Episode 43

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Top startups news to follow this week:

1. Rise in prevalence of chronic diseases to help Digital Health market gain Valuation of US$ 1.2 Trn by 2028, States TMR Report.

The global digital health market is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 18.3% during the forecast period from 2021 to 2028, according to a study by Transparency Market Research (TMR).

Advancements in certain segments of the healthcare industry, including electronic health records (EHRs) are projected to favor the growth of the global digital health market in the upcoming years. Several IT companies are collaborating with research & industrial systems engineering organizations in order to introduce technological advancements in EHR systems. Furthermore, government authorities of many countries around the world are incentivizing different IT firms that are working to advance EHRs.

Digital Health Market Driving Forces Are:

• Players in the digital health market are focusing on the use of medical deep learning techniques in order to foresee potential risks of Parkinson’s disease and dementia in people. Besides, several new entrants are increasing focus on the medical artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose potential disease patterns in patients.
• Many healthcare organizations are collaborating with researchers in order to work on projects that are focused on the use of medical AI to study non-invasive connections between different parts of the human brain and identify mental disorders at early stage
• Mental health doctors are depending on key data from wearable devices while studying illness of a patient. This factor is creating sizable revenue streams for enterprises operating in the global digital health market.
• Surge in cases of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and other chronic disorders is offering promising business prospects in the global digital health market
• Rising trend of paid video consultations using latest technologies such as telemedicine is creating lucrative prospects in the global digital health market

The market is prognosticated to gain sizable business opportunities in America and Europe, owing to many factors such as rise in investments in the digital health market through merger & acquisitions, funding, and government funding. Moreover, technological advancements in these regions are anticipated to play a key role in market growth in these regions. The Asia Pacific digital health market is expected to observe promising growth avenues during the forecast period, owing to rise in adoption of digital health products in many developing countries such as Australia, India, and New Zealand along with increase in penetration of Internet and smartphones in the region

2. BUSINESS WIRE reports that the global market for Biorefinery estimated at US$553.7 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$979.5 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 9.8% over the analysis period.

In the recent years, various companies have moved ahead with encouraging developments that are anticipated to shape and drive the domain. While some of the companies are looking forward to set up new biorefineries, others are coming up with innovative technologies intended to exploit biomass for desirable bio-products.

In a major development in this direction, Petron Scientech, Inc. and SBI Bioenergy, Inc. have joined hands for licensing of differentiated, sustainable, integrated and energy-efficient technologies for conversion of biomass into clean hydrogen along with production of low-carbon biofuels.

The Biorefinery market in the U.S. is estimated at US$168.6 Billion in the year 2021. The country currently accounts for a 28.3% share in the global market. China, the world’s second largest economy, is forecast to reach an estimated market size of US$155.2 Billion in the year 2026 trailing a CAGR of 11.2% through the analysis period.

Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 7.6% and 8.6% respectively over the analysis period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 10.6% CAGR while Rest of European market (as defined in the study) will reach US$137.9 Million by the end of the analysis period. Strict government regulations, particularly in North America and Europe, that discourage the use of synthetic and chemical-based lubricants is expected to act as a demand driver.

While the US and Europe are expected to remain the key markets for biolubricants in the near future, developing regions such as Asia-Pacific and Latin America are poised to generate the fastest demand growth for these bio-based products.

Thermochemical Segment to Reach $107.2 Billion by 2026

Thermochemical biorefineries convert biomass feedstock into pyrolysis oil or synthesis gas. The thermochemical conversion process is known for high degree of complexity and uses specific operating conditions, components and configurations. The process concerts biomass into syngas that can be converted into ethanol-rich blend. In the global Thermochemical segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 12.2% CAGR estimated for this segment.

These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$42.3 Billion in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$99.4 Billion by the close of the analysis period. China will remain among the fastest growing in this cluster of regional markets. Led by countries such as Australia, India, and South Korea, the market in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach US$9.7 Billion by the year 2026.

3. Over the past few years, AI startups have showcased a lot of growth with various noteworthy innovations and revolutionary artificial intelligence concepts. With the emergence of Covid-19, these startups also faced several challenges along their evolutionary journeys that have even impacted their business potential. Impact-driven investors and customers look for business potential. So, AI accelerators and incubators can prove to be efficient partners for these AI startups.

