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Tag: heard around virginia

StartVirginia: Heard Around Virginia September 2024

Blue Delta Capital Partners, a Tysons-based venture capital firm, is preparing to make more equity investments in regional growth-stage tech firms serving the federal government following the close of a $250 million fund. The firm plans to offer noncontrolling ownership investments of between $15 million and $50 million from its Blue Delta Capital Fund IV. Blue Delta Capital boasts more than $665 million in assets under management across several funds it’s launched since its 2009 founding. General Partner Mark Frantz expects to cut two to three checks per year out of this fund and envisions having it fully deployed in the next three years. (DC Inno)

The CEO of Virginia’s technology authority, Chandra Briggman abruptly left Activation Capital in July amid an employment dispute, but state officials won’t discuss the cause for the dispute or how much she was paid to leave. A state delegate said members of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration were dissatisfied with her performance.  Activation Capital, a state authority, is charged with growing technology and entrepreneurism in the state. It also oversees the VA Bio+Tech Park, a 34-acre science and technology campus in downtown Richmond. Robert Ward, previously a senior adviser to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, was named Activation Capital’s interim leader. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

More than 10,000 high-growth and high-wage startup companies were created in Virginia during 2022 and 2023, according to research conducted by Richmond’s Chmura Economics & Analytics for the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. To be included, a company had to offer above-average wages for Virginia and had to have an above-average forecasted employment growth rate. Chmura found 10,337 such Virginia-based startups that launched in 2022 and 2023. Virginia ranked No. 8 in the country for highest venture capital investment activity during 2023 and was ranked 13th in 2022, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Richmond-based travel insurance startup Faye said in July it had closed a $31 million Series B round that will be used toward hiring and scaling the company. The new funding was led by Toronto investment firm Portage and included participation from Melbourne VC firm Lumir Ventures. Existing investors F2 Venture Capital and Viola Ventures — both of Israel — and San Francisco’s Munich Re Ventures also participated. Faye, which launched its app for American travelers about two years ago, has raised $49 million since its founding in 2019. (Richmond Inno)

This year, 265 Virginia companies made the Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s 5,000 fastest-growing privately held companies, released in August by Inc. magazine. Ranking at No. 53 overall, Ashburn IT services firm Blu Omega, a woman-owned small business founded in 2020, was the highest-ranking Virginia company on the list. Two other Virginia companies ranked among the top 100 companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000: Fortreum, a Lansdowne cybersecurity and cloud firm founded in 2020, ranked No. 78; and Servos, a 5-year-old Richmond technology consulting company, ranked No. 99. It was all three companies’ first time on the list. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Now in its twelfth year, Lighthouse Labs has announced the seven companies selected to participate in its Batch 17 Accelerator program, which kicked off in August: Canopie (Falls Church, founder Anne Wanlund); EmpathixAI (Arlington County, co-founders Ashley Sherry and Jacob Tucker); Gateway (McLean, co-founders Mai Linh Ho and Hanh Linh Ho); Liquet (Glen Allen, founder John Schindler); Myles Comfort Foods (Fairfax, founder Myles Powell); Parrots (founder David Hojah); and VerbaAI (Great Falls, co-founders Aaraj Vij and Jeremy Swack). All companies receive $20,000 in equity-free funding, participate in weekly educational programming and receive mentorship. (RVAHub)

StartVirginia: Heard Around Virginia July 2024

Auterion, a software maker for computing platforms that support drones and autonomous robotics systems, has relocated its headquarters to Arlington County from Moorpark, California, as it seeks to be closer to its defense-related customers. The company already had some of its 112 employees based in the Washington, D.C., metro area for several years, but Auterion’s new HQ at 3100 Clarendon Blvd. now serves as its global base of operations. It also maintains research and development offices in Munich, Germany, and Zürich, Switzerland. (DC Inno)

BetterWorld, a Charlottesville company that offers tools to help organizations raise funds, is bringing in some funding of its own. The company has raised $7.35 million in equity from five investors, according to a May 21 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Betterworld’s platform includes tools to set up auctions, raffles, crowdfunding, giveaways, ticketing and more charitable giving options. The company counts more than 95,000 users, including Boys & Girls Clubs, Make-A-Wish America, the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, and USA Cycling. (Richmond Inno)

