Fashion Startup Shuts Down | Marriott Invests in Boston Travel Tech | New Onshape CMO

Dylan: The first time I heard of PlacePass, the Boston travel startup invaded my office with a gang of Pokemon, without warning (no, for real, check out this Periscope I took of what happened). Now the startup has come onto my radar once again, but this time it's a far bigger deal and far less gimmicky.

Global hotel chain Marriott International is leading a Series A financing round for PlacePass, co-founder and Chief Brand Officer Emily Bernard told me in an email Tuesday. Marriott announced its investment earlier today.

KG: Bernard declined to disclose the amount of the Series A, saying that the round is still open. She said some angel investors from the startup's seed round — whose amount was also not disclosed — are returning for the Series A. While she did not name any of the investors' names, she said they are from the travel, hospitality and tech industries.

Dylan: PlacePass provides a meta-search service for in-destination experiences, ranging from hiking trips and cruises to food tours and bundle passes for multiple events — basically, cool things to do wherever you go. As part of Marriott's investment in PlacePass, it will add more than 100K of these experiences across 800 destinations to the membership portals of the hotel chain's websites and apps.

KG: PlacePass is a good example of how corporate investors can bring more than just capital and domain expertise than regular VCs. In this case, Marriott is providing what appears to be a crucial partnership and a new way for PlacePass to reach new users. The startup already had a handful of other partners, including Ticketmaster, Viator and Intrepid Urban Adventures. Read more: Marriott Invests in Boston Travel Startup to Help You Find Cool Things to Do

Dylan: Some sad news to share: Fashion rental startup Date My Wardrobe is shutting down. When it re-launched last year, it pivoted away from the peer-to-peer rental model that got it started in 2013. The latest iteration of the app, which I wrote about last summer, focused on creating a rental marketplace for local fashion designers that also let you buy the clothes.

I thought it was a smart idea because unlike its major competitor in New York, Rent the Runway, it was an asset-light business in the same way that local fast-growing startups Drizly and ezCater are.

I reached out to Amrita Aviyente, the startup's founder who was previously a senior software engineer at Fidelity Investments, but I haven't' heard back yet. I wish her the best with whatever comes next.

KG: Now for news of a good exit story: Arctic Sand Technologies — an MIT spinoff company that makes semiconductors for smartphones and other electronics — is getting acquired by a subsidiary of Japan-based Murata Manufacturing Co. for $68M. Not bad considering the startup had only raised $28.6M from investors, including Murata, GE Ventures and Ray Stata.

Dylan: Arctic Sand was in my roundup from last year of Boston-area startups that have been backed by GE.

Dylan: Smack, the Boston startup behind the popular video iMessage app Fam, has raised a $1.8M round from a number of investors, including Flybridge, Boston Seed, Highland, Jason Robins and Wayne Chang.

KG: Even though most of their workforce is in Nantes, France, Akeneo does have a small Boston office and they raised $13M. Akeneo is considered a product information management service – think SKU numbers and paper catalogs that somehow still exist.

Dylan: One more thing that just came into my inbox: Boston Seed is looking to raise $40M for its third fund, according to a new Form D. Portfolio companies from its previous funds include Kinvey, EverTrue, DraftKings, Mylestone and hey, they even invested in us when BostInno was young.

Dylan: First up, two personnel moves I noticed on LinkedIn:

— Mike Schneider is now CMO at BevNET.com after he had a four-month stint as CMO at Apptopia. He previously served the same role for GasBuddy.

— Onshape, a Cambridge-based cloud CAD software provider, has hired Jeff Whatcott as CMO. Whatcott was most recently an SVP at Qwiklabs. He was previously CEO and co-founder at Outlearn, CMO at Brightcove and VP of marketing at Acquia. He also worked at Adobe and Compaq.

KG: Ready4, a mobile test prep startup and 2016 50 on Fire finalist, announced that Steve Isaac has been appointed to its board of directors. Most recently, Isaac founded the Forbes Education Initiative and before that was CEO of EducationDynamics.

KG: If you scrolled over my intro, I repeat: BostInno’s Tech Madness event is officially sold out tonight. We will not be selling tickets at the door.

Dylan: Psst, make sure to get your tickets to BostInno de Mayo because that one will also sell out. It's happening on May 3rd at Tia’s. See all BostInno Approved events here. 

KG: Mike Volpe, CMO of Cybereason and former HubSpot CMO, posted in a blog post this morning about the 4 Disciplines of People Ops. “A great VP of People Ops knows their main goal is to make their company a magnet for game-changing talent. This means not only do you attract talent from other places, but it also keeps these stars at your company and makes it hard for them to leave.”