HEARD AROUND VIRGINIA

McLean identity verification tech company ID.me has raised $340 million via Series E financing and its recent credit facility, according to a Sept. 3 announcement. The funding raises the company’s valuation to more than $2 billion. Ribbit Capital led the round, with participation from existing investors Ares Management credit funds and Moonshots Capital and new investors like Positive Sum. ID.me has 152 million users and works with 20 federal agencies and 45 state agencies, among other organizations. The company creates “digital identity wallets” allowing users to verify their identities with ID.me and then sign in across websites without verifying their identities again. (News release)

Shift5 landed $75 million in new funding to fuel research and development and marketing for products that monitor and protect defense and transportation systems, the Arlington cybersecurity startup announced Sept. 3. The funding brings Shift5’s total outside investment to $185 million since its founding in 2018. Hedosophia — a London-based venture capital firm that was an early backer of Uber Technologies, Spotify Technology and Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group — led the Series C funding round. The venture arm of McLean-based Booz Allen Hamilton, Baltimore’s Squadra Ventures and New York investment firm Insight Partners participated as repeat investors. (DC Inno)

McLean investment firm Veteran Ventures Capital raised $60 million, according to a mid-August news release. It will use the funding to deploy equity investments into about 15 defense and civilian technology startup companies in the next few years, backing Series A startups generating at least $1 million in annual revenue by offering investments between $1 million and $6 million on average. Founder and Managing Partner Derren Burrell said it took VVC about a year to raise the fund, a fraction of the time it took to raise its inaugural $20 million fund. (DC Inno)

A new initiative between Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. and Virginia’s six Research 1 (R1) universities aims to double the number of startups coming from the universities each year. The Lab-to-Launch initiative intends to help technology breakthroughs quickly enter the marketplace, according to an August news release from the governor’s office. The initiative’s components will be launching throughout the school year. Lab-to-Launch has two core pillars, said VIPC President and CEO Joe Benevento: The first is creating a standardized fast-track license agreement to commercialize university research. The other is expanding private sector collaboration with Virginia university commercialization. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

Richmond tech accelerator Activation Capital appointed Michael Steele as president and CEO, it announced Aug. 26. He succeeds Robert Ward, who had served as interim CEO since July 2024. Ward took on the role following the departure of Chandra Briggman, who left to pursue other opportunities. Activation Capital is an accelerator arm of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Partnership Authority, a subdivision of the state government. The accelerator aims to commercialize local biohealth research and build a biohealth entrepreneurship hub in Central Virginia. Steele has held senior leadership positions at Biocartis, Chembio Diagnostics, SeraCare Life Sciences and Serologicals. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

McLean-based health care tech startup Zephyr AI announced in late August it had appointed Allen Chao as its new CEO and acquired Tampa, Florida-based oncology data company Aster Insights, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Zephyr. Chao, who has over 40 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, succeeds Jeff Sherman, Zephyr’s co-founder and chief technology officer, who served as CEO in an interim capacity for more than a year. Chao founded Watson Pharmaceuticals in 1984 and served as its CEO and chairman until 2008. (VirginiaBusiness.com)