Humane, co-founded by Imran Chaudhri, reportedly raised $100 million in new funding.
Bay Area venture activity continues to be slow and mostly focused on earlier stage startups.
At midweek, just six companies from the region announced they'd raised new rounds. More than half of the $235 million total tally was raised by two companies: Humane Inc., which was started by a husband-and-wife team who previously worked at Apple Inc.; and Shef Inc., one of the startups Bay Area Inno last year named a Startup to Watch.
Here are the details on those deals and other Bay Area venture and startup news:
Fundings
- Humane Inc., San Francisco, $100 million, Series C: Kindred Ventures led the round for this startup that's working on an artificial intelligence-powered consumer device, according to The Wall Street Journal. Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI LLC CEO Sam Altman also participated.
- Shef Inc., San Francisco, $66.5 million, Series B: CRV led the round for this provider of a service that delivers food prepared by home-based chefs. Andreessen Horowitz and Amex Ventures also invested.
- Banyan Infrastructure Corp., San Francisco, $25 million, Series B: Energize Ventures led the round for provider of a service that connects developers of clean energy projects with financing providers. SE Ventures, Ulu Ventures, VoLo Earth and Elemental Excelerator also participated.
- Kresus Labs Inc., San Francisco, $25 million, Series A: Liberty City Ventures, JetBlue Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Craft Ventures invested in the round for this developer of a cryptocurrency wallet.
- Geothermic Solution Inc. (dba XGS Energy), Palo Alto, $14 million, Series A: Anzu Partners led the round for this developer of geothermal heating and power generating systems.
- Inigo Labs Inc., Palo Alto, $4.5 million: Engineering Capital and Hetz Ventures led the round for this provider of software tools used to help developers incorporate and manage the GraphQL data query language in their apps. NextGen Venture Partners also invested.
M&A
- Luminate Capital Partners purchased a majority stake in Ease Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Luminate is a San Francisco-based private equity firm. Based in San Clemente, Ease offers software that helps manufacturers audit production at their plants.
- Pavion Corp. acquired Netronix Integration Inc. The companies didn't disclose the financial details of the transaction. Based in San Jose, Netronix is a provider of surveillance cameras, access control devices and intercoms for building security systems. Virginia-based Pavion offers fire alarm and security systems for buildings. It's a portfolio company of Wind Point Partners, a private equity firm headquarted in Chicago.
Funders in the news
- Salesforce Ventures launched a $250 million fund targeted at investing in startups working on generative artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. Salesforce Ventures is the venture wing of San Francisco-based Salesforce.com Inc.
- Lightspeed Venture Partners hired Sebastian Duesterhoeft as a partner. Before joining the Menlo Park-based venture capital firm, Duesterhoeft was a general partner with Coatue Management.
- GV hired KJ Sidberry as a principal. Before joining the Mountain View outfit, which is Alphabet Inc.'s early-stage venture arm, Sidberry held the same role at Forerunner Ventures.