Here are AI accelerators and startup incubators to follow in 2022:

Digital Catapult is highly experienced in applying AI to new emerging systems and operations. The company specializes in machine learning, edge computing, edge computing, and general adversarial networks. Digital Catapult is also known for bringing the best in businesses, accelerating new possibilities with digital technologies. 

Y Combinator provides seed funding for startups. The company’s primary goal is to enable the startups to pass through the first phase and help to get to a point where they are able to innovate something revolutionary and cutting-edge

Antler focuses on redefining future companies. The team seeks the right team that will understand early-product market fit validation and pre-seed capital because that increases the chances of a new company to make profits. 

Analytics Ventures is a venture studio fund dedicated to establishing new ventures that look forward to harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. 

AI Seed offers pre and post-investment support specialty, tailored to the unique needs of emerging artificial intelligence and machine learning startups.

AI2 Incubator is an initiative of the Allen Institute for AI. The organization helps entrepreneurs create their first AI startups through leading AI research, support, and funding. 

Hero House is an entrepreneurship hub that combines the specific potential of local leading universities with that of the expertise and network of business leaders in entertainment, aerospace, bioscience, and other advanced technologies. Hero House has also established its own in-house venture capital fund called SmartGateVC.

NextGrid’s mission is to accelerate the pace of innovation by investing in startups, talent, and ecosystems that are driven by artificial intelligence. To enhance AI acceleration facilities, the company has also launched the AI Slingshot program that enables steady growth and success of early-stage AI startups.

AIVL’s mission is to positively impact the world by accelerating cloud-based AI startups with the potential to transform and upend industries. With the help of one-of-a-kind acceleration, the company’s innovative industry labs help promising AI startups to boost growth and productivity. 

Nvidia Inception is an accelerator program that focuses on cutting-edge startups, providing critical market support, expertise, and technology. Nvidia explores the potential of global startups through enhanced computing, from the concept of reality. 

4. Cloud is the big buzzword these days, with people talking about why it’s a smart move for companies, and lots of venture-backed startups developing easy ways for companies to make the shift.

Artisanal Ventures, a Bay Area venture capital firm investing in B2B cloud startups, closed on its first fund, the oversubscribed $62 million Artisanal Ventures I. The inaugural fund is backed by more than 50 founders and senior executives from companies like Square, Atlassian, CrowdStrike, AppDynamics, Snowflake, Splunk, UiPath and MuleSoft.

The firm is led by Andy Price, general partner, and also founder of cloud-focused executive search firm Artisanal Talent. He has brought in Andrew Van Nest as a partner. Van Nest was previously a venture investor at Blumberg Capital.

Meanwhile, Price expects most of the check sizes to be between $500,000 and $1.5 million for early-stage companies and $2 million to $3.5 million in later-stage companies.

“We sit in a unique spot in the B2B software landscape as both investors and recruiters,” Van Nest said. “Our lens into the flow of great talent allows us to monitor and invest in spaces that are truly at the cutting edge. We’ve been focused on ML/NLP, cloud security and automation. We’re excited to be supporting companies leading the charge.”

5. Tech Crunch reports that a seven-month-old fintech app that is helping millions of Indians to begin their investment and saving journeys has raised $32 million in its Series A financing round, just months after securing its seed funding.

The New York-headquartered investor led the new round, with participation from scores of investors, including Rocketship.vc, Stonks, Force Ventures, Arkam Ventures, Klarna founder Victor Jacobsson, Suleman Ali of Ali Capital, Shamir Karkal of Sila Money, Byron Ling of Cannan Partners and Joel John of Ledger Prime.

Nearly a billion Indians have bank accounts today, but they have never made any investment. Part of the reason is confusion, said Nishchay Ag, co-founder and chief executive of Jar. “Their world is littered with ads of different financial instruments,” he told TechCrunch in an interview.

For decades, banks and mutual funds have been trying to tap India masses with their products. Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars they have sunk in to win the market, they have been able to court fewer than 30 million individuals.

“Manufacturing a product is one thing and being able to sell it is another. All these institutions are good at manufacturing. For selling, you have to be aligned with the individual’s persona, idiosyncrasies, insecurities, cognitive load and the cultural significance. That’s an art and science by itself,” he said.

6. EU-Startups reports that the Enterprise forensics platform Binalyze has just raised €9.1 million in its mission to enable companies to respond more efficiently to cyber threats. The funding was led by OpenOcean with participation from Earlybird Digital East which led Binalyze’s pre-seed round last year.

