F-prime Capital
Auto Added by WPeMatico
SoftBank-backed Embark Veterinary valued at $700M after $75M Series B
Now that you have that COVID dog, Embark Veterinary wants to help him or her be in your life for a long time by offering DNA testing with the goal of curbing preventable diseases and increasing the lifespan of dogs by three years within the next decade.
The Boston-based dog genetics company raised $75 million in Series B funding in what the company is calling “the biggest Series B for a pet startup to date.” SoftBank Vision Fund 2 was the lead investor and was joined by existing investors F-Prime Capital, SV Angel, Slow Ventures, Freestyle Capital and Third Kind Venture Capital.
The new round boosts Embark’s total funding to $94.3 million since the company was founded in 2015, according to Crunchbase data. It also gives it a post-money valuation of $700 million, Embark founder and CEO Ryan Boyko told TechCrunch.
Boyko has been a dog lover all his life, and also interested in biology and evolution. Dogs, in particular, are fascinating to him because of their variety: they can be bred to be two pounds or 200 pounds, and come in all shapes and sizes. His interest led him to study dogs in order to understand their evolution.
“I began to think about health problems, and honestly, dogs are a better system for using genetics to better their health than humans,” Boyko said. “You can breed them, so genetics has as much power to cause health problems as it can improve quality and life.”
Embark’s dog DNA test retails for $199 and enables dog owners, breeders and veterinarians to personalize care plans based on a dog’s unique genetic profile. It can test for over 350 breeds and 200 genetic health risks, as well as physical traits. Similar to a 23andMe test, test users can learn characteristics about breed, health and ancestry.
For example, the test could show that a healthy dog may have a gene that predisposes them to slipped discs. If the dog has that, then weight management would be an important factor in their care regime, as would not allowing them to jump off the couch. Another common genetic risk is HUU, or Hyperuricosuria, which is elevated levels of uric acid in urine that could lead to bladder stones due to the way dogs process minerals. By changing the dog’s diet, it could reduce the risk for developing the stones, which are painful and expensive to treat, Boyko said.
The test’s technology revolves around proprietary genotyping technology that analyzes more than 200,000 genetic markers, currently two times more information than any other dog DNA test on the market, Boyko said. This gives Embark the world’s largest database of canine health and biological information, enabling the company to provide insights into certain conditions and make new discoveries about health risks, traits and breeds.
Embark aims to become the standard of care for dog owners and vets. It grew 235% between 2019 and 2020 and saw five times the sales over the past two years. To support that growth, the company intends to use the new funding to bring on key hires and expand its database. Boyko anticipates adding more than 100 employees between 2021 and 2022.
Boyko said the opportunity in the pet startup space is huge. Indeed, U.S. spending on pets reached nearly $100 billion in 2020, up from $95.7 billion in 2019, according to the American Pet Products Association.
At the same time, venture capital interest in U.S. pet-focused companies, from nutrition to travel to healthcare, grew 29.5% from 2019 and 2020, according to Crunchbase data. In addition to Embark’s funding, 2021 was good to other pet startups as well, including pet insurance company Wagmo, raising $12.5 million, connected pet collar company Fi received $30 million and Rover, which announced plans to go public via SPAC.
Lydia Jett, partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, told TechCrunch that this was her first pet-based investment, and what Embark is doing brings advances to a category right now where people care about their pets enough that they want to do something that will expand their value of life.
Jett said the management team being dedicated to DNA-based analytics is the future, and Embark is starting this big curve when it comes to pets and the convergence of real emotional ties to pets and the ability to improve their lives.
“This company is a driver of change to happen,” she added. “We are the largest consumer investor in the world, and Embark is very much aligned with what we are seeing across our portfolio that consumers are revisiting priorities and choices. That is a major trend, but still early in the cycle of personalization for their pets.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Owkin raises $25 million as it builds a secure network for healthcare analysis and research
Imagine a model of collaborative research and development among hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, universities and other research institutions where no one shared any actual data.
That’s the dream of the new New York-based startup Owkin, which has raised $25 million in fresh financing from investors, including Bpifrance Large Venture, Cathay Innovation and MACSF (the French Pension Fund for Clinicians), alongside previous investors GV, F-Prime Capital and Eight Roads.
The company’s pitch is that data scientists, clinical doctors, academics and pharmaceutical companies can all log in to the virtual lab that Owkin calls the Owkin Studio.
In that virtual environment, all parties can access anonymized data sets and models exclusively to refine their own research and development and studies to ensure that the most cutting-edge insights into novel biomarkers, mechanisms of action and predictive models inform the work that all of the relevant parties are doing.
The ultimate goal, the company said, is to improve patient outcomes.
