Adelle Archer and Garret Ozar, co-founders of Eterneva
The Covid-19 Pandemic has killed
more than 611,000 people in the United States including 53,000 in Texas.
In many cases, during the last year,
families were not able to gather for in-person funerals to celebrate the lives
of their deceased relatives because of lockdowns and restrictions around the
Pandemic.
Some of those families turned to Austin-based Eterneva, which grows diamonds from cremated ashes, as a way to deal with their grief and loss and celebrate the life of their loved ones.
This week Eterneva announced it has
closed on an oversubscribed $10 million Series A round led by Tiger Management
with co-investment from Goodwater Capital, Capstar Ventures, NextCoast
Ventures, and Billionaire Mark Cuban.
Founded in 2017, Eterneva has raised
$14.8 million to date. In 2019, Adelle Archer and Garret Ozar, co-founders of
Eterneva landed a $600,000 investment from Cuban on Shark Tank. The company has
grown dramatically since then.
Eterneva investors also include some top female
venture capitalists including notable angels like Lydia Jett (Partner at
Softbank) and Kara Nortman (Managing Partner at Upfront, founder of Angel
City), to Kathryn Cavanaugh, the managing director
of Capstar Ventures, who is joining Eterneva’s board.
“I am thrilled to support Eterneva’s next phase
of growth as they build a new category in deathcare that improves the lives of
consumers,” Cavanaugh said in a news release. “We are honored to back a
business that helps people to grieve better with products and services that
deeply resonate with today’s consumer.”
CEO Adelle Archer is one of a small group of female CEOs to raise a larger venture growth round. And Eterneva is the second end-of-life company ever to raise more than $10 million. Better Place Forests, based in San Francisco, is the other end-of-life company that has raised $52 million to date.
“We are a very fast-growing company,
we had been a very fast-growing company before the Pandemic and we continued to
grow quite a bit, triple digits, during the Pandemic,” Archer said.
The Pandemic had a big impact on
culture and opened people up to talk more about end-of-life discussions, Archer
said.
About sixty percent of all Americans had a connection with someone who died during the Pandemic, she said. So, people are a lot more open about discussing end-of-life issues and how they want to be remembered., she said.
“People were looking for really
special ways to honor their loved one,” she said “They also were not able to
have funerals last year which was really crazy. It drove a lot more research
online. I think what resonated with people a lot was this idea of something
that is personalized, meaningful and it’s really a celebration of life.”
An Eterneva Diamond
Eterneva helps grievers celebrate remarkable people and pets by making diamonds from ashes or hair, Archer said. Cremation rites are also projected to reach 78 percent by 2040, which is leading consumers to break with old funeral traditions, Archer said.
Eterneva partners with funeral homes and pet
aftercare providers across the United States to reach consumers seeking more
meaningful and personal memorial options at the point of decision.
The idea of personalization and a celebration of life and Eterneva’s diamond-making journey really resonated with young people, Archer said.
So Eterneva launched its TikTok video account
last year and 15 videos have received between 500,000 and 7 million organic
views since the beginning of the year, Archer said.
“It really shows how younger people are thinking
about this, and really embracing it and loving it,” Archer said.
The round will also go towards investing in
taking the Eterneva diamond journey experience to a new level and scaling its funeral
home and pet aftercare channel program nationwide, Archer said.
Eterneva has 27 employees today and plans to add another 15
people in the next 12 months. Eterneva has a diamond growing facility in Austin
and others in Switzerland and Germany. It plans to expand the Austin facility
with its latest funding round, Archer said. Eterneva’s diamonds
start at $3,000. The cost varies depending on the size, style, and color of the
diamond.
Eterneva also allows its customers to visit the diamond
growing facility to participate in the process. Some enjoy starting the diamond
growing machine or design a special setting for the diamond with a jeweler,
Archer said.
“It helps with a person’s grieving process,“ Archer said. “Even
when it’s done right, a funeral is only a day or a couple of days and grief we
know lasts years. American culture still has a lot of work to do in how we show
up for and support grievers. It can be a very isolating and lonely experience.”
“Being able to have something to shift your focus on and
have a community you can plug into that understands you is super powerful,”
Archer said.
