Equity investment continues PNC’s support for innovative approaches to developing cost-effective, scalable solutions to California’s affordable housing shortage and homelessness crisis

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 24, 2023 — SoLa Impact announced a $7.5 million investment by PNC Bank’s Community Development Banking group in SoLa Impact’s Black Impact Fund, also known as SoLa Fund IV. PNC’s equity investment in Los Angeles’ leading, Black-led housing developer will fund the development of new affordable housing units for residents earning well below the Area Median Income (AMI). SoLa’s Black Impact Fund, its fourth fund, expects to add more than 3,000 workforce and affordable housing units in Black and brown communities in Southern California. 

“We are excited to partner with PNC Bank to address the crisis of housing affordability in California,” said Martin Muoto, founder and CEO of SoLa Impact. “Investments like these enable us to build more units to serve more residents of communities that are burdened by high costs of living. PNC’s commitment to the intended outcomes of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) goes beyond investing in minority communities and is further demonstrated by doing so with Black-led operators such as SoLa Impact. This investment allows the Black Impact Fund to continue to scale its production of affordable and workforce multifamily assets, which in turn allows us to reduce the cost of delivering these units. Ultimately, the goal is to deliver superior returns not only to our investors, but also to our community.”

“As a national main street bank, PNC Bank is focused on making a real impact in communities throughout the Greater Los Angeles area,” said Todd Wilson, PNC regional president for Greater Los Angeles. “This investment in the Black Impact Fund enables us to provide solutions to Southern California’s affordable housing shortage and reinforces our commitment to work with leading organizations like SoLa to address the housing affordability gap in the communities we serve.”

PNC’s investment stems from its $88 billion Community Benefits Plan, which will provide loans, investments and other financial support to bolster economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income (LMI) individuals and communities, people and communities of color, and other underserved individuals and communities over a four-year period that began Jan. 1, 2022. As part of the allotted $88 billion, PNC has committed to provide at least $14.5 billion in community development loans and investments across all markets, including at least $400 million for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) that help meet the banking and financial service needs of traditionally underserved communities.

The Community Benefits Plan builds on PNC’s commitment to providing economic opportunity for all individuals and communities, including LMI and minority individuals and communities, as well as women, veterans and LGBTQ+ individuals and businesses. In addition, the Plan reflects PNC’s commitment to addressing systemic racism, promoting social justice and advancing diversity and inclusion, not just within PNC, but within the broader financial system and its communities.

PNC’s investment into SoLa’s Black Impact Fund demonstrates to Los Angeles that PNC is committed to development and reinvestment in its underserved communities. PNC is among several large banks that understand SoLa’s data-driven approach to affordable housing and community engagement, especially in low- and moderate-income areas that have historically been undervalued and overlooked.

In the Black Impact Fund, SoLa Impact has raised $300 million from leading institutional investors and community-focused banks, high net-worth individuals, and family offices. Its unique combination of cost-disciplined, for-profit development, standardization of building processes and community engagement, has made SoLa one of the largest developers of affordable and workforce housing in Southern California with over 1,500 units under management and another 3,000 in the pipeline. More information on SoLa Impact can be found at www.solaimpact.com.

About PNC Bank

PNC Bank, National Association, is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC). PNC is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, organized around its customers and communities for strong relationships and local delivery of retail and business banking including a full range of lending products; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management. For information about PNC, visit www.pnc.com.

About SoLa Impact

SoLa Impact is a family of real estate funds with a double bottom line strategy focused on preserving, rehabbing, and building high-quality affordable housing in Black and brown communities. SoLa’s proven track record leverages data-driven social impact strategies to deliver strong financial returns. SoLa Impact’s fourth fund, the Black Impact Fund, is part of an initiative to invest over $1 billion in affordable and workforce housing and related social impact strategies across urban cities in California. 

CONTACTS

SoLa Impact Media Contact:
Karen Lewis
(323) 424-9400
[email protected]

Black Impact Fund:
Felicia Allen
[email protected]

PNC Media Contact:
Patrice Smith
(202) 718-5069
[email protected]

SOURCE SoLa Impact

Kemiex has secured equity investments from the strategic investment arm of CME Group, CME Ventures, the global data and analytics company DTN, as well as the family office Wille Finance. Investors add extensive capabilities and network in commodity trade, risk management and data.