Cybercrime is one of the primary concerns for enterprises in the digital age. It’s claimed that over half of large companies now deal with hundreds, if not thousands, of cybersecurity alerts every day. It’s now becoming accepted that 100% breach prevention is no longer a realistic expectation for most businesses. 

Traditional digital forensic tools are slow and require technical knowledge that is in short supply – meaning it can take weeks, or even months, for an enterprise the understand the full extent of a cyber breach. Cyberthreats, though, require a speedy response. This is where Binalyze is targeting its focus – redefining how enterprises respond to cyber security breaches. 

Emre Tinaztepe, CEO and founder of Binalyze said: “100% breach prevention is no longer a realistic expectation. Forensic visibility is an integral part of an investigation. Enterprises need to be prepared with the right tools to mount an effective and quick response once a suspected breach is detected.”

“Speed is of the essence. Cybercriminals work quickly once they gain access to a corporate network. Binalyze is designed to be fast, capturing the most comprehensive forensic snapshot and creating a detailed digital forensics report in less than 10 minutes. It dramatically speeds up all stages of incident response, from identification to remediation.”

7. Marvel Fusion, a Munich-based fusion energy startup, has just got a €35 million funding boost to accelerate the commercialization of fusion tech, overcoming some of the hurdles of producing clean energy at scale. The Series A funding round was led by Earlybird. 

Founded in 2019, Marvel Fusion is developing a novel energy source that is based on laser-driven fusion. The fusion process releases large amounts of zero-carbon emission energy that can be converted into electricity – a timely innovation in the age of energy crises and climate change. 

 Fusion technology combines the advantages of clean energy sources with the possibility to produce baseload energy at a large scale – without having the disadvantages of traditional power generation in terms of carbon emissions or long-lived problematic waste. Marvel FUsion are completely changing the game with their solution, offering a promising approach for a truly clean and safe fusion tech that can be a global game-changer for energy production. 

Moritz von der Linden, CEO of Marvel Fusion, said: “Fusion technology has the potential to disrupt energy production at large scale and to significantly contribute to fighting climate change, one of the biggest challenges for mankind”

8. Urban mobility startup Dott has raised an extension to its Series B round. Originally announced in the spring of 2021, the company raised an $85 million Series B round — it was a mix of equity and asset-backed debt financing. And today, the company is adding another $70 million to this round —once again, it’s a mix of equity and debt.

Dott is a European micromobility startup that is better known for its scooter-sharing service. More recently, the company added an electric bike-sharing service in some cities.

Abrdn is leading the Series B extension with Dott’s existing investor Sofina. Other existing investors put more money on the table, such as EQT Ventures and Prosus Ventures.

Dott competes with several micromobility startups in Europe. Its most direct competitors are Tier, Lime and Voi. They are quite similar when it comes to pricing and scooters — most of them work with Okai to design their scooters — but they don’t necessarily operate in the same markets.

Right now, Dott covers 36 cities across nine European countries. The company manages 40,000 scooters and 10,000 bikes. While Dott isn’t sharing revenue numbers, the startup processed 130% more trips in 2021 compared to 2020.

9.A live-stream video of a 76-year-old woman pottering about her kitchen plays on Li Hong’s phone. Li is in London, 8,700km from her mother in the Chinese city of Kunming. Li has narrowed the distance between them by installing cameras in her mother’s apartment, where she lives alone. The system has built-in microphones and speakers, enabling the pair to discuss the latest readings from the blood pressure monitor of Li’s mother, who has a heart condition. “It’s like I am back in China with her. The technology is so convenient,” says Li.

China has been quick to deploy a range of new technologies to relieve the burden on hospitals, care systems and families caring for the sick and elderly. But it is in medical artificial intelligence that the country’s early adoption of new solutions has been particularly notable, says Eric Topol, a US doctor and author of Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. China has shifted faster than the US in medical AI from research to implementation, driven in part by the availability of high-quality data, says Topol. “China has a massive data advantage when it comes to medical AI research,” he says, explaining that Chinese researchers can train AI models on data sets covering entire provinces. In contrast, their US counterparts are restricted to working with information from single hospitals — largely operated by private businesses that keep records on internal servers.

Financial Times reports that Airdoc, a Beijing-based medical AI group, recently became the first company to gain regulatory approval for its retina-scanning software to be deployed in Chinese hospitals.

