A diverse group of companies announced funding rounds this month, from a 3D printing giant to an insurtech “unicorn” to property tech startups. By our count, Boston-area companies raised around $1.12 billion in October. Last month was also big in the venture capital scene, with companies bringing in about $1.7 billion. In August local companies raised about $843 million.
Of the total amount of venture capital raised this month, Black-led and founded companies in Massachusetts raised around 1.4% of the total capital. This estimate is based on companies’ diversity spotlight tags on Crunchbase. No other companies that raised capital this month noted diverse founding teams.
Read about out all the deals, including links to our coverage or to the company’s announcements:
Software
ZeroRISC, a Boston commercial cloud security company, launched with $5 million in seed funding led by Cambridge Angels.
OkamiAI Inc., a Boston-based startup incorporated earlier this year by the former Cybereason co-founders, raised over $36 million.
Creative Force raised $8.9 million in Series A funding from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark and Hearst Ventures. The company is co-located in Boston and Denmark and provides an end-to-end creative operations workflow platform for e-commerce retailers and brands.
Property tech
HqO’s latest round is over $50M in Series D funding. The Boston property technology company was backed by Koch Real Estate Investments, a subsidiary of Koch Industries.
Propify, a Boston property tech startup, closed a $3.3 million seed round led by venture capital firm Prudence. Other investors included Y Combinator and HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah.
Biotech
DermBiont announced a $35.2 million Series B financing. The clinical-stage biotechnology company is making topical therapeutics for the treatment of dermatological conditions.
Fintech
Lendbuzz, a fintech company with about 100 local employees, also joined the "unicorn" club thanks to an investment round worth an overall $345 million.
Boston insurtech Boundless Rider Insurance Agency LLC closed $4.25 million in additional capital.
Cleantech
Electric Hydrogen Co. said it raised a $380 million Series C round, boosting its valuation to over $1 billion.
The Somerville startup Eden is developing new technology to replace traditional hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, which uses high-pressure water injection to break apart underground rock to extract natural gas and oil. The startup’s electrical reservoir stimulation technology breaks up rocks using electrical pulses. Eden raised a $12 million seed round this month.
Somerville-based SparkCharge was accepted to the Elemental Excelerator cohort, a nonprofit investor in climate technology, and received a $1 million investment.
Perch Energy, a Boston community solar servicer that connects solar developers with consumers, announced a $30 million investment from Nuveen.
Advanced materials/Manufacturing
Wilmington-based Seurat Technologies Inc. received a $99 million Series C venture capital round led by NVentures, the venture capital arm of graphics chips maker Nvidia Corp., and Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
Cambridge-based Osmoses, an industrial separations technology company that purifies gases, raised an oversubscribed $11 million seed round led by Energy Capital Ventures.
Hardware
JetCool Technologies Inc., an MIT spinoff based in Littleton, has attracted investment from "the CIA’s venture-capital firm." The $17 million Series A round will fuel the company’s cooling solution for computer hardware.
Funds
Boston-based Wellington Management announced the final close of a new early-stage venture fund, known as Wellington Venture Investments I. The fund has $150M in commitments and will invest in underrepresented founders.
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