•  Investors are global leaders in trade and data, facilitating the profitable growth of Kemiex
• Capital deployed to enhance technology, expand product scope beyond nutrition and health
• Investors will together help Kemiex accelerate its go to market via their extensive network in Agriculture, Chemicals and other physically traded raw materials.

ZURICH, Feb. 24, 2023 — Kemiex AG, a specialised and fast-growing provider of procurement, sales and intelligence platforms for physical raw materials, has secured investment funding from CME Ventures, DTN and Wille Finance. The details of the authorised capital increase were not disclosed.

The combined capital and capabilities will help Kemiex rapidly elevate its global trade hub to an institutional, enterprise level solution. Kemiex plans to enhance its apps and white-label platforms for raw material procurement, sales and analytics to facilitate trade and risk management for customers, helping them solving complex challenges such as Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and GHG reporting.

The investment funding will allow Kemiex to tap into new resources as well as other financial, distribution, data engineering and analytic expertise to further accelerate growth. Kemiex will also expand product coverage beyond human and animal nutrition and health ingredients to agrochemicals, and other chemicals and raw materials.

Pau Franquet, CEO and Co-founder of Kemiex: “We’re pleased to welcome our new strategic shareholders to further institutionalise and step-up our game in providing meaningful, independent trade and intelligence solutions to nutrition, chemicals and other raw material markets globally. Our customers will benefit from better technology. data and business opportunities.”

Owain Johnson, Managing Director, Global Head of Research and Product Development, CME Group: “Kemiex’s vertically focused B2B marketplace and digital spot trading technology for physical raw materials offers exciting opportunities in workflow-embedded creation of indices, analytics, data distribution and risk management.”

Marc Chesover, President, and CEO of DTN: “The Kemiex team has shown admirable focus in executing their vision of building a disruptive trade and information platform for animal nutrition, health, and related sectors. We are delighted to support them through the synergies we share in the agriculture sector as well as the DTN expertise in developing sophisticated commodity and supply chain intelligence platforms from both the data and transactional perspective.”

Reto Hertler, Head Private Equity & Venture Capital at Wille Finance: “Kemiex has shown the capability to disrupt an inefficient industry value chain with technology. We are very happy to team up with Kemiex in order to accelerate the growth and bring in our experience in scaling companies.”

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2008530/Kemiex_AG__Logo.jpg
Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2008531/Kemiex_Co_Founders.jpg

SOURCE Kemiex AG

NEW DELHI, Feb. 23, 2023 — FreshToHome, the world’s largest fully integrated online consumer brand for preservative and antibiotic-residue free fresh fish and meat, has closed $104 million in Series D funding with Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund leading the round. Existing investors in FreshToHome including Iron Pillar, Investcorp, Investment Corporation of Dubai (the principal investment arm of the Government of Dubai), Ascent Capital and others have also participated in this round. New investors joining this round include E20 Investment Ltd, Mount Judi Ventures and Dallah Albaraka. JP Morgan was the placement agent to FreshToHome for the fundraise.

The current funding will strengthen FreshToHome’s mission to make 100% preservative and antibiotic-residue free fish, seafood, and meat accessible and affordable to millions of meat lovers. Launched in 2015, FreshToHome operates in 160+ cities in India and the UAE and offers more than 2,000 certified fresh and chemical-free products.

Shan Kadavil, CEO & Co-founder, FreshToHome said, “We are excited to have Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund lead our Series D funding round. FreshToHome has pioneered the revolution of making 100% preservative and antibiotic-residue free fresh fish, seafood, meat and meat products accessible and affordable to all and that is our biggest USP. We are now a ‘Proficorn’ with operational profitability across the company. As we strive to offer more value to our farmers and fishers, customers, employees and investors, our focus is on profitability and sustainable value creation.“

Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund, through its official spokesperson stated “Our vision with the $250MM Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund is to empower the next generation of innovative, technology enabled companies led by visionary founders. We are impressed with the FreshToHome management team led by Shan Kadavil and they have done some quality work in creating a robust technology enabled supply chain and scalable backward integrated capabilities to serve both customers as well as farmers and fishers. We are excited to partner with FreshToHome for the next phase of its growth.” 

FreshToHome’s core strengths lie in its brand promise for its quality and consumer trust and in its technology-enabled offering – Commodities Exchange, empowering over 4,000+ fishers and farmers to electronically auction their produce for sale on www.FreshToHome.com.

