Even as the weather gets warmer, startup funding cooled a bit in Colorado in July.
We tracked eight deals totaling $273 million in July, marking a drop in activity from June's 17 deals totaling nearly $370 million.
Despite that drop, local health tech companies stole the show last month, with multiple big deals and the crowning of a new local unicorn.
We cover funding rounds, acquisitions and other transactions in our daily newsletter, The Beat. You can sign up for that here. We gathered some of the state’s top fundings from July in a roundup below:
Oregon-based health network Providence has made a strategic investment in Denver’s RxRevu to further expand the cost-saving solution. RxRevu announced that it raised $8 million in funding from the health network’s investment arm, marking the second segment of capital the local startup has raised this year. In January, RxRevu announced a $7 million Series B funding round, led by JAZZ Venture Partners.
Colorado has a new technology unicorn, as a rising star in the behavioral health field now totes a $1 billion valuation. Denver’s SonderMind announced a $150 million Series C financing round that was co-led by new investors Drive Capital and Premji Invest, with participation from General Catalyst, Partners Group, Smash Ventures, Kickstart Fund and F-Prime Capital. The Series C funding increases SonderMind’s total capital raised to date to $183 million, with nearly all of that being raised in the last 18 months. A source close to the company confirmed the $1 billion valuation and unicorn status.
After growing up in Denver, John Goscha left nearly two decades ago to begin building businesses on the East Coast. He landed in Boston and founded two companies that raised nearly $125 million in venture capital. Now, he’s back in his home state to capitalize on the momentum of the local innovation scene and build his next venture. He launched Native Voice, an on-demand voice services library that puts your favorite brands in one place. To fuel that growing product, Native Voice announced the close of its $14 million seed funding round.
Sweater, a Boulder-based startup empowering people to become investors, announced that it has closed on an oversubscribed $2.3 million pre-seed financing round. The round, with participation from Motivate VC, MRTNZ Ventures, Bison Ventures, Spacestation Investments and a group of angels, will be used to further develop Sweater's venture investing platform and accelerate its go-to-market strategy. More on the funding and Sweater's upcoming platform here.
Boulder-based Meati Foods, previously known as Emergy, raised $50 million in Series B funding to grow its plant-based protein products. According to a Forbes story, much of this capital will go toward completing construction on an 80K-square-foot production plant, ahead of the company's commercial launch in 2022. Meati, which employed about 30 people when DBJ covered the company in May, has been developing its protein product to resemble cuts of meat, creating the food mainly from fermented mycelium, the root base of mushrooms. More on the funding here.
For first-time founder Shannon Erley, beauty-tech startup Pomp brought together a mix of her professional experience with a gap she saw in the market. With a general frustration from people over their skincare regimen, she sought to create a virtual platform to provide expert consultations. Erley and Pomp announced that they have raised an oversubscribed $1.5M seed funding round. Pomp closed its seed funding on April 15 led by FirstMile Ventures, with follow-on participation from Kickstart Ventures, SpringTime Ventures, GAN Ventures and Service Provider Capital.
Denver-based health monitoring startup BioIntelliSense announced that it has closed its Series B financing round at an oversubscribed $45 million. The funding will be used to support BioIntelliSense's global expansion of its medical-grade wearable devices and data services for remote care. The company's BioSticker is the first FDA-cleared single-use medical device that enables 30 days of continuous vital signs monitoring. More on the round here.
Denver-based Mentor Spaces, a mentorship community for underrepresented talent, has raised $2.5 million in equity funding. The American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact(AmFam Institute) led the round, with participation from ECMC, Portfolia, Rethink Education, Service Provider Capital and The Social Entrepreneurs' Fund. The company, which went through the Techstars Workforce Development Accelerator program in 2020, helps other organizations scale their diversity and inclusion efforts through virtual mentorship.
