A car being tested using Nutonomy''s self-driving car software.
Yap Way-J
Get a daily dose of Boston startup 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.
Nutonomy (Cambridge)
- Amount: $3.6 million seed funding
- Investors: Signal Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Fontinalis Partners and Dr. Steven M. LaValle, the former chief scientist of the Oculus Rift.
- Details: Nutonomy is a Cambridge-based startup that is developing advanced software for autonomous vehicles. It plans to use its seed funding to continue working on its software, which is being developed here and in Singapore. The software is also being "integrated and tested by automotive partners in both the U.S. and Europe, with the goal of deploying self-driving features within the next few years," according to its press release. The startup was co-founded by CEO Karl Iagnemma, the director of MIT's Robotic Mobility Group, and CTO Emilio Frazzoli, "who previously directed the first open-to-the-public pilot of on-demand automated vehicles" in Singapore, the press release said.
- Press Release
Insurify (Cambridge)
- Amount: $2 million seed round
- Investor: Rationalwave Capital Partners
- Details: Along with disclosing the funding, Insurify announced that its online marketplace for car insurance has launched out of beta. The site uses predictive modeling and advanced analytics with the aim of improving car insurance shopping online. Insurify also announced a limited public beta release of Evia, a virtual agent that simplifies shopping for car insurance by interacting with users over text messaging. Evia is built on machine learning and natural language processing, and Insurify describes it this way in a news release: “Simply snap a photo of your licence plate, text it to Evia, and she will scour millions of records to verify personal information and driving history, and then deliver policy quotes and recommendations via text message.” Insurify’s CEO/co-founder is Snejina Zacharia, an MIT Sloan Fellow and former director of business development at Gartner, and the startup’s board includes Kayak CTO Giorgos Zacharia.
Vestorly (New York; local investor in the round)
- Amount: $4.1 million Series A round
- Investors: Boston-based Sigma Prime Ventures was called a significant investor in this round. No other investors were disclosed for this round.
- Details: Vestorly provides a data-driven content marketing platform for the financial services industry, and it's client base has grown 150 percent over the past year. The startup plans to use the latest investment, which brings total funding to $6.1 million, to expand enterprise sales and marketing efforts, as well as expand its Torri platform into more vertical markets. The startup's platform uses what it calls "genetic algorithms" and natural language processing to help companies find relevant content for their audiences. Jere Doyle, managing director at Sigma Prime, is joining Vestorly's board in tandem with the new funding. "We are impressed with the size of the potential in the financial services industry given the lack of a modern content marketing solution that resonates with users and their audiences in such an intuitive way," he said. We're thrilled about the future of this company and its opportunities in financial services and beyond."
DataXu (Boston)
- Amount: $10 million
- Investor: Sky, a European entertainment company partially owned by 21st Century Fox that serves 21 million people across the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy.
- Details: Sky announced Monday that it made the investment into DataXu, a Boston-based marketing tech startup that specializes in programmatic advertising software. The company said its DataXu investment was its largest investment to date. Sky said that its ad sales division, Sky Media, "will also work closely with DataXu to explore a number of new opportunities, including extending the reach of Sky Media's revolutionary advertising product, Sky AdVance; leveraging DataXu's market-leading experience in helping advertisers buy addressable TV ads programmatically; and harnessing the power of data and analytics to drive superior marketing results."
- Press Release