In the wake of losing someone, there’s a time where people are forming meaning on what that loss meant, Archer said. People can share stories about that person’s life and keep them alive with us, she said.
“Why do we stop talking about people when they are gone? Why not keep talking about them and not make it weird,” Archer said.
In addition to honoring people, about 40 percent of Eterneva’s business is making diamonds from the ashes of pets.
The Texas and Panama story continues to evolve, said Juan B. Sosa,
U.S. president of the Panama Council.
“It’s a new era of trade, investment, and cooperation,” Sosa said during the Panama-Texas Business Summit on Monday at the Hotel Marriott Downtown. It’s one of the first in-person international summits to be held since the COVID-19 Pandemic. Some people wore masks. A slide flashed on the screen for places to get COVID tests. Some people shook hands but many people simply bowed.
More than 200 people gathered for the summit which brings together Panama and Texas government, business, and nonprofit organization officials. The two-day summit focused on specialty coffee, agriculture and food, banking and investments, tourism, trade, real estate, construction, technology, and clean energy.
U.S. diplomatic relations developed with Panama in 1903 after
its independence from Colombia and those relations further solidified with the opening
of the Panama Canal in 1914. The U.S. and Panama signed a treaty that gave control
of the Canal back to Panama in 1999.
Today, the U.S. and Panama work closely together to ensure
global trade and security in the region, Sosa said.
Texas exports $2 billion or 36 percent of the nearly $5.8
billion worth of U.S. merchandise exports to Panama in 2020, according to the
Texas Economic Development Council.
Texas’ seaports in Port Arthur, Beaumont, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Freeport, and Houston, receive ships traveling through the Panama Canal.
Earlier this month, Panama President Laurentino Cortiz visited Austin, Houston, and Irving, Texas. His visit shows how important Texas is to Panama, Sosa said.
Panama also hosts the regional headquarters for more than 30 multi-national companies from the United States including seven from Texas, Sosa said. Texas companies with a big presence there include Dell Technologies with 3,000 employees, Halliburton, and Caterpillar.
The U.S. is the number one user of the canal, with 68 percent of transits heading to or from U.S. ports, according to the State Department. Imports from Panama include fish, seafood, gold, cane sugar, bananas, and pineapples. Panama is also recognized worldwide for its high-end coffee.
Ricardo Koyner, CEO Kotowa farms with a package of Geisha Coffee
Panama’s coffee industry is small, but it’s very specialized,
said Ricardo Koyner, CEO Kotowa farms.
“And it’s gone from conventional coffee to high-end coffee,”
Koyner said.
It’s kind of like the wine industry, he said.
Panama is cultivating a variety of coffee called Geisha, which
has been very popular with the Asian markets, he said. A pound of Geisha coffee
from Panama has fetched as much as $1,300 at auction, he said. Roasted it is
worth more than $3,000 a pound, he said.
Panama Geisha is rare, costs a lot to produce, and has great flavor, Koyner said. Panama’s soil, climate, geographic position all make it a favorable place to grow Geisha beans, he said.
The demand for the coffee is largely coming from Japan, Taiwan, China, and select markets in the U.S., he said.
“It’s definitely changing the industry,” Koyner said.
Geisha coffee is also being added to chocolate and liquor in Panama to make specialty products.
Overall, Panama’s economic growth rate is among the highest in the hemisphere. But it also faces challenges of inclusivity, more fiscal transparency, and enforcement of anti-money laundering legislation, according to the U.S. State Department.
Jonathan Diaz, business director of City of Knowledge Foundation in Panama, runs a technology park that was the former Clayton military base. It’s an innovation hub for technology, research, and science, and the United Nations has its regional hub there, he said. The park with 200 buildings sits across from the Panama Canal. It is home to a U.S. stem cell research lab among other ventures.
“We have a startup ecosystem that is very strong,” Diaz said.
The City of Knowledge recently signed an agreement with the
University of Texas at Austin to create a global innovation lab in Panama. The
hub is hoping to attract more companies from Texas and Austin to operate there.
Since the expansion of the Panama Canal in 2016, Texas has
become an even stronger trading partner.
The Port of Houston is one of the world’s largest exporters of oil
through the Panama Canal.
The partnership between Texas and Panama is strong, Sosa said.