10. Bitcoin mining is the process of creating new digital tokens and adding past transaction records to a public blockchain ledger. This energy-intensive process is a heavy greenhouse gas emitter.

Some startups encourage crypto miners to use clean energy sources. Texas tech startup Lancium recently raised $150 million to power bitcoin mining with renewable energy. The Houston, Texas company will create bitcoin mining sites across Texas.

Hanwha Solutions, a clean energy company, led Lancium’s latest funding round. Most of the financing round participants were power companies.

Lancium’s CEO, Michael McNamara, said “I think the fact that it’s all energy companies investing suggests that we have a shared vision of the role bitcoin mining should play in the grid.”

Lancium, founded in 2017, describes itself as a carbon neutral cloud computing company. It plans to build and operate technologically advanced data centers that will promote renewable energy growth.

Episode 42

Be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app, so that you don’t miss Startup Monday’s new episodes. Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google Play | Pocket Cast 

Top startups news to follow this week:

1. One of the most popular applications of artificial intelligence to date has been to use it to predict things, using algorithms trained with historical data to determine a future outcome. But popularity doesn’t always mean success: Predictive AI leaves out a lot of the nuance, context and cause-and-effect reasoning that goes into an outcome; and as some have pointed out (and as we have seen), this means that sometimes the “logical” answers produced by predictive AI can prove disastrous. A startup called causaLens has developed causal inference technology — presented as a no-code tool that doesn’t require a data scientist to use to introduce more nuance, reasoning and cause-and-effect sensibility into an AI-based system — which it believes can solve this problem.

CausaLens’s aim, CEO and co-founder Darko Matovski said, is for AI “to start to understand the world as humans understand it.”

“Human bodies are complex systems, and so applying basic AI paradigms you can find any pattern you want, correlations of any sort, and you are not getting anywhere,” Darko Matovski, the CEO and founder of the startup, said in an interview. “But if you apply cause and effect techniques to understand the mechanics of how different bodies work, you can understand more of the true nature of how one part has an impact on another.”

Last week, the startup is announcing $45 million in funding after seeing some early success with its approach, growing revenues 500% since coming out of stealth a year ago. This is being described as a “first close” of the round, meaning it’s still open and potentially going to grow in size.

2. Esusu becomes unicorn with SoftBank Vision Fund 2-led $130M funding. Esusu, a fintech that targets immigrant and minority groups and provides rent reporting and data solutions for credit building, said Thursday it has raised $130 million in a Series B fundraising round.

The investment gives four-year-old Esusu a valuation of $1 billion, placing it as one of the very few black-owned unicorns in the U.S. and globally. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the funding round, with participation from Jones Feliciano Family Office, Lauder Zinterhofer Family Office, Schusterman Foundation, SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Related Companies and Wilshire Lane Capital.

More than 100 million Americans spend an average of $1,100 (over $1.4 trillion per year) on their largest monthly household spend: rent. But reports say 90% of these people don’t get credit for paying their rent on time.

On a sub-level, over 45 million people in the U.S. don’t have credit scores, according to a 2020 report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Most of this demography are financially marginalized due to their background and race.

Immigrants and African Americans have lower or non-existent credit scores than other populations. To a large extent, they also witness more predatory lending, putting them in a cycle of financial insecurity. So, while they need strong credit scores to build wealth, they do not have access to build credit.

Esusu co-founders and co-CEOs Nigerian-born American Abbey Wemimo and Indian American Samir Goel grew up in immigrant homes and experienced firsthand this financial exclusion. They started the company in 2018 to build the credit scores of this marginalized group and “leverage data to bridge the racial wealth gap” via rental payments.

3. Intellect, the Singapore-based mental health startup focused primarily on Asia-Pacific markets, announced today it has raised a $10 million Series A. The company’s services, including self-directed mental wellness programs in 15 languages and online therapy sessions, are available through two channels: as an employee benefit and through Intellect’s consumer app.

The round, which Intellect claims is the largest Series A ever raised by a mental health startup in Asia, was led by HOF Capital. New investors included Headline, East Ventures, MS&AD Ventures, DG Daiwa Ventures and Pioneer Fund; existing backer Insignia Ventures Partners also returned.