Two years ago, FreshToHome raised $121MM in its Series C round, led by Dubai’s Investment Corporation of Dubai, Investcorp, IronPillar, Ascent Capital and U.S. Government’s development finance institution – DFC.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2008893/FreshToHome_CEO.jpg

SOURCE FreshToHome

Venture partners receive access to ecosystem support, partner networks, and Launchpad capabilities, all supported by Magic Eden

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 23, 2023 — Magic Eden (“The Company”), the leading cross-chain NFT platform, today announced that its venture arm – Magic Eden Ventures – has invested in 11 web3 gaming studios. The announcement highlights Magic Eden’s continued commitment to pushing the web3 gaming industry forward, having recently hired its Chief Gaming Officer, Chris Akhavan, and expanded onto the Polygon blockchain. Partners backed include MatchDay, Blockstars, Epic League, Intella X and more.

Since Magic Eden Ventures launched in July 2022, Magic Eden’s dedicated gaming team has been working closely with innovative game studios with long-term vision in web3 gaming. The eleven studios range from web3 native developers to studios from traditional gaming backgrounds. To learn more about these game studios, please visit our blog here. By forming partnerships with game studios, Magic Eden helps games launch NFT projects, acquire and engage users for their games, and support gaming infrastructure via in-game marketplaces. Magic Eden’s full suite of creator products and services can enable games’ monetization and engagement across the web3 ecosystem. 

Magic Eden helps introduce games to the world of web3. Magic Eden has helped create visibility for games through its Launchpad product, which has championed success for over 60 games’ mint launches across Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon. With 1.5M daily user sessions and average user sessions of 15 minutes, Magic Eden offers unparalleled exposure to gaming partners. Given its on-platform engagement, Magic Eden has also begun working with games post-mint to pilot rewards tokens on its Rewards Hub that will allow game developers to engage with new and existing users. Beyond supporting games’ monetization and engagement, Magic Eden also supports games’ infrastructure. When games become playable, game developers can power their own in-game marketplaces using Magic Eden’s APIs, enabling users to transact on digital collectibles without leaving the ecosystem of the game.

Chris Akhavan, Chief Gaming Officer at Magic Eden, commented: “We’re still at the beginning of what blockchain gaming will become. Experienced game studios building web3 enabled games are pioneering something special – fun games with digital asset ownership and powerful economies that enable communities and creators to deepen their connection with the games they love. It’s a powerful combination. We look forward to continuing our support of emerging game studios, and helping them achieve long-term success.”

About Magic Eden
Magic Eden is the leading cross-chain NFT platform driving the next billion users to Web3. Led by former crypto, tech, and hospitality leaders, Magic Eden is building a user-friendly platform powered by market-leading minting and trading solutions. Magic Eden brings dynamic cultural moments onto the blockchain, empowering users across thousands of digital communities to create, discover and collect unique NFTs. For more information, please visit www.magiceden.io.

Media Contact
Dillon Arace
[email protected]

SOURCE Magic Eden

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 23, 2023 — As COVID-19 accelerated the shift to remote work, many companies ramped up their outbound sales function to compensate for in-person lead channels going dry. Software supporting mass emailing and task automation has gained widespread adoption since, with startups like Outreach and Salesloft tripling their (already unicorn) valuations in less than a year.

Now, an emerging startup called Autobound is announcing $4M in funding to automate the tedious workflow of writing personalized sales emails. Autobound’s free-to-install chrome extension empowers B2B sellers to spark more buyer conversations, in less time.

“Until now, writing high quality, personalized sales emails has been difficult for every seller out there. Sellers often resort to quantity over quality, which is a problem if they’re representing your company’s brand. Now that spray and pray methods are so widespread, the bar of what’s required to generate an email reply is higher than ever…” says CEO Daniel Wiener, who was previously the second-highest performing BDR in Oracle’s US sales division.

“Autobound’s AI suggests hyper-personalized content to the specific individual you’re reaching out to. Think ChatGPT, but for sales emails. We’re making it simple for any seller to write an A+ sales email instantly, so they can focus on revenue-producing activities like actually talking to buyers.” said Wiener.

Autobound is currently offering their product for free but will be launching a premium offering soon. Sellers from 250+ companies including Zoominfo, UserZoom, Outreach, Workato, SailPoint, OnTop, and GoLinks are already using the system.

“What’s getting sales orgs so excited, is how Autobound instantly positions their value prop to the specific pain points of the buyers they sell into, while incorporating other signals like news events and hiring trends.” said Wiener.