Capstar Ventures L.P., an early-stage venture capital firm, announced last week that it has closed on its $41.3 million inaugural fund.
The
Austin-based VC firm founded by Kathryn Cavanaugh in 2019, invests nationwide in
innovative consumer companies.
Capstar
raised the fund from individuals, family offices, and institutions including
Capital Creek Partners, Tiger Partners L.P., and J.P. Morgan.
Capstar
Ventures is the first fund to close as part of J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s
Project Spark, focused on supporting emerging alternative fund managers,
including minority-led and women-led venture capital funds.
“Kathryn embodies the type of fund manager we set out to back through the launch of our Project Spark initiative and we are thrilled to partner with Capstar Ventures on its inaugural fund,” Jamie Kramer, Head of Alternative Solutions at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Investment Committee Chair for Project Spark, said in a news release. “Kathryn brings a unique perspective, deep expertise and a differentiated vision for investing in the next generation of consumer companies, and we’re pleased to be participating in the fund.”
Capstar
Ventures invests in seed and Series A rounds for digitally native brands,
consumer goods and services, and technologies that power these startups. Its
focus is on Millennial and Gen Z consumer products and services and platforms.
“We seek
to invest in founders who are solving their own pain points and who directly
relate to and resemble their customers because we have seen how that authentic
connection translates into high growth companies,” Cavanaugh, Founder and
Managing Partner of Capstar Ventures, said in a news release. “And how
Millennial and Gen Z consumers resonate with that authenticity as they align
their purchasing power with their values.”
Cavanaugh
has been investing in and advising early-stage companies across consumer,
healthcare, and technology for the past 15 years. While working at Grace Beauty
Capital, Mainsail Partners, and De Novo Ventures, she deployed and actively
supported over $350 million of equity investments, including early-stage
disruptive consumer brands such as Rothy’s, Supergoop!,Parachute, Primary, and M.M.LaFleur.
In
2019, she moved to Austin to launch Capstar Ventures with anchor capital from
successful Texas entrepreneurs Steve Hicks, Kendra Scott, and Robert Gauntt.
“Steve,
Robert, and I are thrilled for the opportunity to partner with Kathryn to
launch Capstar Ventures because we share a commitment to supporting the innovation
and passion that entrepreneurs contribute to our world, and believe it is
critical to building a brighter future,” Scott, Founder of Kendra Scott LLC,
said in a news release. “We feel fortunate for the opportunity to support those
in the earlier stages of building their business and to work alongside
phenomenal partners to provide more diverse founders a seat at the table.”
Capstar
Ventures has invested in ten portfolio companies to date, including Culina, a leading
plant-based food company; Stylust, a commerce
technology platform; The Class, a health and
wellness platform; Sarah Flint, a women’s
luxury shoe brand; Packed Party, a celebration
lifestyle brand; St. Frank, a luxury home
décor brand; Museum of Ice Cream, an
experience-first development company; Bravo Sierra, the first
military-native wellness company; Eterneva, a grief
wellness company; and Intraloop, a community
insights technology platform.
Fetch, a last-mile package delivery service aimed at apartment dwellers, announced last week it has closed on $50 million in funding.
Ocelot Capital led the Series C round of funding along with Greenpoint Partners, Alpaca VC, and Rose Park Advisors. Existing investors Iron Gate Capital, Signal Peak Ventures, Venn Ventures, Pando Ventures, and Seamless also participated.
In addition, Signature
Bank provided a $10 million venture debt facility.
To date, the company, founded in 2016 in Dallas, has raised $92 million, including an $18 million Series B round last year and a $10.5 million Series A round in 2019.
Fetch plans to use the
funding to open 24 new markets over the next two years and to expand within existing
markets.
“Fetch is the last-mile delivery solution that the apartment industry has always needed,” Andrew Townsend, Managing Member at Ocelot Capital, which also owns regional parcel carrier, Lone Star Overnight, said in a news release. “Based on our experience within parcel logistics and last-mile delivery, we view the Fetch model as the only sustainable option for multifamily and see it quickly becoming the gold standard for apartment operators. With the acceleration in e-commerce volumes, it is more apparent than ever that limited capacity parcel storage systems are no longer viable and Fetch is the only long-term parcel storage solution that meets the needs of both multifamily operators and residents.”
