Category: angel investors

Black Sheep Foods, a San Francisco, CA-based. Producer of plant-based meat intended to provide an environmentally sustainable alternative to animal meat. The company’s products are a plant-based alternative to ground lamb. They are made using analytical chemistry from soy protein, coconut oil, and natural flavors. They enable consumers to lessen their carbon footprint by choosing the cheap lamb alternative with the same taste.

Black Sheep Foods was funded $12.3 million led by Unovis, alongside Bessemer Venture Partners, AgFunder, other strategic angel investors, and KBW Ventures. It intends to use the funds to raise production for its debut lamb produced from plants for global distribution.

Sunny Kumar, co-founder, and CEO of Black Sheep Foods said their senses associate meat with a form, a texture, and a flavor. The surface has been the focus of meat innovation, and the taste is a white space. The debut lamb produced from plants includes more depth of flavor, richness, and delicious aromatics than other meats, full stop. They’re in the business of giving consumers access to the most delightful meat variety, using plants instead of animals.

Charles Billies, CEO and Founder of Souvla, said they are incredibly thoughtful when selecting a plant-based meat partner. Since launching Black Sheep Foods’ product in their restaurants last year, they’ve been seriously impressed with its integration into their menu and the overwhelmingly positive response from their many loyal guests. They stay keen on the fate of their product offerings and this vital action in the years to come.

The company says Black Sheep’s lamb has gained a following in the Middle East. Prince Khaled calls the lamb “shockingly good.” But, he says, as someone who grew up with the taste profile in Saudi Arabia, he couldn’t believe the authentic mouthfeel and flavor. With preference being a vital aspect of customer adoption, Black Sheep Foods will easily overwhelm plant-based meats.

By: K. Tagura

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Stony Creek Colors is a Springfield, TN-based developer of dyes technology designed to offer bio-based dyes for the textile industry. The company’s technology provides clean and safe natural dyes that replace the hazardous chemicals currently used in the supply chains, enabling the textile and fashion industries to give their consumers access to environmentally conscious premium products.

Stony Creek Colors was funded $4.8 million led by some strategic angel investors in Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Levi Strauss & Co. The company will use the capital further to grow its farming infrastructure and the dye extraction procedure to bring regenerative solutions to farmers and the textile industry.

Sarah Bellos, Founder and CEO of Stony Creek Colors. The company remains the only industrial-scale manufacturer globally of 100% bio-based indigo, as permitted by the USDA BioPreferred Program. Its vertically-integrated prototype allows full traceability-down to the farm level–that brands and consumers trust.

Since its inception, the company has grown, reaped, and processed its proprietary indigo sorts on over 500 acres of farmland via its repeatable and expandable farmer production model. The company’s natural indigo procedure fixes nitrogen and catches more carbon than it uses, boosting environmental progress for the farms where the crops are produced.

In complement to farming supply chain integrations, Stony Creek Colors is known for its innovations in current dye applications and customer point-of-use for this natural chemistry. Earlier this year, Stony Creek Colors publicly established IndiGold®, the first plant-derived, pre-reduced indigo for denim mills, with global metier chemicals leader Archroma.

Stony Creek Colors’ vertically-integrated technology eliminates the significant documented inefficiencies in plant-based indigo production. To authorize a high-purity dye appropriate for its industrial denim mill customers while showing a soil health-enriching and favorable climate chemical that fits well into farmers’ annual crop rotations. Stony Creek is increasing accessibility of renewable color chemistries as demand for plant-based innovations rises in the fashion and textile demands.

By: K. Tagura

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Carv is a Los Angeles, CA-based developer of a gaming platform designed to provide all games in one place. The company’s services offer achievement display, friends, game discovery, and direct monetization, enabling gamers with data sovereignty and games with intelligence.

Carv was funded $4 million led by Vertex, Temasek Holding’s venture capital arm, with participation from EVOS, Infinity Ventures Crypto, YGG SEA,  SNACKCLUB, UpHonest Capital, Lyrik Ventures, Lintentry Foundation, PAKADAO, 7UpDAO, Angel Investor Aliaksandr Hadzilin. The company intends to use the funds to onboard talent and continue building the interoperable credential infrastructure alongside ecosystem partners.

