HBS Alumni Startup Corner: Fall Funding Update

Alumni founders raised $3.4B+ in venture capital this autumn. Keith Bender (MBA ’20) reports.  

Keith Bender, Contributor

Startups led by HBS alumni received more than $3.4B in venture capital funding from the beginning of September—the time of our last alumni funding update—through press time for this issue (January 14, 2022). Here, I review the publicly disclosed funding rounds, categorized by industry:

Consumer

1. Facily, a social commerce marketplace in LatAm,. co-founded by Diego Dzodan (MBA ’98), raised $135M from Goodwater, Prosus, Quona, and Rise Capital.

2. TRED, a pre-owned car marketplace co-founded by Grant Feek (MBA ’09), raised $25M from Westlake Financial Services, NowLake Technology, Genesee Capital, and CMFG Ventures.

3. FitOn, a fitness app co-founded by Lindsay Cook (MBA ’10), raised $18M from Accel, Maverick Ventures, Telstra Ventures, Delta-v Capital, and The Chainsmokers.

4. Mightier, a children’s gaming platform for emotional and behavioral training co-founded by Craig Lund (MBA ’08), raised $17M from Sony Innovation Fund, PBJ Capital, and DigiTx Partners.

5. Signos, a weight loss company co-founded by Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer (MBA ’08), raised $13M from GV, Rashaun Williams, Courtside Ventures, 1984 Ventures, and Tau Ventures.

6. Wagr, a peer-to-peer sports betting company co-founded by Mario Malave (MBA ’20) and Eliana Eskinazi (MBA ’20), raised $12M from Seven Seven Six, Greycroft, The Kraft Group, BITKRAFT Ventures, and Pear VC.*

7. Raena, an Indonesian social commerce startup founded by Sreejita Deb (MBA ’11), raised $10M from BEENEXT, AC Ventures, STRIVE, Alpha JWC Ventures, and Alpha Wave Incubation.

8. Maev, a wellness company for dogs co-founded by Katie Spies (MBA ’19) and Christine Busaba (MBA ’19), raised $9M from Bolt, Contrary, and Springdale Ventures.

9. Framework, an on-demand business school co-founded by Asha Haji ’11 (MBA ’11), raised $2M from Ada Ventures and LearnStart.

Enterprise

1. Lacework, a cloud security platform co-founded by Mike Speiser (MBA ’98), raised $1.3B from Altimeter, D1, Sutter Hill, and Tiger Global.

2. Sigma Computing, a cloud analytics and business intelligence company co-founded by Mike Speiser (MBA ’98)(again!), raised $300M from D1 Capital Partners, XN, and Sutter Hill Ventures.

3. Applied Intuition, an autonomous vehicle software company co-founded by Qasar Younis (MBA ’08), raised $175M from Andreessen Horowitz, Tribe Capital, Lux Capital, General Catalyst, and Addition.

4. TravelPerk, a travel booking and management platform co-founded by Ron Levin (MBA ’08), raised $115M from General Catalyst, Kinnevik AB, and Greyhound Capital.

5. Domino Data Lab, an open data science platform co-founded by Matthew Granade (MBA ’04), raised $100M from NVIDIA, Sequoia Capital, Coatue, In-Q-Tel, and Dell Technologies Capital.

6. vFunction, a cloud transformation company co-founded by Moti Rafalin (MBA ’02), raised $26M from Khosla Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Zeev Ventures, and Engineering Capital.

7. At-Bay, a cybersecurity insurance company co-founded by Rotem Iram (MBA ’13) and Roman Iskovich (MBA ’12), raised $20M from Khosla Ventures, LocalGlobe, Acrew Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund).

8. Hedron, a satellite data company co-founded by Daniel Nevius (MBA ’17), raised $17.8M from Space Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Lime Street Ventures, and Flybridge.

9. 1build, a construction cost estimate company co-founded by Dmitry Alexin (MBA ’17), raised $14.5M from Greycroft and Foundamental.