Co-founder and CEO Theodoric Chew told TechCrunch that Intellect differentiates from other employee wellness programs because “Intellect’s vision isn’t simply to be a self-care app or an employee benefits platform solely, but a full mental healthcare system for Asia. That drives a differentiated approach in how we build our platform which caters from the smallest of daily struggles through self-guided programs, all the way to clinical therapy for chronic issues.”

The company, a Y Combinator alum, will use the capital to increase its product, engineering and commercial teams as it continues expanding into new markets. It currently has about three million registered users, in a total of 20 countries, with a strong commercial presence in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, said Chew.

4. Massachusetts-based Vecna Robotics is among those firms looking to bring autonomy to pallet moving and other forklift-centric warehouse activities. As Techcrunch reportedThe firm has already raised a decent chunk of change, including a $50 million Series B back in January 2020 — just before the pandemic did its number on the U.S. That round brought its funding north of $60 million, a figure it’s more than doubled with a new Series C.

The company already used its previous round to do a fair bit of hiring, including new CEO Craig Malloy and CMO Josh Kivenko. Here’s the former on what this fresh infusing of funding will go toward:

There is huge headroom for growth in automated material handling with over 5 billion pallets in the world being moved by more than 5 million forklifts and nearly 5 million manual operators. This investment, led by such a prominent and supportive group of investors, will allow us to accelerate our roadmap and deliver solutions to the market faster in order to meet the insatiable demand for increased throughput in material handling environments like factories and warehouses.

Vecna says the money will be used for R&D on the software and hardware front, fulfilling orders and expanding operations. The company is no doubt one in a long line of robotics firms that’ve seen increased interest among investors fueled by the pandemic and a widespread inability to keep jobs filled.

5. Entertainment platform, Fever, has just raised €200 million in a round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s growth investment fund. This round, which is regarded as the largest ever in the live entertainment tech category, brings Fever to unicorn status.

This big funding news also marks an exciting time for culture and live entertainment in the era of digital entertainment and the Metaverse. It seems live entertainment and cultural experiences are still at the forefront of our minds!

Other investors participating in this mega-funding include Alignment Growth, Goodwater Capital and Smash Capital. 

Founded in 2011 in Madrid by Spanish entrepreneur Pep Gomez, Fever is now co-led by fellow Spaniards Ignacio Bachiller Ströhlein, Francisco Hein and Alexandre Pérez Casares. It’s not the company’s first time breaking records with funds in the entertainment discovery market – raising $35 million in 2019. 

Fever has been on a mission to democratize access to culture and entertainment through its innovative approach to the experience economy. Fever inspires users to explore the best experiences in their cities while helping event organizers generate a very targeted demand. 

Since the pandemic has been disrupting our lives, the live entertainment, culture and experience economy has certainly been undergoing turbulent changes. Thousands of organisers such as museums, theatres and so on have had to make considerable efforts to adapt to continue to attract the mass public. Fever has been making it easier for these organizers to do so – making their experiences more accessible to a whole new audience across the world.

6. Dutch climate startup Sensorfact has just scored €13 million for its intelligent energy management and energy saving solution. Investment companies FORWARD.one, Korys and SET Ventures are all participating in the funding. 

Founded in 2016, Sensorfact has developed an Intelligent Energy Management System (IEMS). With this plug-and-play hardware and software, industrial SMEs can easily access and monitor their energy consumption in detail, reduce it with targeted actions and integrate it into increasingly strict energy reports.

In July last year, the European Commission presented the ‘fit for 55’ package, which aims to achieve a CO2 reduction of 55% in 2030 compared to levels in 1990. As a result, companies have to deal with increasingly strict regulations. Energy prices have also risen sharply in the past year, reaching a record high last December. Tech being offered by Sensorfact is going to prove indispensable in achieving carbon reduction targets and addressing price fluctuations. 

Sensorfact CEO Pieter Broekema, commented: “The energy bill is one of the largest costs that companies in the manufacturing industry are facing, especially with current energy prices. In addition, due to the wide interest in climate change, there are an increasing number of European regulations that companies have to comply with. With our technology, companies can kill these two birds with one stone.”

The climate tech startup supplies measuring equipment that can be easily installed by customers, giving insight into data around energy consumption – curial when looking at how to reduce consumption ad comply with regulations. With industry-specific algorithms, Sensorfact’s solution is then able to identify energy savings. This is complemented by energy experts who help with implementation. 

7. As Techcrunch reported, Indian startup Moglix has more than doubled its valuation to about $2.6 billion from $1 billion just eight months ago as the Indian industrial business-to-business marketplace aggressively scales its offerings in many parts of the world.