In its quest to get more companies and institutions to open up and share information — with the promise that the information can’t be extracted or used in a way that isn’t allowed by the owners of the data — Owkin is replicating work that other companies are pursuing in fields ranging from healthcare to financial services and beyond.
The Israeli company Qedit has developed similar technologies for the financial services industry, and Sympatic, a recent graduate from one of the recent batches of Techstars companies, is working on a similar technology for the healthcare industry.
Owkin makes money by enabling remote access to the data sets for pharmaceutical companies and licensing the models developed by universities to those companies. It’s a way for the company to entice researchers to join the platform and provide another revenue stream for research institutions who have seen their funding decline over the last 40 years.
“We have a huge loop of academic universities that have access to the data and are developing algorithms and we share data,” said the company’s chief executive Dr. Thomas Clozel. “At the end what it helps is developing better drugs.”
Declines in federal funding for scientific research since the 1980s (Image courtesy of The Conversation)
The investment from Owkin’s new and existing investors takes the company to $55 million in total capital raised through the extension of its Series A round. In all, the round totaled $52 million, Clozet said.
“We are exactly where we need to be because it’s about privacy and privacy is more important than ever before,” said Clozet.
The COVID-19 epidemic has emphasized the need for closer collaboration among different corporations and research institutions, and that has also increased demand for the company’s technology. “It touches everything… We have access to the right data sets and centers to build the best models for COVID,” said Clozet. “We’re lucky to have the right traction before the COVID happens and we have the right research that has been done.”
In fact, the company has launched the Covid-19 Open AI Consortium (COAI), and is using its platform to advance collaborative research and accelerate clinical development of effective treatments for patients infected with the coronavirus, the company said. All of its findings will be shared with the global medical and scientific communities.
The initial focus on the research is on cardiovascular complications in COVID-19 patients in collaboration with CAPACITY, an international registry working with over 50 centers worldwide, the company said. Other areas of research will include patient outcomes and triage, and the prediction and characterization of immune response, according to Owkin.
“Since we first backed Owkin in 2017, we have been sharing its vision to apply AI to fighting one of the most dreadful diseases on earth: cancer,” said Jacky Abitbol, a partner at Cathay Innovation. “Owkin has risen to become a leader in digital health, we are proud to grow our investment in the company to fuel its ambition to pioneer AI for medical research, while preserving patient-privacy and data security.”
Powered by WPeMatico
As demand for mental health services soars, SonderMind raises $27 million to expand its services
“Our real focus is on democratizing mental healthcare,” says SonderMind co-founder chief executive, Mark Frank.
His company, founded back in 2017, is having a moment. With the restrictions and economic stresses caused by the government’s efforts to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S., demand for mental health services is soaring. And it’s compounding what was already a mental health crisis in the U.S.
A 2019 article from Bloomberg Businessweek laid out the scope of the problem in stark terms. In 2017, 47,000 people died by suicide in the U.S. and there were 1.4 million suicide attempts — a suicide rate that’s the country’s highest since World War II, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drug overdoses, another measure of the nation’s anguish, killed 70,000 people in 2017. Another 7% of U.S. adults reported suffering at least one major depressive episode in 2018.
Taken together, the data points to a tremendous health problem. One that the current healthcare system is only now grappling with.
SonderMind’s chief executive sees his company as part of the solution.
Most mental health practitioners don’t operate within a healthcare network or take insurance, which means that the only folks with access to care are the ones that can afford the high price of therapy. SonderMind changes that equation by offering practitioners a toolkit and back office services so they can bill insurance providers and take care of the operational side of running a healthcare practice. It also acts as a funnel, gauging the needs of potential patients and connecting them to the therapists that are best suited to provide them the care they need. That lets practitioners focus on seeing patients, the company said.
The company currently counts 500 providers on its marketplace, which operates in Colorado, Arizona and Texas, and has raised $27 million in its latest round of financing to extend its services to other parts of the U.S.
The San Francisco-based investment firm General Catalyst led the financing, which also included additional new investors F-Prime Capital and participation from previous investors like the Kickstart Seed Fund, Diōko Ventures (managed by FCA Venture Partners) and Jonathan Bush.
“This financing provides the fuel to support our growth objectives and advance our mission to make behavioral health more accessible, approachable and utilized by building a modern marketplace that holds great appeal to both clinician and patient,” said Frank in a statement.
The investment extends General Catalyst’s funding into healthcare services in recent years and represents a continued emphasis on healthcare services for the firm. “Healthcare is obviously a really important thesis for GC as a whole,” says Holly Maloney, a managing director at General Catalyst. “This is going to be one of the largest value drivers for VC this decade.”
