The internet solved the problem of disparate buying experiences for things like travel where users are no longer required to go to an endless sea of vendors; instead, individual choices are aggregated on sites like Expedia, providing transparency, pricing information, and accessible comparison tools. For businesses, most are still reliant on fragmented direct purchasing experiences across a wide spectrum of vendors that provide from everything to pens to software, creating a real pain point and bottleneck for accounting, procurement, and the people themselves that depend on these goods and services. Order is a B2B buying marketplace for businesses that centralizes the entire procurement process in one platform. The platform handles the end-to-end journey from ordering to delivery and integrates with existing workflows, vendors, and software. The versatility allows organizations to be nimbler while meeting the requirements of finance, operations, and procurement. Order also has an offering for SaaS businesses with an integrated fintech offering that focuses on net revenue retention to drive loyalty among the software providers on the platform. Both revenue and spend on the platform have been growing 200%-300% annually according to the company. AlleyWatch caught up with Order CEO and Cofounder Zach Garippa to learn more about how Order streamlines the procurement process, how the company’s reimagining of the procurement process drives the payments business, expansion plans, latest round of funding led by Stage 2 Capital.
Funded in the Alley
StrongArm Technologies Raises $50M for its Industrial Workforce Wearable Safety Platform
It’s been said that we are currently in the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0. Organizations are adopting new safety and health measures to keep industrial workforces safe as we enter a new era of automation. Connected devices, virtual reality tools, data analytics, machine learning, and mobile applications are all a part of the toolset that’s powering the digital transformation. StrongArm Technologies is a provider of intelligent wearables and software that allows industrial workforces to work more safely, reliably, and efficiently. The company’s wearable platform and data backend provide real-time holistic feedback to reduce injuries, improve incident reporting through tracing, and ensure compliance. The company grew revenue 5X year-over-year and works with partners like Walmart, Toyota, and Albertsons to protect their most important assets – their employees. AlleyWatch caught up with StrongArm Technologies CEO and Cofounder Sean Petterson to learn more about the inspiration for the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $56.9M, and much, much more…
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 1/27/2022
3 deals, one new unicorn, and $165M in funding! The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 1/27/2022 featuring funding details for Esusu Financial, NLX, and much more.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 1/26/2022
6 new deals and $300M+ in new funding including three transactions you will not read about anywhere else! The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 1/26/2022 featuring funding details for kencko, Fever, and much more
Kencko Raises Another $10M to Make Eating Vegetables and Fruits Easy On-The-Go
5-a-day, developed by the World Health Organization, encourages everyone to have at least five portions of fruits and vegetables a day to improve health and wellbeing while decreasing mortality. However, according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, only 9% of Americans are meeting the suggested intake requirements. Kencko is a direct-to-consumer food brand that’s centered around making the recommended intake seamless with its line of flash-frozen, slow-dried organic fruits and vegetables. The company, founded in 2016, currently offers just-add-liquid smoothies and ready-to-eat gumdrops and is adding a bowl offering that requires you to just add hot water for a quick meal. All items contain no refined sugar, no artificial additives, are organic, sent in compostable packaging using carbon-neutral shippers. Kencko is available as a subscription with 30 smoothies priced at $83.70 (<$3 per smoothie). The offering is resonating with customers as the company indicated it’s growing 500% per year on average. AlleyWatch caught up with Kencko CEO and Founder Tomas Froes to learn more about how his own personal experience with gastritis led to the AHA moment to launch the company, the company’s strategic plans, and latest round of funding from investors that include Siddhi Capital, and included participation from both current and new investors including NextView Ventures, Riverside Ventures, Silas Capital, Cheyenne Ventures, Shilling Capital, Indico Capital, Mission Point, Gather Ventures, and Nextblue Ventures.