It uses blockchain-based technology to allow users to host their usernames and information and carry it between applications. This information can include data such as achievements users have earned in games, their reputation, connections to friends they have met along the way, and more. Decentralized identity acts as a single sign-in where the user generates a unique identity that the user control.

The company concentrated on Web3 gaming because of the considerable consumer-facing demand, and that’s where the most significant draw for decentralized identity opportunities currently exists. Web3 is the name given to the possible successive era of the web, learned as the decentralized web, where apps use peer-to-peer without centralized authority and run using crypto token economies.

This also builds data infrastructure and analytics to empower game studios to recognize gamer activities accurately, capture an insight-driven understanding of the user base, and effectively reach the desired group of users.

CARV is continuously building the gaming space with partners to kick off gaming tournaments and game night campaigns backed by talks, in-game hunts, and rewards to bring engagement to its product.

By: K. Tagura

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Gravitics a Seattle, WA-based developer of aerospace stations designed to form the building blocks for human life in space. The company manufactures space station modules with interfacing options, space armor, and shipyard-style fabrication, enabling clients to execute their outer aerospace missions.

Gravitics was funded $20 million conducted by Type One Ventures, with other participants from Draper Associates, FJ Labs, The Venture Collective, Giant Step Capital, Helios Capital, angel investors in Gaingels, Spectre, Manhattan West, and Mana Ventures. The company plans to use funds to expand operations and its development efforts.

The company founded in 2021 and headed by CEO Colin Doughan. Gravitics is developing the StarMax™, a flexible-use aerospace station module. The StarMax module delivers up to 400 cubic meters of functional habitable volume – nearly half the significance of the International Space Station in one module. StarMax’s lineage of modules is consistent with launching on any of the following generation takeoff vehicles, including ULA’s Vulcan, and SpaceX’s Starship, Blue Origin’s New Glenn.

From an investor perspective, Tarek Waked, Type One founding partner and Gravitics board member, said his company noticed numerous underlying trends supporting the company’s future vision.

The exact margin that Gravitics is making is not as a space station operator. Rather than compete with other companies, Gravitics wants to be their core supplier. Gravitics is seeking to complete the ongoing needs of these stations once they are operational. Also, meeting organic demand that the company is betting on will emerge as costs for launching cargo and crew drop.

The company has already begun assembly of its first StarMax prototype. It is equipped to operate module pressure tests in early 2023, with projects for an upcoming orbital test mission to be announced soon.

By: K. Tagura

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Yes Hearing is an NYC-based hearing aid device provider intended to improve access to hearing aids for the elderly. The company’s platform offers a wide range of hearing aid products for hearing problems, enabling users to access healthcare and hearing technologies through home visit treatment and home care.

Yes Hearing was funded $10 million led by Blue Heron Capital, and other participants in the round include Ensemble Innovation Ventures, Primetime Partners, Maccabee Ventures, and angel investors of Gaingels. The new investment round will help the company scale its direct-to-consumer operations, speed up the development of its home care platform, and strengthen its market, service, and product offerings.

The company was founded in 2019 by CEO Sam Shear. The company’s patient-centered delivery model has combined audiologist-led telehealth with hands-on professional hearing care at home to increase the adoption, usage, and ongoing care for individuals with hearing loss. As a result, the company provides prescription hearing aids at upwards of 40% less than the cost in a typical clinic setting.

Gordon Crenshaw, Principal at Blue Heron Capital, said, Yes Hearing is solving the nearly $20B annual hearing loss market with a novel and disruptive platform, meeting consumers and patients with hearing loss where they want to be met: in the home. In addition, the company’s expansive network of audiologists gives Yes Hearing unparalleled reach to meet the demands of the millions of individuals in the country who are suffering from hearing loss.

Yes Hearing’s solution has a meaningful, positive impact on the grade of life for older adults. Hearing loss can be managed and treated, but millions of people don’t receive the care they often need because of the stigma and cost associated with maintenance.

The FDA’s recent decision to allow over-the-counter sales is excellent for hearing aid awareness and access. They are very excited for more people to get the hearing aids they need, but hearing care is so much more than that. Yes Hearing offers an in-home service that provides the knowledge and counseling required to increase the actual usage of hearing aids. In addition, it leads to long-term health benefits beyond listening, including communication, mobility, dementia prevention, and more.

