The current banking system in the US isn’t structured to help the 130M+ Americans that are living paycheck to paycheck to succeed, instead banks focus on large depositors to support their lending businesses. Current is the digital challenger bank that directly addresses this mismatch by focusing on liquidity and providing access to banking services that include the ability to deliver paychecks up to two days early with direct deposit, no overdraft fees, and earn cashback. The company’s platform is designed to be inclusive for all Americans regardless of age or income level, especially the younger generation; the average age of a Current checking account member is 27 and approximately 50% of its members have never had a bank account before. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Stuart Sopp to learn about Current’s response during the pandemic, simple mission to get money to its customers as fast as possible, impressive user growth, and recent funding round from investors that include Tiger Global Management, Sapphire Ventures. Avenir, Foundation Capital, Wellington Management Company, and QED Investors.
Funded in the Alley
Verbit Raises $60M for its AI-Powered Voice Transcription Tool Built for The Enterprise
Verbit is the AI-powered transcription and captioning platform that transcribes speech regardless of accent, domain-specific languages, background noises, echoes, and more. To ensure the accuracy and quality of transcriptions/captions, Verbit has a network of 22,000 human transcribers that validate the technology-produced dictations. AlleyWatch caught up with Tom Livne to learn more about Verbit’s technology and how this funding will help position it to be a leader in the global transcription market, which is more than $300B. Verbit has raised a total of $125M across four rounds and this latest round comes from investors that include Sapphire Ventures led our Series C round, Vertex Ventures, Stripes, HV Ventures, ClalTech, and Vertex Growth.
Spring Health Raises $76M to Make Mental Health Treatment an Employee Benefit
The behavioral health market is projected to soar, reaching $240B by 2026, and for far too long employers have focused on keeping their employees physically healthy but ignoring mental health conditions. Spring Health has emerged as a pioneer, providing comprehensive employee mental health benefit solutions. The company’s proprietary assessment, “Precision Mental Healthcare”, understands the nuances and symptoms of conditions a person may be experiencing and then matches them to a tailored care plan for treatment. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder April Koh to learn more about how Spring Health breaks down the barriers for delivering mental healthcare to employees, the company’s future plans, and latest round of funding from investors that include Tiger Global. GingerBread Capital, and Operator Partners (the newly-formed fund by Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg), Northzone, Rethink Impact, William K. Warren Foundation, Work-Bench, SemperVirens, Able Partners,True Capital, Kyle Lowry, and Breanna Stewart.
Fireblocks Raises $30M to Ensure the Security of Digital Assets, Paving the Way for Widespread Adoption
The security of digital assets is absolutely critical in ensuring widespread adoption and this has led to the emergence of countless digital-asset-as-security-service offerings. Fireblocks has emerged as a leader in digital asset security, with a growing number of companies rely-ing on Fireblock’s platform to securely store, transfer, and issue digital assets. The compa-ny has facilitated the transfer of over $150B+ in digital assets for local and international companies since its launch, $23B+ worth of digital assets transferred in Q3 alone, and the company has tripled its customer base already in Q4. AlleyWatch caught up with Co-founder and CEO Michael Shaulov to learn more about how Fireblocks provides the criti-cal infrastructure needed for enterprises to scale digital asset exposure, the company’s growth, and recent funding round from investors that include Paradigm, Cyberstarts, Tenaya Capital, Swisscom, Galaxy Digital, Digital Currency Group (DCG), and Ce-dar Hill Capital.
K Health Raises $42M for its Free Medical Intelligence Platform Powered by Billions of Data Points
This AI-powered health and telemedicine startup had already raised one of the largest funding rounds in NYC for Q1 of 2020, and K Health is wrapping up the final quarter of 2020 with another impressive funding round. K Health’s medical intelligence platform is entirely free and consulting with a doctor online costs only $19, less than most copays. At its core, the company has built a robust AI-powered database of clinical data points that are used to determine what treatments and diagnoses were used with those with similar symptoms. AlleyWatch caught up with VP of Marketing Danielle Eddleston to learn more about the company’s impressive growth, key partnerships, and latest funding round from investors that include Valor Equity Partners, Marcy Venture Partners, Atreides Management, PICO Venture Partners, 14W, and Max Ventures.