This announcement comes just days after Autobound’s release of Autobound Anywhere, which extended Autobound’s functionality to the tools where sellers spend most of their time, including Gmail, LinkedIn, Outreach, Salesloft, Hubspot, and Salesforce.

Wiener co-founded Autobound with Kyle Schuster, who used to be the top sales manager globally at Yelp, and Tanner McRae, who spent 6 years on Amazon’s R&D and ML teams.

Dundee VC led the $4M round. “Daniel, Kyle, and Tanner are the exact team you want building a solution like Autobound. Their on-the-ground sales experience and technical talent give them the insight needed to build a tool that can make any seller a top seller. We’re honored to be their partners and excited to watch their solution take sales teams to the next level.” – Mark Hasebroock, Managing Partner at Dundee VC.

Other well known players in the CRM and AI space participated as well, including AIX Ventures, Richard Socher (You.com), Henry Schuck (Zoominfo), Simon Chan (Prediction.io), Sam Guttman (OwnBackup), Tadeusz Witkowicz, and the USC Marshall Venture Fund, amongst others.

Autobound plans on using the funding to accelerate product development and to scale their marketing, design, and machine learning functions. More information can be found on Autobound’s website.

For more information or media inquiries, please contact [email protected].

About Autobound.ai:

Autobound’s sales intelligence platform increases email reply rate by generating individually personalized sales emails using AI. The platform analyzes metadata on buyers and sellers from across the web, such as news events, shared experiences, company initiatives, personas, competitors, and more.

SOURCE Autobound

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 23, 2023 — Peel Therapeutics, an evolutionary-inspired, clinical-stage biotech company, announced recent company updates to support its drug development programs in cancer and inflammation. The company recently secured $9M in funding, bringing its total seed financing to $36M. The company also expanded its Board of Directors to support and guide the company through this rapid growth stage.

“Peel Therapeutics made meaningful strides over the past year – including initiating a Phase 1 clinical trial in advanced solid tumors to evaluate PEEL-224 – our small molecule that targets topoisomerase 1 activity and has been engineered to avoid chemoresistance. We are pleased to capitalize on these efforts, to serve those with cancer and inflammation,” said Joshua Schiffman, M.D., CEO and Co-founder of Peel Therapeutics. “As we advance Peel’s therapeutic pipeline to treat a spectrum of devastating conditions, we apply the team’s scientific and medical expertise to rapidly translate evolutionary biology into treatments.”

New Financing Secured
Peel Therapeutics has raised a total of $36M in seed financing, plus over $3M in non-dilutive capital including National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer funding. Most recently, the company closed a $9M SAFE financing round which will be used to advance clinical and pre-clinical programs.

Board of Directors Expanded
Ryan Watts, CEO, Denali Therapeutics and Carin Canale-Theakston, CEO, Evoke Canale joined the Peel Therapeutics Board of Directors, comprised of experts in medicine, science, technology, and business.

Ryan Watts is CEO and Co-founder of Denali Therapeutics. Under his leadership, Denali has advanced multiple therapeutic candidates into clinical testing for Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Watts has led efforts to raise significant capital to advance Denali’s pipeline and has been instrumental in forging partnerships to accelerate the discovery and development of medicines for neurodegeneration.

“I am excited to be a part of Peel Therapeutics and their ground-breaking approach to engineer molecules in nature into drugs with significant impact for patients with cancer and inflammation.” Watts says, “Joining as a Director is an opportunity to participate in Peel’s next stage of growth.”

Carin Canale-Theakston is a life science executive with more than 25 years of experience helping companies navigate business and communications. She has shaped strategies for more than 500 life science companies and has experience with companies of all sizes and stages, ranging from emerging biopharma startups and venture capital firms, to major diagnostic companies, to several of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

Canale-Theakston comments, “Peel has impressed me with its meaningful nonclinical data coupled with their passion for helping patients, I am eager to work with the Peel team to help advance evolution-inspired drugs to the clinic.”

About Peel Therapeutics
Peel Therapeutics is an evolutionary-inspired, clinical-stage biotech company that engineers nature better than evolution intended. Our team searches for nature’s super abilities where evolutionary biology accomplished the inconceivable in preventing or defeating disease. We then apply multidisciplinary scientific and drug development expertise to rapidly translate this evolutionary biology into medicines. The company is advancing a therapeutic pipeline to treat a spectrum of devastating conditions, with a near-term focus on cancer and inflammation. At Peel Therapeutics, we push the limits of biology to develop highly effective and safe medicines for patients that transcend the incremental. “Peel” is the Hebrew word for elephant, our company originates from the natural cancer resistance found in elephants. 