The
last-mile package delivery company currently operates in Dallas/Fort Worth,
Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa,
Chicago, Phoenix, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, Washington, D.C., Jacksonville and
Portland, and will soon be expanding its footprint to Philadelphia, San
Francisco and Miami. Fetch accepts deliveries at local Fetch-operated
facilities and works directly with residents to schedule door-to-door delivery.
Delivering
roughly 3.5 million packages in 2020, Fetch has already hit the 2.5 million
mark for volume in June 2021 and they’re currently on track to deliver over 8
million packages by the end of the year.
“We’re excited about what this fundraise means for our company in terms of our ability to extend our package management solution to more cities, more apartment communities, and more renters across the country. We’ve proven our profitability in a number of markets and we’re aiming to triple our business in the next 18 months with that continued success and profitability top of mind,” said Fetch CEO Michael Patton. “The industry has recognized Fetch as the one package model capable of carrying multifamily into the future, and we’re honored that our investors feel the same.”
The Israel-based automotive company is
establishing its first center for the assembly and testing of its electric
vehicle platforms in Austin. The center is expected to create 150 jobs. The
company is exploring collaborations with Koch Industries companies to establish
the center.
Koch Strategic Platforms, a subsidiary of Koch
Industries, is an investor in REE.
“Establishing our U.S. headquarters in Austin,
Texas best positions us for growth and rapid expansion,” Daniel Barel, REE’s
Co-Founder and CEO, said in a news release. “Austin is fast becoming a
worldwide home for elite technology professionals. REE needs to continue
growing and thriving, and Austin’s dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit
definitely fit REE’s culture and values. Our U.S. presence will allow us to
capitalize on the incredible opportunities in the U.S. market and put us closer
to our North American-based customers and partners, including Magna
International and JB Poindexter, as we work together to develop and deliver
modular EVs (MEVs™).”
The company’s technology integrates critical
vehicle components, including steering, braking, suspension, powertrain and
control, into a single compact module between the chassis and the wheel, using
x-by-wire technology for steering, driving and braking, according to a news
release.
The company’s technology has enabled it to
develop “a modular, fully-flat skateboard chassis with more room for
passengers, cargo and batteries that will be highly adaptable to customers,”
according to a news release.
Electric vehicles platforms using its technology are agnostic to vehicle size and design, power source, and driving model, which allows the company to target a $700 billion market.
The company’s stock, trading under the symbol
REE, also began trading on the Nasdaq stock market last week. Its stock closed
$10.21, down 5 percent on Friday. The company went public as the result of a
merger with 10X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp.
“Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) unit Hino will use Tel Aviv-based REE’s platform for its electric trucks and buses, and REE has also formed partnerships with American Axle (AXL.N), Canadian auto supplier Magna International (MG.TO), French autonomous shuttle maker Navya (NAVYA.PA) and EAVX, a newly-formed unit of U.S. commercial vehicle body maker JP Poindexter & Co,” according to Reuters.
CS Disco became a public company last week debuting on the New York stock exchange under the stock symbol LAW.
The Austin-based legal tech company offered its stock at $32 a share and raised $224 million from its Initial Public Offering. And when the stock began trading on Wednesday it “opened at $42.26 and closed at $42.59, up 33% from its offer price. At $42.59, Disco is valued at $2.4 billion,” according to Barron’s.
On Friday, Disco’s stock closed Friday at $44.81, up almost five percent since its debut.
“Our IPO is a milestone, not an endpoint. We continue to have ambitious goals for our products and our continued growth,” Kiwi Camara, Disco’s CEO and Co-Founder said in a statement. “We believe access to the public markets will only improve our ability to better serve our customers’ needs — and better pursue our mission of using technology to strengthen the rule of law.”
DISCO uses artificial intelligence and cloud computing to help lawyers and legal teams. DISCO has more than 900 corporations, law firms, and government agencies as customers.
The company, founded in 2013, moved its headquarters from Houston to Austin in 2018.
CS Disco had raised $161 million in venture capital, according to its filing. Its investors include LiveOak Venture Partners, Breyer Capital, Georgian Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, The Stephens Group and Comerica.