Alexandria-based tech startup HyperSpectral raised $8.5 million in Series A funding, the company announced June 5. The round was co-led by New York-based RRE Ventures and Kibo Ventures, based in Spain, with participating venture capital firms including San Diego-based Correlation Ventures and San Francisco-based GC&H, the venture capital arm of Cooley. HyperSpectral uses spectroscopy to identify E. coli, salmonella, listeria and other dangerous pathogens for the agricultural and medical industries. (News release)

The River District Association in Danville awarded four businesses more than $52,000 in grants to open or expand their brick-and-mortar businesses in the city’s River District, the organization announced May 22. Nine businesses pitched, and four were awarded funding: Links Coffee House, awarded $13,000; Social Circle Content Marketing, awarded $8,000, plus a $2,500 Community Investment Collaborative grant prize; Nancy Parris Interiors, awarded $10,000; and Valkyrie Aerial Acrobatics, awarded $19,000. (News release)

As of early June, Arlington County cloud management startup Stacklet had raised $14.5 million in funding to help boost its workforce and product offerings. The close of the Series B round brings the company’s total outside investment to $36.5 million since its founding by CEO Travis Stanfield and Kapil Thangavelu in 2020. SineWave Ventures, a San Francisco early-stage venture capital firm with a dual headquarters in Washington, D.C., led the round. Other firms that participated in Stacklet’s latest funding round include McLean’s Capital One Ventures, Palo Alto, California’s Foundation Capital and San Francisco’s Uncorrelated Ventures. (DC Inno)

Virginia Peninsula-based Start Peninsula named three finalists during its May 16 micro-pitch competition: Growables, a Norfolk-based houseplant kit company; Lockgreen, a Suffolk-based company that makes locking stash boxes for cannabis; and Vix, a fitness app from Norfolk-based Beige, a company founded by three Virginia Tech alumni. Each will compete at a championship pitch event for $5,000 in November, along with winners of three other micro-pitch contests held this year. (News release)

PEOPLE

Glen Allen-based fintech Koalafi has named Eric Kobe as president, the company announced May 17. He manages day-to-day operations and reports to Boomer Muth, the company’s CEO. Most recently, Kobe was CEO of Groundspeed, an insurance startup, and before that, held various management positions at Affirm, a leading buy-now, pay-later consumer financing company. “At Affirm, I witnessed the challenges that nearly 50% of prospective customers faced when denied credit,” Kobe said in a statement. “This represents a critical gap in financial access for an underserved population needing to make important purchases.” (News release)

HEARD AROUND VIRGINIA

Alexandria venture capital firm Columbia Capital has indicated in regulatory filings that it has raised $977 million to keep investing in companies in the communications and technology fields. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Dec. 15, 2023, show the investment firm has reached its fundraising goal for two separate funds. The firm raised $654.7 million across a main fund and parallel fund for what it’s dubbed Columbia Capital Equity Partners VIII. Separate documents filed concurrently show that it pulled in $322.3 million for Columbia Capital Opportunities Fund I, also across a main fund and parallel fund.
(Washington Business Journal)

Roanoke-based banking data analytics startup KlariVis closed an $11 million Series B funding round, the fintech firm announced Jan. 12. KlariVis provides data analytics solutions for community banks and credit unions. La Jolla, California-based technology-focused equity firm Blueprint Equity led the funding round. The $11 million will be used for advancing KlariVis’ engineering, product development, customer success, and sales and marketing. KlariVis has doubled its revenue and customer count year-over-year and has 100 clients, according to a news release. CEO Kim Snyder, former chief financial officer of Valley Bank, founded KlariVis in 2019, launching the company in early 2020. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PaintJet, a robotics and material sciences startup, is moving from the Nashville, Tennessee, metro area to Virginia. On Dec. 20, 2023, it announced a $10 million Series A, led by Outsiders Fund and featuring Pathbreaker Ventures, MetaProp, Builders VC, 53 Stations and VSC Ventures. The round follows a
$3.5 million seed led by Dynamo Ventures and brings PaintJet’s to-date funding up to $14.75 million. The move to Virginia is “to support our entry in the marine business and increasing engineering headcount to scale our technology stack for wider distribution,” according to CEO and cofounder Nick Hegeman. (TechCrunch)

Arlington County-based software company PerformYard, founded a decade ago to make the employment performance management process easier for companies and managers alike, has scored its first major outside investment. On Jan. 8, Updata Partners announced it made a $95 million equity investment in PerformYard. Carter Griffin, a general partner with the D.C. growth equity firm, will join PerformYard’s board. PerformYard’s clients include Paytronix, Berkshire Grey and Mitsubishi Chemical America. (DC Inno)