By: K. Tagura

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Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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Cruz Foam is a Santa Cruz, CA-based developer of foam plastic materials designed to power up the packaging industry to be a catalyst for a cleaner environment. The company’s materials are produced by transforming chitin. A biopolymer found in shrimp shells, into structural foams to replace petroleum-based foams with an environmentally friendly process, enabling companies to tackle the problem of the plastic pollution epidemic by creating a biodegradable packaging replacement for single-use plastics.

Cruz Foam was funded $18 million led by Helena, with support from One Small Planet, Regeneration.VC, At One Ventures, SoundWaves, and strategic angel investors. The company plans to use the new budget to accelerate and scale the commercialization of its circular materials to respond to market demand.

The company was established in 2017 by John Felts, CEO, and Marco Rolandi, CSO, mission to replace single-use, petroleum-based plastics. It is forming substitutes for EPS and EPE and driving into new spaces such as cold chains and plain packaging for consumer-packaged goods. Cruz Foam is a proactive solution that answers that call and accelerates the pace of change by preventing new plastic from entering the waste stream by design. Derived from all naturally occurring food waste materials, Cruz Foam was developed to provide protection and performance without adverse environmental impacts.

The necessity to prototype and test these possibilities is one reason the company is growing such a considerably sized round. In addition, they just purchased a new extruder (foam like this is essentially printed using specialized equipment) and have been testing with all kinds of new form factors caused by partners and potential partners across many industries.

Felts said that Helena is highly aligned with their mission and values. They are excited to collaborate with their team and other partners to deliver proactive solutions to address the preventable environmental crisis of plastic pollution. Further, their conversion to a Benefit Corporation underscores their core values and commitment to this mission.

By: K. Tagura

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CoachMePlus is a Buffalo, NY-based developer of an athlete’s data and analytics platform intended to help design, manage, track and report the training efforts of athletes. The company’s platform helps to customize the platform for athletes or athletes to communicate announcements, send private messages, and share videos and other notifications with individual athletes or groups of athletes, enabling coaches to manage and track their athlete’s performance.

CoachMePlus was funded $1 million led by Rochester Angel Network and follow-on investment from the Buffalo Angel investors. The new funding intended to accelerate growth and expand operations and business reach.

Kevin Dawidowicz, Co-Founder and President of CoachMePlus, optimize personalized fitness using technology and data to enhance relationships between athletes and their trainers or coaches. They built something that hadn’t accomplished before, and the market is starting to catch up as organizations understand better how improved fitness and wellness impact readiness, outcomes, and the bottom line. They have added vital group members and will extend Buffalo operations to help answer the increasing inbound inquiries and interest in enterprise-level fitness and wellness initiatives.

CoachMePlus has grown beyond a training program for professional and collegiate athletes and the military to engage in enterprise and corporate fitness and wellness initiatives. As a result, the organization has made a solid standing and brand distinction in a challenging industry. In addition, it has achieved a stable product-market fit, proven by doubling revenue in the past year alone.

There’s lots of fitness technology out there, but there is no one on the different side allowing consumers to understand what all that data means. The app helps boost the connection between coach and athlete, recruiter and soldier, or trainer and client.

By: K. Tagura

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Surge Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based, relentlessly creates a world where all cancer patients undergoing surgical tumor resection can receive intraoperative immunotherapy to prevent post-surgical recurrence and metastasis.

Surge Therapeutics was funded $26 million led by Camford Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Intuitive Ventures, Pitango HealthTech, 8VC, Alumni Ventures, other strategic angel investors, and the Cancer Research Institute.

The company plans to use the new funds to accelerate the development of its intraoperative immunotherapy process, grow the team, and start clinical trials for its injectable biodegradable hydrogel.

While surgery is the ideal of care for patients with solid tumors, surgery can lead to the return and spread of cancer. Such recurrence and metastasis are very challenging to treat, so the ability to prevent them from manifesting would be highly desirable. Surge Therapeutics is a company producing an injectable biodegradable hydrogel that helps extended, localized out-of-cancer immunotherapy at the site of surgical tumor resection to improve patient survival outcomes.

The proprietary hydrogel has been shown to reduce post-surgical recurrence and metastasis, which account for 90 percent of cancer-related deaths and have been linked to the immune suppression caused by surgery. Reprogramming the body’s response to surgery from immunosuppressive to immunostimulatory can trigger the patient’s immune system to destroy both local and distal residual cancer cells, reducing recurrence and improving survival.