DISCO became a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange on July 21, 2021
By Krishna Srinivasan, Chairman of the Board, DISCO and co-Founding Partner, LiveOak Venture Partners
In October 2013, we received a cold email – it had all the elements on first glance that begged to be ignored. The email came from a person named “CeCe” who talked about a founder called “Kiwi” and a company called “DISCO” in the legal tech space, which was also a category that did not have a history of great companies or large outcomes. But, boy, am I glad that we did not ignore that email!
LiveOak’s entrepreneur-first philosophy meant a commitment to look at all deals, even cold, inbound ones, and we quickly discovered that this showed a lot of promise. Kiwi was the youngest ever graduate from Harvard Law (graduated at 19), was the managing partner of his law firm, and, while practicing law, had hacked together a product that was generating early revenue. When we first met him, we were blown away by his domain knowledge and passion for transforming the future of law. Additional deeper diligence through some friendly litigators in our network indicated that this was an industry that was sorely in need of better products. During deeper discussions with Kiwi, we uncovered a fierce entrepreneurial spirt and a desire to learn and evolve into a world-class tech leader. Armed with the conviction around a domain-rich entrepreneur and large market opportunity, we decided to proceed forward as a founding investor. Ultimately, the company was formed (spun out of his law firm) at the same time as our initial investment.
Wow, aren’t we delighted that we embarked on this journey. Since being founded in December 2013, the company has grown from minimal revenue to now a successful IPO (NYSE: LAW) with a first trade market capitalization above $2.5B As stupendous this trajectory has been, it neither has been a straight line nor influenced by a single factor. I would attribute the success to a combination of domain strength, grit, collaboration, and good ol’ serendipity.
Domain Strength
Yes, Kiwi’s rich domain expertise was what attracted us to DISCO (N.B. the LiveOak playbook entails backing domain-rich, often first-time entrepreneurs and helping them grow into world-class tech entrepreneurs by helping with all aspects of company building). Kiwi’s obsession with using technology to help lawyers practice law has permeated into a company-wide focus on infusing deep legal knowledge into every piece of code shipped out. Every product was conceived after thinking about the problem from the shoes of a lawyer. As a result, DISCO has fused seemingly orthogonal disciplines of deep understanding of law with world-class engineering to create powerful user experiences that lawyers and other legal professionals love. Lots of entrepreneurs have deep knowledge of their respective fields but Kiwi and team exemplified the desire and capability to create magical products – an incredible distinguishing feature of the company. In an industry not known for user delight, the product has an impressive NPS of 63.
Like any other ambitious entrepreneur, Kiwi, even from the first pitch, articulated a multi-stage product roadmap for grabbing a market that was tens of billions of dollars. While that looked like a pipe dream then, today, the company is well on its way to grabbing that exact market he had outlined.
DISCO is very much a story of Kiwi parlaying his rich knowledge of law and thinking many moves ahead for their customers and creating products, services, and experiences to meet current and future needs. That domain-rich inventor’s spirit is what positions this company to define and lead legal tech!
Grit
Kiwi and the company have gotten here in no small measure due to their grit. As with most startups innovating in markets not yet proven, there was some doubt from prospective investors, employees, and so on. They questioned how difficult it may be to attract future investments in legal tech, to show strong traction in the market, whether the business model was right and the impact of competition, even with the strength of DISCO’s product. Now seeing how far DISCO has come, their uncertainties have not come to fruition. These folks simply underestimated Kiwi and the team’s grit to bludgeon their way through these issues.
The financings of the company certainly involved significant effort. However, through them all, Kiwi never had a moment of self-doubt or reduced conviction on the scale of company that he could build here. So, for all the entrepreneurs out there, don’t be disheartened if there are challenges in getting the financing dollars and terms you want as there is not often a ton of term-sheet-love spewing out there.
There were challenges in hiring the optimal leaders for every function, given the preferences around possessing both legal domain knowledge and world-class enterprise software sensibilities. This unique combination is not often available due to the lack of standout winners in legal tech. In absence of optimal leaders, Kiwi has operated as a functional head for practically every department at some point of time. Waiting for the right leaders and gritting it out until the right one was available became the mantra. Today, more than half the executive team are lawyers and several others have deep backgrounds in the legal industry as well as experience at hyper-growth software companies.