General Catalyst already had a robust portfolio of healthcare-focused companies — including Livongo, OM1 and Oscar Health.
For Maloney, the investment in SonderMind grew out of the firm’s exposure to mental health investment through another portfolio company, Mindstrong Health. “Mindstrong forced us to explore… access to care and finding care,” says Maloney.
The General Catalyst investor sees the investment in SonderMind as also helping to open doors for more people to join the profession.
“It helps people to start their business for sure. It helps more people pursue it as a career path,” she said. And that’s good for a country where more mental health professionals and better access to care are desperately needed.
Powered by WPeMatico
MoEngage lands $25M for its mobile-first customer engagement platform
MoEngage, a San Francisco and Bangalore-based startup that helps firms better understand their customers and improve their engagement, has raised $25 million in a new financing round as it looks to grow its network in North America and Europe.
The Series C was led by Eight Roads Ventures . F-Prime Capital, Matrix Partners India and Ventureast also participated in the round. The six-year-old startup, which is an Alchemist alum, has raised about $40 million to date.
MoEngage offers a product that allows clients to gain deeper insights into the way their customers or users are engaging with their apps and websites. “We can, for instance, tell at what time a customer is using the app,” said Raviteja Dodda, founder and chief executive of MoEngage, in an interview with TechCrunch.
These insights, all displayed on one dashboard, could be very useful for firms to retain their existing customers or find optimized ways to attempt to sell more to them.
“Based on your understanding about the customer, you can send them personalized notifications. Say you’re using a ride-hailing app. The firm would now know how often you use their app and at what time you tend to avail their service. Based on these learnings, they can offer you deals or reminders that could help them improve their conversion rate,” he said.
MoEngage today works with a number of major firms in North America, Europe and Asia. Some of its clients include Deutsche Telekom, CIMB Bank, Travelodge, Samsung, McAfee, Vodafone, retail chain Future Retail, ride-hailing service Ola, budget-hotel operator OYO, grocery delivery startup Bigbasket and music streaming service Gaana.
In total, Dodda said his startup has amassed “hundreds of clients” in over 35 countries and is serving more than 400 million active users for them each month.
“MoEngage, with its differentiated offering, scalable platform and a customer-first approach, will play an important role in enabling us to deliver contextual and relevant communications to our customers and drive higher customer lifetime value,” said Arun Srinivas, chief operating officer at Indian ride-hailing startup Ola, in a statement.
MoEngage, which competes with a handful of startups including India-based Clevertap, will infuse the fresh capital to find more customers in North America and Europe, and scale its product operations, said Dodda.
“What differentiates MoEngage from other engagement platforms is the combination of their ever-evolving AI-enabled customer journey capabilities, industry-best channel reachability and top-notch customer support. We are thrilled to partner with Raviteja and his team as they look to expand globally,” said Shweta Bhatia, Partner at Eight Roads Ventures.
Powered by WPeMatico
Vendr, already profitable, raises $2M to replace your enterprise sales team
Vendr has developed an enterprise SaaS solution for managing enterprise SaaS.
The new startup, founded by InVision’s former head of enterprise sales Ryan Neu, is another standout from Y Combinator’s latest batch. Contrary to the majority of those businesses, however, Vendr is already profitable.
In classic YC fashion, the company has created software to sell to other startups, and, as such, it was quick to gain the confidence of top venture capital investors. Headquartered in Boston, Vendr has raised a $2 million round led by F-Prime Capital, with participation from Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, Joe Montana’s Liquid2 Ventures, Garage VC and angel investors including Canva co-founder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht and HubSpot COO JD Sherman.
The company offers subscription-based software, priced depending on company headcount, that helps fast-growing businesses buy and manage enterprise SaaS. In short, the product cuts the human out of the sales process, allowing companies to purchase or upgrade software using software. The goal isn’t to eliminate the sales profession, rather to put an end to “persuasion driven” sales, Neu explains, and to make enterprise software purchases as easy as consumer product purchases.
Boston-based Vendr graduated from the Y Combinator startup accelerator earlier this year
“We see software sales actually going away because most people are tired of being sold to, they are tired of being persuaded, they want to transact,” Neu, who previously led sales at HubSpot, tells TechCruch. “Vendr was created to allow people to transact software without actually having to talk to people.”
Founded 14 months ago, Vendr has reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue, which, for context, has historically been amongst the benchmarks necessary for a SaaS startup to raise its Series A. Neu says the company is growing 15% month-over-month with monthly recurring revenue currently sitting at $96,500. Already profitable, Neu says they want to put themselves in a position in which they don’t have to raise any additional outside capital.