Impala Raises $1.05M for its Business Intelligence Platform for the Non-Profit World
Technology is transforming the nonprofit space. With COVID limiting in-person activity, the nonprofit industry rushed to embrace digital adoption. The many functions of a nonprofit in terms of fundraising, outreach communications, finance, and service delivery have been integrated into digital workflows. Impala is vying to become the leader in business intelligence for nonprofits. The platform features vetted data about nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, their people, and their finances, enabling users to navigate the entire nonprofit ecosystem in a seamless manner. Given the resource constraints of many nonprofit organizations, Impala empowers them with the data to make informed decisions and maximize impact. The platform is offered on a freemium basis with full access to profiles; deeper intelligence on philanthropy comes with the paid version. AlleyWatch caught up with Impala Cofounder and COO Simon Dickson to learn more about the importance of leveraging data for impact-driven nonprofits, the company’s future plans, and initial round of funding from Zack Rinat,, Zeev Ventures, Koa Labs, Amnon Landan, and Adam Berman.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 1/25/2022
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 1/25/2022 featuring funding details for Order, Impala, and much more.
Livepeer Raises $20M for its Decentralized Video Streaming Network Built on the Blockchain
80% of all internet bandwidth is consumed by video streaming. Today’s consumers of content expect low latency and multi-device playback. Transcoding is the process where videos are formatted to work properly across device ecosystems. This becomes an expensive proposition for content creators. Livepeer is a scalable open video infrastructure that’s built on the blockchain to specifically use excess GPU capacity across nodes to transcode video. By leveraging decentralization, costs are reduced and reliability is improved without the threat of any outages that are associated with dependency on larger infrastructure providers like YouTube, Facebook AWS, etc. The Livepeer network has 70K+ GPUS, enough computing power to encode all video streaming on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook combined while delivering costs savings of up to 50x. AlleyWatch caught up with Livepeer CEO Doug Petkanics to learn more about how decentralization of the streaming market will lead to a better experience for all parties, the company’s expansions plans, acquisition strategy, recent round of funding from investors that include Alan Howard and Tiger Global.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 1/24/2022
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 1/24/2022 featuring funding details for TUN and much more.
Pinwheel Raises $50M for its Payroll API That Makes Financial System Fairer
Income and employment are typically the two key factors when financial institutions underwrite credit and loans. While most receive paychecks every two weeks, financial decisions are made largely based on the previous year’s tax return. This paradigm results in a lack of flexibility that leads to many being unable to access financial solutions at the time they need them. Pinwheel is a payroll data intelligence platform that provides real-time data about a person’s income through API connectivity. Requestors of financial information are able to access payroll data, with the consumer’s permission, for 80% of people employed in the United States. As the United States moves towards more Open Banking and decentralization of individual financial data through portability, Pinwheel is on the way to becoming the leading infrastructure provider that powers the income layer and future innovators in fintech. AlleyWatch caught up with Pinwheel CEO and Cofounder Kurtis Lin to learn more about the evolution of the business from the health savings account space to payroll data, the company’s plans to scale from 60 employees to 180, other strategic plans, and latest round of funding from investors that include GGV Capital, Coatue, First Round Capital, TQ Ventures, and Upfront Ventures, AMEX Ventures, Indeed, Kraken Ventures, and Franklin Templeton.
Yuvo Health Raises $7.3M to Make Value-Based Care Accessible for Community Health Centers and Their Patients
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) are public health centers that are focused on helping at-risk and underserved populations. These community health centers are governed by federal laws for Medicare and Medicaid and thus qualify for federal reimbursement and other benefits. There are over 1400 official FQHCs in the United States and another 14,000+ affiliated look-alikes that serve over 30M patients per annum. Yuvo Health brings technology to manage the administrative and managed care functions of these FQHCs. There’s been a growing trend towards value-based care and with the platform, community health centers are able to embrace this new model by handling contracting with payors to deliver preventative, rather than reactive care. This ultimately leads to better patient outcomes, increased quality in care, and optimized spending. AlleyWatch caught up with Yuvo Health CEO and Cofounder Cesar Herrera to learn more about how the founding team’s experience with the healthcare system led to the founding of the business, the importance of its value-based care solution for community health centers, the company’s strategic plans, and latest round of funding from investors that include AlleyCorp, AV8 Ventures, New York Ventures, Laconia Capital, and Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.