Collaboration
The DISCO success story has also been a textbook example of collaboration between a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur, one that began the day we signed the term sheet. We had finally agreed on all the terms, but that was only after a relatively intense set of discussions where I felt that Kiwi came across as a nitpicky litigator who was focused on corner case scenarios rather than a typical pragmatic tech entrepreneur. I told him, to go forward, we needed to be convinced that our relationship could be more collaborative rather than one that felt like a legal scrimmage. Kiwi countered that he would drive over to the office to “make his case”. Now that was a rare icy November day and he was in Houston, 200 miles away! But that would not deter him from driving to Austin! His action to make this future relationship successful was itself enough of a powerful signal that we signed the deal the moment he strode into our office – that cast the die for a trusting, collaborative style throughout our relationship.
Indeed, we have had many spirited debates – should we stay as a pure-play software business or be full-stack with an AI-based review platform, what is the optimal organizational design to sustain our stunning land and expand model, should we stay mostly channel vs. make a big push on the direct business, how should we position ourselves (as a vertical software player or as a horizontal software for legal category), are we ready to go public – the list goes on and on and on. Every one of these questions had enormous underlying ambiguity and given the magnitude of the consequences, of course, had some fierce opinions on both our sides. Unequivocally, in all these situations, the process was intensely collaborative, intellectually honest, and with the sole emphasis on what was best for DISCO.
It was hard to predict it that icy night in November, I simply could not have hoped for a more collaborative partner than Kiwi in this incredible journey.
Serendipity
The origins of our first investment in the company was itself serendipitous. We at LiveOak were fortunate that we could spot this “diamond” in the volume of cold emails we received.
Many of the unicorn-esque hires on the leadership team required deep legal and enterprise tech expertise and happened as a result of happenstance. We were so fortunate to find Michael Lafair (a lawyer-turned CFO). We were also lucky to find Andrew Shimek, a rare lawyer-turned Head of Sales who embodied both legal and enterprise sales traits, and Keith Zoellner, our Head of Engineering with expertise building world-class products and legal domain. Many other people and key board members such as Jim Offerdahl, Colette Pierce Burnette, and Scott Hill were connections that were made at the right place, right time.
Finally, it was of course serendipitous that Kiwi and my favorite soul food cuisine was Sichuan food! Ma-Po Tofu from Mala’s Bistro in Houston or A+A Sichuan in Austin was added motivation to meet, eat and strategize often!
After all, good fortune favors the brave and those with grit!
In closing…
The future is even brighter, and the opportunity is seemingly unbounded, and we believe that the company is indeed poised to be one of the largest and innovative software leaders for decades to come. This is the first software IPO out of Austin in a while, and it’s extra special given it was birthed in Texas and seed invested at inception by a Texas VC firm.
The success of DISCO and its IPO will be even more impactful for Austin and Texas at large as outsized successes are bound to beget many, many more in the future. Also, with Kiwi and a management team that is committed to building a long-term standalone company, DISCO is bound to have a powerful accelerating effect on the Texas ecosystem. DISCO Cares is a company initiative that is helping drive programs that support vulnerable populations across Texas. There are a number of DISCO-alum startups already sprouting, in Austin and Houston.
Having started this journey as the only other board member besides Kiwi at the time of inception, I am honored to now serve as Chairman of the Board as a part of this milestone IPO event. I look forward to helping Kiwi drive and shape DISCO’s next phase of growth for years to come and to contributing to DISCO’s legacy-shaping initiatives, from their community impact to the spawning of more promising entrepreneurs in the decades to come. In particular, we look forward to partnering with many more entrepreneurs who might learn from and imbibe many of this successful young lawyer’s characteristics around domain strength, grit, and collaboration while building their respective successful ventures!
LiveOak Venture Partners’ journey with DISCO began with a cold e-mail from Kiwi Camara which led to its initial investment and today reaches a milestone IPO with a first trade market cap of $2.5B. LiveOak Venture Partners’ Founding Partner and DISCO Chairman, Krishna Srinivasan, shares an intimate look at this remarkable success story.
Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on LinkedIn and has been reprinted here with permission.
Bright Machines announced plans to open a new regional office and lab in Austin.
The company, based in San Francisco, is not moving to Austin. Instead,
it is opening a new San Francisco headquarters in August.