Founded by IIT Kanpur and ISB alumnus Rahul Garg, Moglix operates a B2B marketplace and procurement platform for manufacturing goods that could be anything from a centrifugal pump to a fan to routers and pulse oximeters.

“We are happy to have the continued support and faith of our investors, customers, suppliers and team. We are excited to welcome Ward Ferry onboard. We are focused on our mission to enable creation of a $1 trillion manufacturing ecosystem in India,” said Garg in a statement.

“We will continue to invest in building technology and supply chain capabilities to enable growth of the manufacturing and infrastructure sector. Moglix will increasingly focus on growth driven by supply chain financing, acquisition of the right partners and global expansion.”

The startup says it serves 500,000 small, medium-sized businesses and enterprises.

8. Israeli Crypto Startup Fireblocks Soars With $8 Billion Valuation. In the summer of 2019, Fireblocks — headed by Shauolov and co-founded with Idan Ofrat and Pavel Berengoltz — was still a stealth startup, the clandestine phase in which startups develop under a shroud of secrecy before unveiling the product. Only then did it announce its initial, relatively modest funding round of $16 million. By last March it had become a unicorn, and in July, it completed a $310 million round on a $2.5 billion valuation. On Thursday, Fireblocks is announcing another round for a staggering $550 million at an $8 billion valuation. For those who didn’t do the math, Fireblocks’ valuation catapulted threefold within a mere six months, and it is now one of Israel’s three highest valued private companies, following Rapyd and Snyk.

The company owes its unusual quantum leap to its product: a secure digital platform for crypto transactions. The cryptocurrency market experienced a dramatic growth spurt over the past two years, hitting the $2 trillion mark before the current crash. Increasing numbers of traditional businesses are beginning to adopt cryptocurrency, and according to forecasts, this year alone a quarter of small businesses will be accepting payment in these currencies — Fireblocks is going with that flow. To date, the company’s platform boasts a 15% share of all cryptocurrency transactions. At the same time, crypto is carving itself a growing share of a broader arena: not that of private consumers but of the institutionalized financial industry. The crypto advocates dream of taking over or completely replacing these leviathan institutions, although the likes of Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan have recently established dedicated crypto units and are allowing clients to hold cryptocurrency and trade them. Naturally, Fireblocks is relishing these developments.

Now, in an exclusive interview with Calcalist’s supplement, Shaulov reveals what this stellar eruption looked like from within, and how it led to a total of one billion dollars in funding.

“Three things came into play here,” Shaulov explains in a series of Zoom interviews from the company’s New York offices. “Firstly, I think investors have begun to grasp that at least for now, Fireblocks is the dominant and triumphant player, or in investor lingo — ‘the one.’ An understanding that we have set the industry standard is starting to permeate the market. I’m wary of viewing us as the single solution, because we’re not, but we are the best solution in the market. The second thing was that our whole theory regarding the direction in which the market is heading with NFT, DeFi and digital payments is materializing — everything is unfolding exactly the way we said it would.

“The third thing is the fact that despite a certain inflation of prices and company valuations in the background, our value is sustained by a truly insane growth rate. We’ve had to update our annual forecast four times in the past year. Initially we adjusted our revenue forecast from $8 million to $25 million, followed by $35 million, and lastly to $45 million. We actually ended 2021 with $60 million in revenue — that’s growth of over 600% in one year, and for this year as well, we forecast a tripling of our revenue.”

9.The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $35 million in funding for diverse small businesses to pursue scientific, clean energy, and climate solutions. The funding will support 158 projects across 29 states that will aim to develop an array of clean energy technology, from climate research tools to improved batteries for electric vehicles. This investment will create good-paying jobs, build a diverse climate workforce, and help achieve President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.  

“Supporting small businesses will ensure we are tapping into all of America’s talent to develop clean energy technologies that will help us tackle the climate crisis,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “DOE’s investments will enable these economic engines to optimize and commercialize their breakthroughs, while developing the next generation of climate leaders and helping to build a sustainable future to benefit all Americans.” 

10. Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a private-public fund backed by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, is planning to help invest up to $15 billion into clean tech projects across the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union.

But Jonah Goldman, Breakthrough Energy managing director, told the Financial Times that the fund ultimately plans to mobilize 10 times that amount, or $15 billion. The difference is expected to come from private companies and governments around the world.

