Clockwise from top left, Cybric''s founders are Ernesto DiGiambattista, Mike Kail, Andrew Gilman and Sean Walter.
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.
Mavrck (Boston)
- Amount: $5 million
- Investors: Kepha Partners and GrandBanks Capital.
- Details: This is Mavrck's largest round to date, bringing total funding to $8.3 million. The Boston-based startup provides a "micro-influencer" marketing platform that lets consumer brands like Gillette and Hershey's drive word-of-mouth at scale through social media. It said the new funding, which will be used to accelerate growth, is among other significant milestones this year, including the opening of its new headquarters. The startup has also nearly tripled the size of its team this year. "Mavrck is transforming digital marketing and advertising through its ability to drive measureable conversions on social and deliver authentic, targeted audience engagement independent of ad-blocking software and changes to social networks’ algorithms,” Jo Tango, founder and partner at Kepha Partners said in a statement. "As consumers’ use of social media continues to grow and mature, the company’s white-label micro-influencer marketing platform is one of the most effective ways to help brands reach their target customers and drive real business results."
Appcast (Lebanon, N.H.)
- Amount: $5 million
- Investors: Round led by Point Judith Capital, a new investor. Also received participation by IrishAngels, another new investor, and Baird Capital, an existing investor.
- Details: Founded in 2014, the Lebanon, N.H.-based company provides a pay-per-applicant job ad exchange. It said in a press release that it plans to use the new funding, which brings total investment to $7.4 million, to expand the company's sales, marketing and product development efforts. Sean March, co-founder and general partner of Point Judith Capital, has joined the company's board of directors as a result of the investment. "Appcast has set itself apart in the crowded recruitment technology environment by introducing a new model for how employers source top talent," Marsh said in a statement. "The combination of Appcast's entrepreneurial spirit and disruptive approach to the traditional process of advertising jobs are just some of the reasons we decided to invest."
Authess (Boston)
- Amount: $675,000 seed round
- Investors: Manipal Global Education and various US investors.
- Details: Authess is a Boston-based edtech company developing a new wave of assessment tools. Chris Kaiser, Authess Founder and a biology professor at MIT, recognized that many standardized test formats - such as multiple choice questions - aren't a fair measure of whether students fully comprehend subject material. With this funding, Authess will continue to create new, online and mobile assessment solutions to get a better read on how well students are learning.
Spiro (Boston)
- Amount: $1.5 million seed round
- Investors: Rob Wadsworth, managing director of HarbourVest Partners; Vijay Balan, head of global publisher development at Facebook; Tom Tucker, former CEO of Akibia; Christopher Lochhead, co-founding partner of Play Bigger Advisors; and Omar Hussain, CEO of Imprivata.
- Details: Boston-based Spiro launched a sales app this week "for people who want to make more money." The app "integrates with Salesforce, calendar and CRM to prompt salespeople to call prospects at the right time to move deals along and expand their pipeline." To motivate the salespeople, the app contains more than 2,500 and "seven different funny personalities," ranging from "Jewish Mother to Surfer Dude."
Perfecto Mobile (Woburn)
- Amount: $35 million Series E round
- Investors: Technology Crossover Ventures (led the round), FTV Capital, Carmel Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners and Vertex Ventures
- Details: The company offers mobile app testing and monitoring services that are done remotely, including out of a data center in Wakefield. The new funding will be used for growing the business and expanding into Australia, China, Japan and Toronto, Canada. Perfecto has now raised $92 million since its founding in 2007, and employs 252, with 68 of its employees in Massachusetts.
Cybric (Boston)
- Amount: $1.3 million seed funding
- Investors: Petrillo Capital (led the round), unnamed angel and strategic investors
- Details: Cybric is developing what it calls "continuous security virtualization," which aims to dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to identify and remediate cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The startup is "automating and virtualizing the entire process offline in a shadow environment." The company was launched in June by its four founders. They are CEO Ernesto DiGiambattista (former CTSO of Sentinel Benefits & Security); Chief Innovation Officer Mike Kail (former CIO & Infrastructure SVP at Yahoo); COO Andrew Gilman (former exec at Dell EqualLogic and Actifio); and Chief Design Officer Sean Walter (founder and Chief UI Architect at Actifio).
QD Vision (Lexington)
- Amount: $22 million
- Investors: Tsing Capital (led the round) and BASF Venture Capital (new investor). Existing investors also took part; existing investors include North Bridge Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners and In-Q-Tel.
- Details: The company, which produces quantum dot technology for QLED displays, said it will use the money for growth and development. (We’d previously noted an SEC filing showing $14.7 million in new funding.) QD Vision also announced a new joint development agreement with BASF Group for a quantum dot-enhanced backlight and a color filter for use in LCD displays. The company declined to say how much funding it has raised in total.
Photos courtesy of Cybric.