Media Contact
Janine Bogris
Evoke Canale for Peel Therapeutics
[email protected] 

SOURCE PEEL Therapeutics

The parking technology company announces $3.8M in funding along with signing new marquee customers, operator partnerships, and an expansion of product features

BOSTON, Feb. 23, 2023 — Vend Park (Vend), is an end-to-end digital parking solution that transforms parking for owners, operators, tenants, and visitors. Today, the company announced the close of its Series Seed funding round, raising a total of $3.8 million. Additionally, the company announced the signing of several new customers, partnerships with top parking operators, and immediate availability of new product features. Led by Floating Point Advisors, and with investments from Crossbeam Venture Partners, APA Venture Partners, and Alumni Ventures, among others, the financing will be used to further develop Vend’s product offerings and continue expanding the team with key hires in marketing, customer success, operations, and engineering.

In addition to the funding, the company is excited to announce new partnership deals with leading parking operators VPNE and ACE Parking to help streamline the implementation of Vend’s industry-leading solutions across their client portfolios. A new class of customers, including Jamestown LP, Lincoln Property Company, and Pacific Crest Real Estate, will use Vend to replace legacy parking technology with a fully digital solution that elevates the parking experience, eliminates manual processes, and increases net operating income.

“Hybrid work schedules have significantly impacted the way cities and buildings are being used by consumers today. While many landlords have found innovative ways to better utilize their buildings in this new environment, parking options have failed to evolve with the rest of the industry. We are thrilled to have the support of our new customers, investors, and partners, who recognized this critical need and invested in building amazing experiences for tenants and guests,” said Michael Miele, CEO of Vend Park.

Eddie Segel, Managing Partner at venture fund Floating Point added, “Parking garages are small businesses run on expensive, legacy technology. Vend automates garage operations while providing a simple, flexible experience for the evolving needs of tenants. We are seeing fast adoption by national real estate owners who are looking to embrace technology throughout their buildings.”

In recent months, Vend has expanded its platform to provide owners and operators with the flexibility needed to meet the changing needs of tenants and visitors. For example, Vend’s FlexPass offering allows employees to share monthly parking memberships, better serving the needs of today’s hybrid workforce. Additionally, Vend has revamped its reporting suite to be more customizable to a location’s unique needs, while also providing out-of-the-box reporting on critical data such as location revenue, occupancy, duration of stay, and more. These updates allow owners to make informed decisions for their property based on real-time data insights, ultimately helping them maximize NOI.

“Historically, we have had to rely on a variety of parking technology companies to meet the needs of our diverse portfolio leading to fragmentation, lack of data insight, and missed revenue opportunities. Vend has changed the game with one platform that can meet the needs of many parking use cases. We are excited to expand our relationship to create a seamless experience for our clients and gather actionable data & insights to enhance the performance of our assets. ” said Vince Cicciarelli, Vice President of Innovation & Venture, at Lincoln Property Company

Vend’s vision is to transform the way consumers experience parking and unlock the true value of parking real estate for owners. The Series Seed financing will be used to further develop Vend’s product offerings and continue expanding the team with key hires in marketing, customer success, operations, and engineering.

Sakib Jamal, Senior Associate at Crossbeam, shared: “We are betting that more parking operators and property managers will seek out capital-light solutions. Vend is well positioned to provide an integrated, back-office product with attribution capabilities for businesses, along with a seamless payments experience for drivers.“

About Vend Park
Vend is an end-to-end SaaS parking management and payments solution that is transforming the way real estate owners, parking operators, tenants, and visitors manage and interact with parking. Vend’s digital platform augments parking operations with tools that meet changing tenant needs and provide owners with unprecedented data insights, resulting in a modern and frictionless experience for drivers. For more information, please visit www.vendpark.io.

Lauren Mead
[email protected]

SOURCE Vend Park

WOODBRIDGE, Conn., Feb. 23, 2023 — P2 Science Inc., a leading green chemistry company, announced today the close of a funding round led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood. In the round, Lewis & Clark was joined by existing investors, including Heritage Group Ventures, Chanel, Elm Street Ventures, and SaferMade. Prior investors in P2 also include BASF Venture Capital, Connecticut Innovations, Advantage Capital, and others.

