The Phoenix startup community is heating up, with venture capital investment on track to beat the numbers from last year. Here's a look at two more companies in the region that have brought in new funding.
Prenexus Health closes Series B
Prenexus Health, maker of prebiotic food ingredients, announced that it has raised $15 million as part of its ongoing Series B funding. This is the first close for this round, with more expected in the coming months. When coupled with additional financing related to the close, Prenexus has secured more than $23 million in expansion funds.
Prenexus manufactures prebiotics, which are the nutrients that the probiotic bacteria in the stomach eat to survive. The funding will be used to expand the company’s manufacturing site in Gilbert, for products that will eventually be sold to food, beverage and supplement makers.
Prenexus moved from California to Arizona back in 2018, and Mike Bush, CEO of Prenexus Health, said that the company now has 25 employees with plans to hire four more in the coming months.
Investors included CIBUS/ADM Capital, Continental Grain, Coalescence Partners, DSM Venturing, ONCE Ventures and PeakBridge.
Bush said the Gilbert site is just a pilot plant now, but the additional funding will help bring it up to commercial scale, where it will produce around 150 kilograms of the product each year.
Dovly raises $3M bridge
Dovly, a Phoenix-based consumer credit repair startup, has raised a $3 million bridge round following its $2.3 million seed from last year. The funding came from NFX, previous lead seed investor out of California, as well as Fawkes Global, 1984 Ventures and Croghan Investments.
Dovly started in 2018 and the company’s software automatically monitors and fixes errors on consumer credit reports, which ultimately raises credit scores. Nirit Rubenstein, co-founder and CEO of Dovly, said that the Covid-19 pandemic put a financial strain on many and the credit effects of the pandemic are likely to materialize in the next year or two.
“Unfortunately, I think that the majority of the ramifications from Covid, we have not yet seen,’ she said. “Credit tends to be a delayed effect.”
During the pandemic Dovly launched a cheaper, introductory product for customers. Rubenstein said aside from actually fixing credit scores, they have had a special focus on educating users about misconceptions and complexities in the world of credit.
The company has 19 employees now, 15 of whom are in Arizona, with two more starting next month and additional open positions on the community engagement team.
Historically, Dovly has worked with other businesses (like fellow fintechs Chime and MoneyLion) to connect with end users, but this bridge funding will also be used to start a marketing campaign to put Dovly directly in front of consumers.
Rubenstein came to Arizona from California and last year she participated in the 2020 StartupAZ Growth Cohort. She said she envisions building Dovly up to be one of the largest employers in the Valley.
“I feel very grateful to have discovered Phoenix; it's like a hidden secret. I think a lot of people coming from California, kind of maybe balk at it, especially Silicon Valley,” she said. “It's truly a great community. And there's some really smart people here, and they just don't come with that attitude, which I love.”