Norfolk-based ReAlta Life Sciences has received Food and Drug Administration clearance for a Phase 2 trial of the company’s dual-targeting anti-inflammatory peptide in patients with Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (AECOPD). ReAlta is a biotech firm focused on treating life-threatening acute inflammatory and rare diseases through its proprietary therapeutic platform. ReAlta was originally formed in 2018 to develop and commercialize promising research work conducted under a joint venture between Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, Eriko Life Science Ventures and Eastern Virginia Medical School. (News release)

PEOPLE

Erica Cole, founder and CEO of Richmond-based adaptive apparel manufacturer No Limbits, was named to Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30
list in its December 2023/January 2024 issue. Cole, who appears in the list’s retail and e-commerce category, started her company, which specializes in clothing products for people with prosthetics and similar special needs, after losing a leg in a car accident. Her clothing is sold by Walmart, QVC and Moosejaw. No Limbits has raised $1.8 million and is planning a Series A funding round in 2024. (Forbes; VirginiaBusiness.com)

STARTVIRGINIA: HEARD AROUND VIRGINIA December 2023

A consortium of Hampton Roads startup business programs, 757 ScaleUp Alliance, received a $1.2 million federal grant to promote job growth in emerging industries. The U.S. Department of Commerce awarded the grant as part of $53 million in funding through its Build to Scale program, which aims to provide financial resources to entrepreneurs and startups. Norfolk-based 757 Collab plans to work other area startup programs, including Innovate Hampton Roads, Black Brand and the Hampton Roads Small Business Development Center, under the new umbrella organization 757 Scaleup Alliance. The grant, to be matched by $1.2 million in local funds, will help 757 Collabfund programming for 30 founders in industries like health care, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, logistics and robotics. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Qnovia, a Richmond startup focused on smoking cessation technology, has entered a drug-development partnership with the University of  Virginia to advance new inhaled-drug candidates for treating bacterial infections of the lungs. Under the collaboration agreement, U.Va. School of Medicine doctors will combine Qnovia’s RespiRX drug-delivery platform with the university’s proprietary portfolio of antimicrobial peptides to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria. RespiRx is a handheld aerosol medical device that delivers drugs quickly. Its first aim was to deliver nicotine to help people quit smoking, but this deal expands its application. Qnovia said the deal adds two assets to its development pipeline: QN-05 for the treatment of pneumonia and QN-06 for the treatment of pulmonary infection for individuals exposed to the causative agent in anthrax. (Richmond Inno)

On Nov. 6, Arlington County health-tech company Surescripts announced it has acquired Minneapolis-based analytics startup ActiveRadar in a deal Surescripts says adds an important dimension to its electronic prescription service for health systems and pharmacies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Surescripts facilitates the sharing of health information to improve care and cut down costs. Surescripts counts about 700 employees across three offices in Arlington, Oregon and North Carolina. (DC Inno)

Charlottesville’s Vali Cyber announced Sept. 26 it had raised $15 million in seed funding to expand its operations. The round was led by Arlington’s Grotech Ventures and Pittsburgh’s 412 Venture Fund and included participation from Pittsburgh’s Riverfront Ventures, Tampa’s Florida Funders and other unnamed strategic investors. Founded in 2020, Vali Cyber is focused on cybersecurity related to Linux operating systems. It offers a security platform called ZeroLock that provides a lockdown capability, threat detection and automated recovery features while consuming fewer resources than other Linux security tools. (Richmond Inno)

Arlington-based VerticalApps, which uses automation technologies such as artificial intelligence to streamline how federal agencies operate, has been acquired by a Vienna-based government contractor. Effective Nov. 1, VerticalApps became a wholly owned subsidiary of MindPetal. The companies say they will accelerate the modernization of federal agencies through the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics and data science. Founded in 2010, the startup develops software and data management solutions and specializes in intelligent automation, which applies automation technologies to making decisions and predictions and analyzing data. (ARL Now)

New York-based food delivery company Wonder Group has gotten a cash infusion from Nestlé, which has its U.S. headquarters in Arlington County, as the startup looks to sell high-tech kitchen equipment and prepared ingredients to businesses such as hotels, hospitals and sports arenas. The deal includes a $100 million investment from Nestlé, along with a strategic partnership, according to sources familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because financial terms of the deal are not public. The startup, which was valued at about $3.5 billion when it closed a $350 million funding round in June, was founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur and former Walmart e-commerce chief Marc Lore. (CNBC)