The proceeds from this round will primarily be used to expand sales and production of Citropol®, P2’s flagship product platform. Through a proprietary process called Process Intensified Continuous Etherification (“PICE”), P2 transforms renewable forest-derived feedstocks into high-performance ingredients for use in a variety of personal care, cosmetics, and beauty products. Citropol® exceeds the performance of traditional emollients, including silicones, and is easy to formulate while safe for human health and the environment. In 2022, P2 won five industry awards, including the Innovation Best Breakthrough Supplier Award from BeautyMatter, one of the most trusted voices in beauty. In addition, in January 2023, Unilever’s haircare brand, Living Proof, launched three new products built on P2’s ingredients.

“We’ve built a new patented, market-leading ingredient platform, that allows customers to build incredibly high-performance products which also satisfy consumer demands, regulatory requirements, and internal sustainability goals,” said Neil Burns, CEO of P2 Science. “There is nothing in the market today like Citropol®. We now have 22 patented Citropol® products that are used in every product category across personal care and beauty. This new round of financing will allow us to supercharge production and accelerate our global sales pipeline.”

In addition to Citropol®, P2 has developed other proprietary products and chemistries for use across industries, such as flavor and fragrance, specialty materials, and more. A process that has also garnered particular interest is P2’s Process Intensified Ozonolysis (“PIOz”), which has a much smaller footprint, is more efficient, and is more scalable than traditional ozonolysis. In May 2020, P2 announced a Joint Development Agreement with Archer Daniels Midland to commercialize renewable plant-based products across high-value markets, such as nylons, polyesters, lubricants, and agrochemicals, utilizing PIOz.

“P2 is one of the very few successful sustainable chemistry platform companies,” said Chuck Warta, Operating Partner with Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “Consumers and companies across industries are looking for highly functional, new, sustainable alternatives. Many in the personal care and beauty space are now turning to P2 for innovation. We are excited to partner with the P2 team and existing investors to grow a world-leading green chemistry company, deeply rooted in technology, with a portfolio of sustainable, high-value, and high-performance products.” As part of this financing, Chuck Warta has joined P2’s Board of Directors.

Stifel acted as an advisor and placement agent to P2 Science for this transaction. 

About P2 Science

P2 Science is a green chemistry company co-founded by Professor Paul Anastas, head of the Yale Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. P2 has developed and patented technologies for converting renewable feedstocks into high-value specialty products. Investors in P2 include Lewis and Clark AgriFood, Heritage Group Ventures, BASF Venture Capital, and Chanel. The company started its first manufacturing plant in September 2018, producing renewable aroma chemicals and cosmetic ingredients. For more information, visit www.p2science.com.

About Lewis & Clark AgriFood

Lewis & Clark AgriFood is a St. Louis-based group of experienced investment professionals passionate about investing in companies at the forefront of food and agriculture innovation. We look for companies that deliver benefits to the stakeholders in the food and agriculture sector, from the producer, through the supply chain, all the way to the consumer. We invest in companies that are at the growth stage of their evolution, poised to scale their technology to a national or global scale. As founders, operators, investors, and scientists, our seasoned investment team brings a breadth of quality sector experience to every investment. For more information, visit www.lewisandclarkagrifood.com.

CONTACT:
Jessie Chapel
[email protected]

SOURCE Lewis & Clark Agrifood

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 23, 2023 — BlueCargo, the logistics SaaS platform that optimizes the entire container workflow from port to warehouse, just announced it raised $11 million in new funding led by Soma Capital and Left Lane Capital, bringing the total amount raised to $15 million. This new round will allow the company to expand its geographic footprint in North America, invest in its core technology, and continue attracting top talent in the areas of product and engineering, industry experts and business leaders.

“Pre-covid, companies didn’t have an appreciation of the detailed costs of drayage. This has changed as companies are looking to streamline their operations and want to know the true cost of drayage. BlueCargo is the only platform that can help monitor, forecast and mitigate accessorial fees: demurrage, detention, and per diem. In 2022 alone, we saved one of our customers Forrest Logistics, a freight brokerage, more than $5 million in fees,” explained Alexandra Griffon, CEO of BlueCargo.

BlueCargo connects any importer, logistics provider, or drayage carrier on its platform to move cargo on time at the ports and decrease demurrage and per diem fees.