Dr. Oliver Keown, M.D., Managing Director of Intuitive Ventures, said SURGE is in the process of putting potent immunotherapies into surgeons’ hands at a moment of significant potential impact for cancer patients. They are excited to work alongside Michael and his world-class team as they pioneer the field of localized therapeutics strategically placed and timed to enhance treatment for cancer patients.

The SURGERx™ platform is designed to improve the efficacy and safety of immunotherapy treatment, concentrating 100 percent of the effective dose where and when it can yield tremendous impact.

By: K. Tagura

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Trash Warrior is a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an on-demand waste management platform intended to make public spaces clean and tidy. The company’s platform allows booking services such as junk removal, cardboard extraction, weed eradication, graffiti and etchings elimination, and power-wash, enabling customers to keep areas and surroundings fresh and neat at affordable rates.

Trash Warrior was funded $8 million led by AltaIR Capital with participation from Amino Capital, Operator Partners, Vermilion Ventures, and Hyphen Capital with participation from Primavera Capital, Sand Hill Angel investors, Lombard Street Ventures, and 500 Startups.

The firm intends to utilize the new funds to enhance technology, hire talent, and strengthen its sales and marketing efforts.

Trash Warrior provides a new business strategy for B2B waste management in the U.S. After reserving a waste management request on trashwarrior.com. Any business can resolve waste headaches in a matter of hours rather than days. This on-demand, the high-volume nationwide platform gets technology-enabled waste management to consumers ‘ fingertips. It eradicates the need for calls, layers of brokers, and back-and-forth negotiations and covers all waste needs.

Trash Warrior is a supervised platform that delivers waste removal and dumpster rental services to all B2B customers, with the option of highly customized business solutions for nationwide clients. Like Uber, Trash Warrior’s two-sided marketplace fits client needs with the waste providers best placed to satisfy them, considering availability, sustainability requirements, and pricing.

Igor Ryabenkiy, the CEO and GP of AltaIR Capital, said that the US waste management market is constantly growing. However, it continues to use primarily classic tools and methods. Trash Warrior developed an innovative approach to solving market issues, thus ensuring the company’s rapid growth.

By: K. Tagura

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Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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Regie.ai is a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an AI content platform designed to offer an all-in-one content creation and management system. The company’s platform blends the art of language and the science of delivery to create, test, and analyze personalized prospecting sales campaigns, enabling businesses to boost engagement and optimize front-line performance.

Regie.ai was funded $10 million conducted by Scale Venture Partners with participation from Foundation Capital, South Park Commons, Day One Ventures, and notable angel investors. They will use the new investment for product development as the company continues to add features to its platform—a first-of-its-kind offering designed specifically for enterprise sales and marketing teams. For example, Regie.ai uses generative AI to make it easier for businesses to generate quality copy and content automatically, keep it for sharing, approval, and messaging consistency across teams, export series to deals engagement platforms, and propose copy improvements based on campaign results.

Regie.ai established in 2020 by Matt Millen and Srinath Sridhar. Formerly a software engineer at Google and Meta. Sridhar says he and Millen the Regie.ai aspired to make a method for companies to share with their clients via social media, text, podcasts, email, online advertising, and more. Because companies have so many platforms and mediums to speak with customers, he notes, it can be challenging for content marketers to produce continuously compelling content to reach their customers.

Since copywriting fast becomes uncontrollable and unproductive across numerous teams, some companies peek toward outsourced copywriters or agencies to compose their email series, SMS campaigns, call scripts, and social media ads. But outsourcing creates significant organizational challenges and fails to effectively align written communications with business output. In addition, keeping messaging consistent and persistently updated is a considerable challenge. Regie.ai delivers a cohesive platform that creates content creation and management accessible and valuable.

Regie.ai allows organizations to form copy, at scale, for the dozens of platforms they use to get their many target customer personas. It leverages productive AI for consistency, speed, and quality, and copy follows sharing, commenting, and approval workflows.

The platform currently supports over 75 SaaS customers, including AT&T, Crunchbase, Sophos, Auth0, and more. It also combines with sales engagement platforms like Outreach.io, SalesLoft, and Hubspot.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

You can review our featured partners to help your success with your business or project.