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| Hey Insiders, Today's newsletter covers: - Bean Box's crowdfunding campaign
- Educator-focused startups getting funded
- Diligent's $25M funding round
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Coffee subscription startup Bean Box launched a crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine earlier this week, with a target of raising $1.23M by December. The firm has already raised more than $30,000 within a day. The startup intends to use the proceeds to grow its subscriber base and provide wholesale options to entice new customers. More: - CEO Matthew Berk said, "As venture shifts their focus of opportunity toward new tech or new opportunity, those who have longevity in a particular space like e-commerce or food tech need to think about other forms of liquidity and capital."
- Previously, Bean Box has raised $3.2M in Seed funding, followed by $2.4M in Series A funding.
- The company is backed by several family offices, angel investors, and Seattle-based VC firm Ascend.
- Last year, Bean Box reported a net loss of $4M against a revenue of $11M.
- The firm's revenue increased 26% compared to the previous year.
- Bean Box claims that its valuation is $54M.
Zoom out: - Last month, Bean Box's peer Artly, a robotic barista startup, raised more than $1.1M through its crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine.
- Other notable startups that turned to crowdfunding to raise capital include Tokki, American-Made Amaro, and Green Canopy Node.
Q: Has your startup raised capital through crowdfunding platforms? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | | Educator-focused startups at the intersection of AI and edtech are attracting sizable investments, per Crunchbase. 
What the numbers say: AI-powered edtech startups specializing in lesson planning and personalized instruction are experiencing a surge in funding amidst the AI boom. This surge is defying the broader VC funding downturn within the edtech sector, which has caused funding to slump by 60% in the first seven months of this year. The venture funding slump has hit the edtech sector the hardest due to the failures of prominent edtech startups and the reversal in online learning trends. Relevance: Earlier this month, Ello, an AI-driven platform for personalized child instruction, bagged $15M in Series A funding. Last week, AI-powered language learning startup Elsa raised $23M in Series C funding. MagicSchool AI, which helps teachers plan lessons and write assessments, secured $2.4M in seed funding last week. Copyleaks, a tool to detect plagiarism and AI-generated content, bagged $6M in Series A funding last year. Where to see the impact: Introduction of AI tools can benefit the education sector, which is grappling with issues such as overworked teachers, inadequate compensation, and a lack of personalization. The AI technology has the potential to bring personalized tutoring to the masses. | | | |
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| 3 | | Austin-based robot startup Diligent announced a $25M round led by Canaan. The company develops Moxi, a robot system designed to help healthcare providers with tasks such as carrying supplies. More: - Diligent is expecting to have 100 Moxi robots in 22 hospital systems in the U.S. by the end of the year.
- "Next year we expect to continue to expand our client base into new health systems, but we also are seeing a demand for considerable expansion to new hospitals within our existing health systems," said the startup's co-founder and CEO, Andrea Thomaz.
- Other participants in the round included True Ventures, Northwestern Medicine Innovation, Next Coast, and DNV Ventures.
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| 4 | | Germany-based self-driving truck startup Fernride raised a $19M Series A extension for a total round of $50M. The company provides autonomous solutions for Volkswagen, Deutsche Bahn's logistics arm DB Schenker, and logistics company HHLA. More: - Fernride focuses on autonomy and remote-controlled operations for yard trucking, such as moving containers from A to B.
- "We have a very sound plan with a step-by-step approach. Launching our product first in yards, scaling it there, and then in the future we roll out into open roads," said Hendrik Kramer, co-founder and CEO of Fernride.
- The extension round included participation from Germany's Deep Tech and Climate Funds, Munich Re Ventures, and Bayern Kapital.
- Prior investors included 10xFounders, Promus Ventures, and Speedinvest, among others.
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| 5 | | Sales technology firm Outreach laid off 120 employees, or 12% of its staff, this week. This is the firm's fourth round of layoffs since the start of 2022. In addition to the layoffs, the firm decided to move "certain limited business functions to Mexico City and India," an Outreach spokesperson informed the Business Journal. More: - The layoffs are aimed at making the company profitable by next year.
- Outreach will provide impacted employees with severance, health care, and job support.
- The firm laid off 5% of its workforce in Aug. 2022, followed by another 7% in Feb. 2023 and 5% last month.
Zoom out: - Outreach was launched in 2014 and entered the unicorn club when its valuation crossed the $1B mark in 2019.
- At its last $200M fundraising in Jun. 2021, the firm was valued at more than $4.4B.
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| 6 | | Generative AI for learning startup, Gizmo, announced it raised a $3.5M Seed round. The company works on generating quizzes from notes saved in PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, YouTube videos, and other media. More: - Gizmo uses learning streaks similar to the language learning app Duolingo.
- The app runs on a freemium model, with subscriptions to "get unlimited lives."
- The company claims over 300,000 users, increasing by 50% MoM "mainly through word of mouth."
- The round was led by NFX, Capital T, and Ada Ventures.
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- Digital asset transfer, crypto payments, and account aggregation fintech Mesh, formerly Front Finance, bagged $22M in funding. Money Forward led the Series A round with participation from Galaxy, Samsung Next, Streamlined Ventures, SNR.VC, Valon Capital, Florida Funders, and Altair Capital.
- Chief development officer Steve Papoutsis will take over the CEO role at Striking Distance Studios, vacated by Glen Schofield. The video game developer also confirmed that the firm's COO and CFO are also leaving.
- Japanese sector-agnostic seed-stage VC firm Incubate Fund Asia held the first close of its $50M fund.
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INSIDE STARTUPS LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot.
Nicolas is a Sr. Analyst at Inside, covering startups and transportation trends. He is an avid map maker and data nerd. Nicolas has worked in the shared-scooter space, as well as advised e-bike and moped start-ups. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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