Instead of navigating multiple, scattered pieces of information, BlueCargo provides container level tracking, audit trail visibility and documentation, in one single window connected to all of North America’s busiest container ports. BlueCargo’s proprietary algorithms aggregate hundreds of different sources of information to only showcase the most reliable data and, for the first time, empower operators to adapt in real time. Containers flow from port to first-mile destination faster, more reliably, and cost-effectively.

Today, 1,200 drayage trucking companies are using BlueCargo to schedule their daily container pick ups and returns on its platform, making it the largest operational drayage carrier connected network in the United States.

The Los Angeles and New York-based startup was founded by two female entrepreneurs originally from France, Alexandra Griffon (Chief Executive Officer) and Laura Theveniau (Chief Product Officer) who graduated from the prestigious Silicon-Valley based accelerator Y Combinator, that previously backed Flexport, Convoy and Shipamax in the logistics space.

Laura and Alexandra met during their studies in data science, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley in 2018, located close to the Port of Oakland. They discovered back then the painful lesson that everyone learned after Covid disruptions: ports are where all supply chains converge (around 90% of traded goods are carried over the waves), but they are also the biggest black box and bottleneck, resulting in safety stocks, frozen capital and billions of dollars lost on inefficiencies, detention and demurrage fees.

One year later, Alexandra and Laura decided to launch BlueCargo, drawing on their insider experiences working at various terminal operators and terminal operating systems in the United States and Europe. BlueCargo’s vision is to shed light on the port terminal and drayage blackbox.

“The pandemic exposed significant deficiencies in global supply chains and inadequacies in the outdated manual systems used by shippers and carriers alike. Alexandra and Laura’s experience as port terminal operators and data scientists uniquely positioned them to solve these pain points with an end-to-end SaaS solution” said Alicia Garabedian, Investor at Left Lane Capital. “We’re excited to support BlueCargo’s mission to empower logistics businesses of any size with the software and data to digitize global trade.”

“Alexandra and Laura bring a unique innovative view on making an efficient port supply chain” said Mir Faiyaz, Partner at Soma Capital. “We’re confident that the ‘why now’ has never been more apparent, with supply chains facing secular challenges around labor availability, and cascading blockages, which add to the need to develop systems that promote transparency and data availability. BlueCargo’s mix of product expertise, and focus on customer experience, provide a compelling argument for them to capture the massive opportunity ahead. In two years, BlueCargo has grown from a 4 person to a 35 person team while revenue and users grew exponentially.”

BlueCargo is up to no small task when the industry is lacking standards, data sharing and interoperability. Shippers can find out where their products were lost overboard days or weeks after an incident occurred, while dispatchers rely on phone calls and text messages to know the gate schedules and ask the terminals for exemptions.

This $11 million new funding round will be deployed to roll out the BlueCargo platform across any North American shipment, double its fully in-house US-based engineering team and continue building its core technology – BlueCargo Connect™.

The company is grateful to be on the journey with all its early customers and experienced business angels and investors such as Mike Roth, Left Lane Capital, Soma Capital, Cathexis Ventures, EXPA, SpringTime Ventures and HyperGuap, among others.

The coming years present new challenges and objectives such as preparing for growing trade volumes, reducing greenhouse emissions and change in regulation – starting with the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 and shippers being directly involved in accessorials billing processes. It is the right time for drayage and logistics companies, brokers, freight forwarders and shippers to ensure they have the right partners, technology and tools to adapt, like BlueCargo.

For more information, please visit www.bluecargo.io

About Soma Capital

Soma Capital was founded in early 2015 in San Francisco by Aneel Ranadive. Soma Capital invests in brilliant, fearless teams building Category Kings. They focus on software to automate the world, across any sector and geography that can touch billions of people and push humanity forward! Previous investments include Deel, r Ramp, Bolt, Rippling, Cruise, Razorpay, Rappi, Nowports and more. For more information, please visit https://somacap.com/.

About Left Lane Capital

Founded in 2019, Left Lane Capital is a New York-based global venture capital and growth equity firm investing in internet and technology companies with a consumer orientation. Left Lane’s mission is to partner with extraordinary entrepreneurs who create category-defining companies across growth sectors of the economy, including software, healthcare, e-commerce, consumer, fintech, edtech, and other industries. Select investments include GoStudent, M1 Finance, Wayflyer, Bilt, Masterworks, Blank Street, Talkiatry, Tovala, EXO Freight and more. For more information, please visit www.leftlanecap.com.

SOURCE BlueCargo