As we cross the halfway point of 2021, Colorado's hot streak for venture capital activity rolls on.
We tracked 17 deals totaling nearly $370 million in June, which topped May's total of $260 million across 14 fundings. The month was highlighted by big-money deals for Denver edtech unicorn Guild Education and fintech mortgage lender Accept.inc.
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 June in a roundup below:
Denver’s Guild Education announced a $150 million Series E financing round, bringing the company’s valuation to roughly $3.75 billion. The company first hit unicorn status following its Series D financing round in November 2019.
Opopop, a stealthy popcorn startup launched with a mission to create a “high-speed automation system” for the industry. While they’re still working on a variety of products behind the scenes, including that one, Opopop made its first public appearance this spring. The company announced a $5 million Series A funding round in June that was led by Valor Siren Ventures and brought the company's pre-launch funding from seed and Series A rounds to $11.6 million.
Denver-based outdoor luxury startup Collective Retreats announced that it has raised a $23 million Series C funding round. The round was led by New York-based investment firm Fireside Investments, outdoor marketplace Outdoorsy and featured participation from existing investors including Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
For nearly three years, Boulder’s Scythe Robotics stayed in stealth developing autonomous technology for the landscaping industry. Founded in 2018 by Jack Morrison, Isaac Roberts and Davis Foster, Scythe has quietly been building a fully autonomous, electric lawnmower for commercial projects. The team has iterated four different mowers and is now emerging from stealth with the momentum of a $13.8 million Series A funding round.
Colorado’s ThreatX, a web application security startup, announced it has raised $10 million in funding to expand its operations and open a new U.S. office. The capital comes at a crucial time for the Lousiville-based company, as a new study from Gartner predicts that more than 30% of public-facing web applications and APIs will be protected by services like ThreatX by 2023. That is nearly double the current percentage of companies being protected.
A local medical device startup has secured $10.1 million in financing as it prepares for the FDA to approve its product. EvoEndo is a gastroenterology company with a pediatric focus that has developed a single-use product designed for children who undergo endoscopies. An endoscopy is a procedure where an imaging scope can be inserted into the body through the mouth or the nose. The company's technology is designed to make a more comfortable experience for its patients and bypass their gag reflex.
Accept.inc, a Denver-based fintech mortgage lender, has raised $90 million in debt and equity to scale its platform, double its team and enter new markets. Accept.inc had declared itself an “iLender” — a technology-enabled lender that helps buyers who qualify for a mortgage submit all-cash offers on a home at no additional cost. The company was previously named to Colorado Inno's 21 Startups to Watch list at the end of 2020.
Arryved, a Boulder-based point-of-sale-system provider specializing in breweries and local restaurants, expects to accelerate its ongoing growth after receiving a $20 million funding round, the company announced. The announcement is just the latest bit of positive news for the 5-year-old company, which has doubled its customer base since the beginning of 2020 while its introduced new products that helped brewers push more online sales and adjust to coronavirus pandemic conditions.
At its core, Guest House is a tech-enabled home staging company. The company has three core pillars to its business: stage, shop and sell. Interior designers provide in-person installations at for-sale homes using products from brands including Crate & Barrel, Joybird, Burrow and hundreds of local makers. Guest House announced on June 8 that it would be raising a $3 million seed funding round led by Denver’s Range Ventures. The round featured additional participation from Ludlow Ventures, 87 Capital, Rucker Park Capital, V1 Ventures, Break Trail Ventures and more.
Boulder-based Electrasteel, a startup with a mission to electrify and decarbonize iron and steelmaking using intermittent renewable energy, raised $28 million in equity funding from eight investors, according to a Form D filing. The company recently emerged from stealth and is led by founder and CEO Sandeep Nijhawan.
Denver-based cloud security startup Todyl raised $3.6 million in equity funding from seven investors, according to a Form D filing. The company helps distributed teams stay protected in today's virtual world.
Hyperia, a Denver startup that turns customer conversations into insights, has raised $1 million in equity funding from four investors, according to a Form D filing. The company uses machine learning to analyze voice, video and text business communications.
Denver-based space startup Atomos has raised $2.1 million in equity funding from 17 investors, according to a Form D filing. The company, which went through Techstars Boulder in 2019, uses high-powered electric propulsion space tugs to move satellites to any orbit beyond low Earth orbit.
Evergreen-based Phylum, a software supply chain security startup, emerged from stealth with $4.5 million in seed funding. Phylum's technology helps companies defend their systems by identifying risk across the entire software supply chain.
Littleton-based cybersecurity startup Ntrinsec raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Fulton, Maryland's DataTribe. Ntrinsec, which was founded in 2020, aims to protect businesses of all sizes from data exfiltration due and security breaches.
Denver-based workwear startup Truewerk has raised just over $2 million in funding to grow its production and inventory capacity. The company, which was founded in 2015, makes and sells apparel for blue-collar workers.
Golden's Wowza Media Systems, a streaming infrastructure company, announced that it has received a "significant investment" from software and technology private equity firm Clearhaven Partners. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, Wowza said its management team remains a significant part of the business. After launching in 2007, Wowza has more than 6K active live streaming customers worldwide.