10. Burro, an autonomous farming company co-founded by Charlie Andersen (MBA ’14), raised $10.9M from F-Prime Capital, Cibus Fund, S2G Ventures, ff Venture Capital, and Toyota Ventures.

11. Sustaera, a decarbonization company co-founded by Shantanu Agarwal (MBA ’10), raised $10M from Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

12. WhyLabs, an AI Observability company co-founded by Maria Karainova (MBA ’09), raised $10M from Madrona Venture Group, Defy.vc, Bezos Expeditions, and AI Fund.

13. Soveren, a privacy management company co-founded by Peter Fedchenkov (MBA ’14), raised $6.5M from LocalGlobe, Firstminute Capital, Northzone, Elad Gil, and Jack Altman.

14. Factor, a hardware supply chain management company co-founded by Doug Shultz (MBA ’18), raised $6M from Gradient Ventures and Afore Capital.

15. Exporta, a B2B marketplace connecting LatAm and the US co-founded by Pierre Thys (MBA ’18) and Rob Monaco (MBA ’18), raised $5M from Felicis Ventures, Pear VC, and Valor Equity Partners.*

16. Cargo Chief, a freight data company founded by Russell Jones (MBA ’89), raised $1.5M from Sand Hill Angels and BootstrapLabs.

17. Tenzo, a restaurant data company co-founded by Adam Taylor (MBA ’10), raised an undisclosed amount from Acequia Capital.

Fintech, Crypto, and Real Estate

1. Orchard (formerly known as Perch), a home-buying platform co-founded by Court Cunningham (MBA ’97), raised $100M from Gaingels, Sand Hill Angels, Moving Capital, FirstMark, Navitas Capital.

2. Merama, an e-commerce acquisition company in LatAm co-founded by Sujay Tyle (MBA ’21), Felipe Delgado (MBA ’18), Javier Blaustein (MBA ’18), and Manuel José León (MBA ’18), raised $60M from SoftBank, Balderton, Advent International, Valor Capital Group, and Monashees.

3. Unstoppable Finance, a crypto wallet co-founded by Maximilian von Wallenberg Pachaly (MBA ’12), raised $4.5M from Fabric Ventures, Cadenza Capital Management, BACKED VC, Speedinvest, and Rockaway Blockchain Fund.

4. Claim, a crypto wallet co-founded by Tap Stephneson (MBA ’20) and Sam Obletz (MBA ’22), raised an undisclosed amount from Susa Ventures and BoxGroup.

Healthcare

1. Africa Health Holdings Ltd, a healthcare company founded by Sangu Delle (MBA ’16), raised $18M from Breyer Capital, M3, Kepple Africa Ventures, Sunu Capital, and Asia Pacific Land.

2. IpiNovyx, a biopharmaceutical company co-founded by Marc Appel (MBA ’13), raised $10M from Alexandria Venture Investments, Viva BioInnovator, and Lilly Ventures.

3. Marvin, a wellness company founded by John Bracaglia (MBA ’20), raised $4.2M from Verily and Alexandria Venture Investments.

4. Medrhythms, a digital therapeutics company co-founded by Owen McCarthy (MBA ’15), raised $2M from Advantage Capital, Global Brain Corporation, Morningside Ventures, and Bose Ventures.

5. nQ Medical, a neurocognitive digital therapeutics company co-founded by Mark Pascarella (MBA ’99), raised an undisclosed amount from GSK NEXT.

*The author is an investor at Pear VC, which is an investor in these companies. If you believe any HBS alumni startup fundings from this summer are missing, please reach out to me via the contact information below!

Keith Bender (MBA ’20) is an investor at Pear VC in Palo Alto, where he invests at pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds across industries. He leads Baker Founders, a community dedicated to HBS alumni entrepreneurs. Previously, Keith worked at Bessemer Venture Partners and BCG. He is a graduate of Harvard College and is originally from Arizona. For comments and questions, please reach out to keith@pear.vc.