“I can’t imagine looking at the bank account every month and watching it deplete,” Neu said. “We want to be in a position where we can control our own destiny.”
Vendr currently operates with a team of six employees and 19 customers, including Canva, Grammarly, GitLab, Brex, HubSpot and InVision. The company is also backed by Okta’s general counsel Jon Runyan, AppDynamics’ COO Dan Wright and YC partner Aaron Epstein.
Powered by WPeMatico
Recent departures hint at turmoil at Quartet Health, a mental health startup backed by GV
Backed with nearly $87 million in venture capital funding from GV, Oak HC/FT and F-Prime Capital, Quartet Health was founded in 2014 by Arun Gupta, Steve Shulman and David Wennberg to improve access to behavioral healthcare. Its mission: “enable every person in our society to thrive by building a collaborative behavioral and physical health ecosystem.”
Recent shakeups within the New York-based company’s c-suite and a perusal of its Glassdoor profile suggest Quartet’s culture is not fully in line with its own philosophy.
In the last few weeks, chief product officer Rajesh Midha has left the company and president and chief operating officer David Liu is on his way out, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed with Quartet. Founding chief executive officer Arun Gupta, meanwhile, has stepped into the executive chairman role, relinquishing responsibility of the company’s day-to-day operations to former chief science officer David Wennberg, who’s taken over as CEO.
“I’m focusing on our external growth,” Gupta told TechCrunch on Friday. “David has really stepped up as CEO.”
Gupta and Wennberg said Liu’s role was no longer needed because Wennberg had assumed his responsibilities. Liu will formally exit the company at the end of the month. As for its product chief, the pair say Midha had “transitioned out” of the role and that an unnamed internal candidate was tapped to replace him.
When asked whether other employees had left in recent weeks, Wennberg provided the following indeterminate statement: “We are always having people coming in. I don’t think we’ve had any unusual turnover. We’re hiring and people’s roles change and that’s just part of growth.”
Quartet, which provides a platform that allows providers to collaborate on treatment plans, currently has 150 employees, according to its executives.
In a LinkedIn status update published this week — after TechCrunch’s initial inquiries — Gupta announced his transition to executive chairman:
“Still full-time, though focused largely on our opportunity to further evangelize our mission, [I will] drive the change we want to see in this world, and expand our reach … I have tremendous confidence in David’s ability to lead our many talented Quartetians to deliver this next phase.”
Several former employees seemed less than pleased with Gupta’s performance, writing in a number of Glassdoor reviews that he was “abominable,” “kind of a monster” and “by far the worst executive.”
When asked for comment on those reviews, Gupta and Wennberg shrugged it off: “Glassdoor is Glassdoor.” They agreed its important to pay attention to but impossible to vet.
Gupta began his career as a management consultant at McKinsey and served as a consultant to The World Bank before joining Palantir, Peter Thiel’s data-mining company, as an advisor in 2014. Wennberg, for his part, was the CEO of The High Value Healthcare Collaborative, a consortium of 15 healthcare delivery systems, before co-founding Quartet.
In January, Quartet raised a $40 million Series C to expand throughout the U.S. F-Prime Capital and Polaris Partners led the round, with participation from GV and Oak HC/FT. The financing valued the company at $300 million, according to PitchBook.
As part of the funding, Quartet announced it was adding three new directors to its board: F-Prime’s executive partner Carl Byers; Ken Goulet, an executive vice president at health insurance provider Anthem; and former Rackspace CEO and BuildGroup co-founder Lanham Napier. Other outside board members include Oak HC/FT’s managing partner Annie Lamont, GV partner Krishna Yeshwant, Polaris managing partner Brian Chee and former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy.
Quartet previously raised a $40 million Series B in April 2016 led by GV. The investment marked the venture capital investment arm of Google’s first in a mental health startup. Before that, the startup brought in a $7 million Series A led by Oak HC/FT’s managing partner Annie Lamont.
For now, Quartet remains committed to growth.
“We learn from what we are doing and we continue to learn,” Wennberg said. “That is part of growth. It’s hard and you just keep working and growing because we have a huge mission.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Health startup Buoy raises $6.7 million to invest in recruitment and research
Buoy, a startup using an intelligent algorithm backed by medical data to guess what ails you, has raised $6.7 million in Series A funding from F-Prime Capital Partners, FundRx and various angel investors to help scale operations. Snapsheet raises $20 million for app to help drivers file claims after a crash
A Chicago-based startup called Snapsheet has raised a Series C round of $20 million to make life easier for people who have been through a car crash.
The company’s cloud-based software is used by auto insurance providers to guide users through a photo- and information-gathering process on the scene of an accident. It is basically white labeled as a mobile app for each auto insurance… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico