- Investors: Polaris Partners (led the round), Akamai Technologies, General Catalyst, Highland Capital Partners
- Details: ClearSky has launched what it calls a global storage network, with the goal of dramatically simplifying the way companies manage their data while also cutting costs. The company has launched its service in the Boston, Philadelphia and Las Vegas regions, and plans to begin expanding to additional geographies soon, co-founder/CEO Ellen Rubin said. Leading the deal for Polaris is managing partner Dave Barrett, who is joining the ClearSky board. Andy Champagne, VP and CTO at Akamai Labs, will join as a board observer. ClearSky has now raised $39 million in total. Story.
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