If August was the month of a brief fundraising drought, September delivered the downpour, sending a stream of rounds to the region’s startups.
And we’re tracking them all.
Before digging into the ones you may have missed, here’s a quick sense of that volume. In the District, the roster included clean energy startup Arcadia with $100 million, cognitive technology startup Sorcero with $10 million, financial intelligence startup Sayari Labs with $40 million, maternal health startup Babyscripts with $12 million and mental health startup Rose Health preparing to raise $5 million.
In Maryland, it included Cheverly ed-tech startup Aneta Ed with $280,000 as founder Afua Banful looks to raise another $1 million.
And in Virginia, the month comprised Arlington food tech startup Hungry Marketplace bringing in $21 million, Tysons barbershop booking platform theCut with $4.5 million, Fairfax restaurant management startup MarginEdge with $18 million, McLean identity security company ID.me with $100 million in debt financing and Arlington fintech Rize Money Inc. with $11.4 million.
September also brought some noteworthy activity on the investor side: Vienna’s Aldrich Capital Partners closed its second fund at $450 million and Alexandria’s QED Investors wrapped up two oversubscribed funds totaling $1.05 billion. And Halcyon launched its microloan fund, which is now allocating capital.
Related: All of the fundings through January and February, March and April, May, June, July and August.
Here are some more Greater Washington companies that raised fresh financing in September. If we missed one, let us know.
- 54gene: The D.C. health-tech startup which has a hub in Lagos, Nigeria, said Sept. 16 it has raised $25 million in a round led by Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund out of San Francisco. Adjuvant Capital of New York, KdT Ventures of Austin, Texas, Plexo Capital of San Francisco, Endeavor of New York and Ingressive Capital of Lagos also participated. The funding will enable the business to initiate an expansion across Africa and further advance its research in African genomics, with an eye toward improving health outcomes globally. With this capital injection, 54gene has raised more than $45 million since its 2019 launch.
- Gardyn Inc.: The D.C. homegrown food startup announced Sept. 21 a $5 million investment from JAB Ventures, part of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg-based JAB Holding Co., bringing the company’s total raise in 2021 to $15 million. Gardyn said it plans to further develop its tech platform, speed up customer acquisition and bolster distribution. Gardyn launched in March 2020 before seeing quick growth and demand for its tech, which allows users to grow plants and produce at home using less water.
- Please Assist Me: The local personal assistant startup is among the companies to receive $100,000 from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. It comes just a couple of months after the company secured $500,000 from Atlanta’s Collab Capital, a Black-led firm that raised its first fund totaling $50 million earlier in 2021 from big-name backers including Google, Apple and Goldman Sachs — all earmarked for Black-owned businesses. Please Assist Me, a Fire winner of 2020, has navigated the venture capital waters and found other routes to fundraising.
- HySpecIQ LLC: The Herndon analytics company said Sept. 16 that it closed a Series B funding round with backing from billionaire investor Peter Thiel. Bloomberg reported the size of that investment was $20 million. That money is supporting the development of satellites with cameras for the U.S. government.
- Adaptive Phage Therapeutics Inc.: The Gaithersburg biotech announced Sept. 30 an $8 million award from the Department of Defense to continue developing its therapies for infectious diseases. It brings the company’s total contract with the DOD to $31.2 million. That’s after it raised $40.75 million in venture capital dollars in May, more than doubling the clinical-stage company’s $38 million total raised up to that point.