Bright Machines is opening a customer support center and
robotics lab in Austin.
“The new locations signal a continued commitment by the company
to contribute to two of the country’s most important tech ecosystems as the
nation begins to reopen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the
company.
Bright Machines’ Austin location will have advanced product development teams as well as field operations and go-to-market functions. The office will open next year.
Since its founding in 2018, Bright Machines has had a presence
in San Francisco. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, the company shifted to a remote
workplace.
“In 2018 we established San Francisco as our global
headquarters, and today believe we have a responsibility to do our part to
promote the city’s tech ecosystem by growing our local presence and building
our team with the exceptional talent this city has to offer,” Fiorella
Dettorre, Chief Human Resources Officer at Bright Machines, said in a news
release.
The company helps to automate manufacturing operations through artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and robotics. It has 550 employees worldwide. It also recently entered into a merger agreement with SCVX, a special purpose acquisition company, to become a publicly-traded company in the second half of 2021.
GoPuff, a Philadelphia-based snack, and beverage delivery company, has acquired Austin-based Bandit, the App-only coffee shop founded by early Uber employee Max Crowley.
Bandit, founded in 2019, relocated its headquarters from New York to Austin in September of 2020 because it offered the startup an opportunity to experiment with curbside and drive-through technology in a booming city, according to a company blog post.
The financial terms of the acquisition of Bandit by GoPuff
were not disclosed.
Bandit had raised an undisclosed amount of venture capital
from Alex Pattis and four other investors, according to Crunchbase. GoPuff,
founded in 2013, has raised $2.4 billion in venture capital to date.
Bandit is all about contactless delivery of a cup of premium coffee, matcha, or ice cream. It also offers sandwiches and local pastries. Bandit is a mobile app that allows customers to browse a menu, place an order and receive rewards for purchases. Bandit competes with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and other coffee shops.
“We’re proud to serve delicious coffee, a full matcha bar, exciting new treats like ice cream, and a menu full of local offerings like Tacodeli breakfast tacos, pastries from Texas French Bread, and other treats from Easy Tiger,” the company wrote in a blog post when it moved here last year.
Editor’s note: This story was briefly taken down because a representative from GoPuff said it was incorrect. GoPuff says the acquisition took place last year. A PR firm representing Bandit sent a release saying the acquisition took place last week. The story has been updated.
LitLingo, which makes specialized software that allows businesses to monitor and correct real-time communications, announced that it has raised $7.5 million.
Breyer Capital led the
Series A round of funding with participation from former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano
and existing investors LiveOak Venture Partners, Clarke Nobiletti and James
Marsico.
To date, LitLingo has raised $9.5 million. It raised $2 million last August. LitLingo’s Co-Founders Kevin Brinig and Todd Sifleet met at Uber in San Francisco. They both moved to Austin and launched LitLingo in January of 2019.
The Austin-based startup employs artificial intelligence and natural language processing databases to help organizations communicate more effectively. LitLingo integrates with Slack, Zendesk, Gmail and Office 365.
The aim of LitLingo’s software is to help organizations communicate effectively and reduce litigation, compliance, and other problems. The software can flag questionable language in a real-time message before it is sent. LitLingo can also block message transmission and alert compliance teams for review.
“LitLingo is an incredibly valuable tool in our new hybrid workplaces and positioned to be one of the most important players in the digital communications analysis and management space,” Jim Breyer, Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital said in a news release.
“LitLingo is reimagining how we build
culture and mitigate risk,” Sam Palmisano, Chairman of the Center for Global
Enterprise and former CEO and Chairman of IBM said in a news release. “We have
all seen the impact a few badly written emails can have on an organization.
Yet, traditional approaches to compliance and risk mitigation are outdated,
reactive, expensive, and hard to scale across large enterprises. LitLingo is a
unique platform providing critical value to employees and organizations of all
sizes.”
“LitLingo leverages artificial intelligence to proactively help good people avoid bad mistakes in the workplace and to help leaders foster a better workplace overall,” said Brinig, LitLingo CEO.
LitLingo plans to use the venture capital
to hire key employees and double its headcount over the next 12 months at its Austin
headquarters and remotely. Also, the company plans to spend money on product
enhancements.
