Colorado startups came out of the gate fast in October, raising about $200 million across seven deals we tracked.
The month was bolstered by big-ticket deals for lawn care startup Sunday, mortgage company Maxwell and an add-on to JumpClouds Series F financing round. It also included some high-profile investors in local companies, as Shawn "Jay-Z " Carter was part of a group of backers of local cannabis retail company Flowhub.
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 October in a roundup below:
Boulder-based lawn care startup Sunday announced a $50 million Series C investment round to build out its line of nontoxic products. The round was led by BOND with participation from Sequoia Capital, Forerunner Ventures and Tusk Ventures. After a busy year highlighted by a Walmart partnership and booming customer interest, founder and CEO Coulter Lewis said the time was right for the fast-growing Boulder startup to bring on capital.
Denver-based Gruvi, a line of non-alcoholic beer and wine, announced a seed capital raise of $2 million. The round was led by Rockies Venture Club with participation from Maple Leaf Angels and Head and Heart Capital. Gruvi said it will use the capital to grow its team, increase its distribution and continue to innovate on its non-alcoholic products.
Denver-based digital mortgage startup Maxwell is looking to capitalize on a growing lending space by bringing on $52.5 million in new funding. The round was led by Fin VC with participation from Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, along with existing investors Prudence, Rotor Capital and TTV Capital. Maxwell, which was founded in 2015, has created a platform for local and regional lenders aimed at introducing more transparency and equality to the mortgage market.
Flowhub, a Denver-based cannabis retail software company, announced a $19 million capital raise that included a personal investment from Jay-Z. The financing was led by venture firms Headline and Poseidon. The point-of-sale company said the strategic funding would allow it to expand into emerging markets, develop its product line and grow its social equity program, which has already given away $1 million in software products to eligible cannabis entrepreneurs. Carter, who in 2019 launched his own high-end cannabis brand, Monogram, also runs The Parent Company's social equity venture fund, which invests in minority-led cannabis opportunities.
One month after the initial close of its Series F financing round, Colorado’s JumpCloud is back with an additional $66 million in capital to bring the raise to $225 million. The Series F round led by Sapphire Ventures includes additional strategic investment from Atlassian Ventures, CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, NTT Docomo Ventures, Inc., STEADFAST Capital Ventures, Waterman Ventures and OurCrowd. The additional $66M funding brings JumpCloud’s total capital raised to over $400M and boosts the company’s valuation to $2.625 billion.
Denver-based NCS Analytics, a high-risk data analytics startup, announced an $11 million Series A financing round led by Baseline Ventures. NCS, which was founded in 2015, provides data analytics solutions, in industries like cannabis, for the government and financial sectors.
Denver-based Impressio was one of three startups to receive funding from the the NFL Helmet Challenge, a $3 million competition designed to accelerate helmet performance and safety for professional football players. After two years of work, 13 companies submitted their new helmet prototypes for laboratory testing and evaluation by a judging panel. Impressio, along with Montreal-based Kollide and Detroit-based Xenith, were selected and will split $1.55 million in grant funding to advance their designs.