In order to deploy $15 billion, Goldman told the FT that the fund plans to use innovative financial structures and partnership agreements. “We are last-mile financing and so, we will be the most risky capital in there,” Goldman said. “We’re really trying to demonstrate which of the technological pathways are going to be most effective.”

Episode 41

Be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app, so that you don’t miss Startup Monday’s new episodes. Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google Play | Pocket Cast 

Top startups news to follow this week:

1. French robotic exoskeleton maker Wandercraft eyes US expansion courtesy of a $45M Series C.

Wandercraft was founded in 2012, with the vision of improving mobility of wheelchair users. The company’s solution comes by way of exoskeletons, which can offer wearers the ability to walk with robotic assistance. In 2019, the Parisian firm launched Atalante, a self-balancing exoskeleton with 12 degrees of freedom that relies on walking on algorithms to determine a user’s gait.

The round was led by Quadrant Management, a U.S.-based firm, along with existing investor Bpifrance. Quadrant’s participation is particularly noteworthy here, as it finds the company expanding Atalante’s reach beyond Europe, into the United States.

“We are super excited to have attracted world-class investors from the USA and Europe to advance the development program of the company,” the company’s CEO Matthieu Masselin said in a release. “With the support of patients, medical professionals and the DeepTech community, Wandercraft’s team has created a unique technology that improves rehabilitation care and will soon enable people in wheelchairs to regain autonomy and improve their everyday health.”

2. Grocery delivery startup Calii is carving out a piece of Latin America’s $1 trillion groceries and food delivery market with its approach to cut inefficiencies in the food supply chain so it can bring produce and thousands of other grocery items to customers’ doorsteps in less than two hours.

To continue on that mission, the company announced Friday $22.5 million in Series A funding co-led by Dalus Capital and JAM Fund, with participation from backers including Forerunner Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, Y Combinator and Base10 Partners. To date, it has raised nearly $35 million.

David Eduardo Arrambide Montemayor and Maurizio Caló Caligaris, both Stanford-educated engineers, started Calii, a mobile grocery app that connects with producers and brands to automate the supply chain end-to-end and deliver more than 5,000 products, like produce, meat, seafood and prepared items, via a network of micro-fulfillment centers.

3. French startup Exotec has raised a $335 million Series D round in a new round of funding led by Goldman Sachs’ Growth Equity business. Following today’s investment, the company has reached a valuation of $2 billion.

Exotec sells a complete end-to-end solution to turn a regular warehouse into a partially automated logistics platform. It’s a hardware and software solution that replaces some human tasks.

The key component of the Exotec system is called the Skypods. These low-profile robots roam the floor autonomously. When they’re next to the right rack, they can go up the rack to pick up a bin and then go down with the right bin. This is particularly useful to increase the storage density of a warehouse as you can store products a few meters above ground.

The Skypod then caries the bin to a picking station so that human operators can pick up the right product in the bin. The robot can then go back to the racks and put back the bin on a shelf.

4. Toronto-based 1Password said on Wednesday it had raised $620 million in a funding round led by investment firm ICONIQ Growth, which more than tripled its valuation, as the cybersecurity startup aims for strategic acquisitions to boost its growth.

Hollywood stars including Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr and Ashton Kutcher also participated in one of the largest rounds in the security funding space that valued the company at $6.8 billion.

The funding comes at a time the pandemic-driven work-from-home trend nears two years, during which 1Password more than tripled its headcount to cater to companies’ increased data security challenges.

The company expects to double its headcount of about 570 this year, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Shiner said, as it looks to further capitalize on growing cybersecurity needs.

1Password will use the new funds to develop and scale human-centric security solutions and help people easily protect their most sensitive data and information.

5. Isralei Cybersecurity firm Anonybit announced the closing of a $3.5 million funding round last week. The financing was led by San Francisco-based Switch Ventures. Other participants included NextGen Venture Partners, Industry Ventures, Preceptor Capital, and several strategic angel investors. 

The funding will enable Anonybit to accelerate its work with embedded partners and enterprises in support of the growing need for greater data protection and enhanced digital security, a direct response to the growing threat of cybersecurity breaches such as identity theft. In the past year, the total number of cyberattack-related data breaches increased by 27% compared to 2020. Researchers expect $1.7 trillion dollars to be spent on cybersecurity and identity management over the next five years.