Levels Raises $12M for its Biowearable Device that Monitors Glucose in Real Time
Forget about wearing your Apple Watch to track your health. Levels is the biowearable that provides real-time feedback on how your diet and activities directly impact your health. Through continuous glucose monitoring, which has traditionally been reserved for those with diabetes, the company is on a mission to address the rising rates of metabolic dysfunction in the US by monitoring the effects of your food choices. Levels currently has a waitlist of 44,000 people. AlleyWatch caught up with founders Casey Means MD Josh Clemente, Sam Corcos, David Flinner and Andrew Conner to discuss the importance of metabolic health, the company’s plans to expand the team across engineering, operations, and marketing, and recent funding round from investors that include A16z, Marc Randolph, Dick Costolo, Michael Arrington, and Matt Dellavedova.
Roots Automation Raises $3.2M to Make Bots Your Digital Coworkers at Scale
The most agile and innovative companies will rely on AI-powered digital “coworkers” alongside creative humans to enhance productivity and increase profits. Roots Automation has built the first zero integration, self-learning Digital Coworker (pre-trained bot) that can perform a variety of common tasks found in Insurance, Healthcare, and Financial Services roles. Through interactions with human counterparts, the pre-programmed bots increase their capabilities and become more efficient, better at understanding the business, and eventually have the capacity to offset the work of four to eight individuals on average per bot. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Chaz Perera to learn more about the company, how his time as Chief Transformation Officer at AIG provided the inspiration for the Roots Automation, and the company’s first funding round led by Vestigo Ventures.
Kinetic Raises Another $11.25M to Protect Industrial Workers with its Patented Wearable Device
Industrial companies are constantly seeking new ways to keep their workforces safe and KINETIC has been one of the key solutions. The company’s patented wearable device, Reflex, detects unsafe postures and provides real-time alerts to employees whenever they are engaging in high-risk motions. The company’s dashboard layers software so that managers and safety personnel can have a bird’s eye view into safety and incident data; now address workplace issues with a data-driven approach. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Haytham Elhawary to learn about KINETIC’s technology is keeping workforces globally safe, how warehouses are able to leverage the platform, and the company’s recent funding round from investors that include Crosslink Capital, Primary Venture Partners, Nationwide Ventures, Prologis Ventures, and Ubiquity Ventures.
Priori Raises $6.3M for its Legal Marketplace for In-House Legal Teams to Find Outside Counsel
Approximately 75% of in-house legal teams are concerned about overspending on outside counsel when the need arises. Priori is the legal marketplace that changes how in-house teams find, hire, and manage outside counsel by providing access to 1500+ highly vetted attorneys in 700+ practice proficiencies. Priori’s clients, which consist of Fortune 500 companies and scaling tech companies, have saved 60% on average versus relying on traditional legal services. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Basha Rubin to learn more about Priori’s growth, future plans, and recent funding round from investors that include Hearst Corporation, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Jambhala, Tim Steinert, Jules Miller of Mindset Ventures, Mike Suchsland of Bridge Investments, and Orrick’s Legal Technology Fund.
Rally Raises $17M for its Platform That Lets You Invest in Rare Collectibles
Rally is the five-year-old startup that democratizes the ownership of highly-coveted collectibles. This alternative investment platform lets anyone buy/sell ownership stakes in rare items like the 1937 Heisman Trophy (valued at $460K) or a Mike Trout Rookie Autograph Card (valued at $225K). Traditionally these types of investments have been only available to the ultra-wealthy. The […]
Conducto Raises $3M for its CI/CD Toolkit to Power Workflow Automation
Conducto is one of the newest tools that’s being used by engineers to automate workflows and simplify complex CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) and data pipelines. Conducto’s pipeline toolkit allows engineers to define their pipeline in Python instead of a configuration language, is easy to visualize as a pipeline scale with more tasks with the use of a tree structure, and is also easy to debug. For companies, adopting CI/CD enables them to reduce costs, innovate faster, experiment more, and improve the quality, security, and deployment of their software. The company’s technology is battle-tested as it was used by hundreds of traders at the cofounders’ previous company. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Jonathan Marcus to learn about the technology, the company’s launch, and recent funding round.