Anonybit has developed a breakthrough decentralized biometrics infrastructure that addresses a longstanding market need for improved management of personal data and digital assets across a wide range of use cases. 

6. Armenian-led robotics company Expper Technologies has secured $2million in seed financing to ensure the realization of their commitment to creating a state-of-the-art innovation called Robin the Robot and bringing next-generation caregiver robots to the world.

“Aside from having a presence in California, we successfully expanded our operations in Texas and Colorado, having 15 deployed units in medical facilities last year. Robin the Robot has been recognized as TIME’s Best Invention of 2021 in the Robotics category and was featured as an honoree in Fast Company’s 2021 Innovation by Design Awards in the Impact category,” Karen Khachikyan, CEO & Co-Founder at Expper Technologies, has said.

Robin the Robot is an Autonomous Care Assistant that augments front-line clinicians across a multitude of settings by supporting caregiving functions and extending care services using emotional AI and autonomous technology advances. Robin has integrated functionalities to provide emotional support and virtual care. Robin the Robot is a technology intended to provide patients and staff members with a warm and human-life interactive experience

7. The Italian firm Genenta Science and the UK company Genflow Biosciences make up a fresh wave of European gene therapy players going public. Genenta bagged €31.4M ($36M) in its Nasdaq debut in December 2021 and Genflow Biosciences listed on the London Stock Exchange this week, raising around €4.4M (£3.7M) in the process.

One factor driving the general reluctance to go public is the continuing volatility of biotech stock markets around the world. Reasons for the stock troubles include an excess of biotech IPOs in the US in addition to concerns over inflation and regulatory uncertainty. 

According to the CEO of Genenta Science, Pierluigi Paracchi, it’s complicated for European biotech companies to enter US public markets due to an abundance of local competition.

“All European companies suffer a discount compared to the US companies even if the science is comparable. In my view, it’s totally unjustified,” said Paracchi. “Therefore, European biotech companies try to land on the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange when the market is high and the IPO window is wide open just to reduce the discount.”

8. Dublin-based Exergyn has just raised €30 million for its novel and sustainable thermal management technology. This latest funding for the pioneering cleantech startup was led by Mercuria and Lacerta Partners with participation from McWin. 

Founded in 2012, Exergyn is on a mission to combat climate change through unique solid-state shape memory alloy technology that removes the need for destructive refrigerants. The product significantly reduces carbon emissions across a range of industries, including heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, refrigeration (HVACR), automotive, and aerospace. 

The HVACR industry alone is estimated to account for more than 10% of the global CO2 emissions. While Europe is aiming to drastically reduce carbon emissions, products such as those being developed by Exergyn could have a massive positive impact. We all are now well aware of the urgency to combat climate change, and European tech startups are certainly contributing lots of innovative solutions. 

9.With its cloud-based platform for cellular connectivity in the IoT stack EMnify has just secured a €50 million investment from One Peak. 

Founded in 2014, the Berlin-based company is a leading cloud building block for cellular communications in the IoT (Internet of Things) stack, connecting millions of IoT devices globally – from electric vehicles and energy meters to GPS trackers and health wearables. EMnify develops and operates a mobile core network infrastructure as a native cloud service, enabling connectivity in a secure, reliable and scalable way.

The EMnify API and SIM technologies connect and secure any kind of IoT deployment to its application back-end. Its cloud-native integrations and no-code workflows ensure seamless lifecycle scalability for deployments of all sizes – from local startups to global enterprises.

10. Closing its second fund, DutchFounders is making more than €62 million available for early-stage marketplaces and so-called marketplace enablers to fuel a growing European sector.

Based in Amsterdam, DutchFounders specialise in companies and marketplace with strong network effects. Since launching in 2018, the fund has helped boost 16 companies and has almost €100 million assets under management.

Founded by experienced entrepreneurs behind the likes of WeTransfer, Treatwell and Just Eat, the DutchFounders has backed the likes of digital freight forwarder Shypple and employee benefit platform YourCampus. This new fund comes just 1.5 years after the first fund, marking the extent of up-and-coming talent in European marketplaces. 

The Amsterdam-based VC noticed that many supply chains and B2B business operations remained offline. Especially in the B2B domain, many people still relied on legacy-like systems and analogue processes to manage their logistics or procurement. Now, DutchFounders has set out to back founders building marketplaces that truly disrupt these processes or companies that completely rethink supply chains.