Golden Gate Ventures makes its 6th AI investment as Startups and Enterprises turn to AI within their organizations

SINGAPORE, May 15, 2023 — Golden Gate Ventures, a venture capital fund in Southeast Asia (SEA) founded by Silicon Valley natives, has injected a second round of investment into Locofy.ai, a platform that converts graphic designs into working code with AI. Other investors joined the round, including experienced SME technopreneurs from Dropbox, Lottiefiles and Zopim. The US$4.25m investment is one of SEA’s largest pre-seed rounds into an AI startup.

Golden Gate Ventures first spotted Locofy.ai’s potential early on, identifying the startup’s ability to tap into the ever-growing low-code platform market and participating in Locofy.ai’s first institutional investment round in 2021.

“The early-stage investment scene is all about identifying trends ahead of an inflection point, and to be the first in: the first institutional investor into the startup, at the right time. Our investments into the AI space pre-date the buzz around ChatGPT. Being FirstIN enables us to help founders ahead of anyone else and yields higher returns for our investors,” said Vinnie Lauria, Founding Partner at Golden Gate Ventures.

Off the back of the firm’s FirstIN strategy is a long list of successes including, Rukita, Bukuwarung, Homage, Vui and Multiplier – where Golden Gate Ventures was the first institutional investor and has continued to support the startups across multiple funding rounds.   

What informs the firm’s early investment strategy is the combination of the partners’ SEA and Silicon Valley experience, coupled with Golden Gate Ventures’ Brain – our data-driven market predictions platform based on data and insights the firm has amassed over a decade.

“We’ve used data to identify niche opportunities in the AI space.  Golden Gate Ventures’ Brain platform is designed to mine data points across markets, industries and changing economic conditions, uncovering unexpected patterns that our partners leverage to identify specific types of startups that we proactively search for in the market,” said Jeffrey Paine, Founding Partner at Golden Gate Ventures.

“Based on our Golden Gate Ventures’ Brain platform and partners’ insights, we started investing in AI startups over five years ago when most of the market was skeptical about their return-on-investment. AI is going to dramatically transform go-to-market strategies and accelerate e-commerce development at an exponential rate. We will see an unrivalled rate of innovation, which coincides perfectly with the rising consumer class across SEA’s fast-growing economies,” Vinnie Lauria adds.

Locofy.ai is one of several strategic AI investments Golden Gate Ventures has made even before the AI fever caught on in the region.

“Low-code presents a huge opportunity as more people outside of IT leverage its vast potential and it becomes more ubiquitous. Locofy-ai has a strong first-mover advantage with a huge global user base that is continuously helping to improve the platform. The cross-section of users encompassing developers, enterprises, startups, freelancers and student communities already demonstrates its stickiness and ability to integrate seamlessly with other tools,” said Justin Hall, Partner at Golden Gate Ventures.

Locofy.ai is a low-code development tool in public beta, which assists developers worldwide in building and managing their frontend at speed. It accelerates web and mobile app development by 5 – 10 times with its design-to-code conversion platform that helps designers automate frontend code directly from their designs and extend into existing workflows. It currently converts Figma and Adobe XD designs into React, React Native, HTML-CSS, Gatsby and Next.js code with AI.

Its latest round of funding, which brings Locofy.ai’s total to $7.3m raised since its incorporation in 2021, will accelerate the startup’s plans to simplify the design to code conversion significantly with AI, while adding more integrations to the platform to seamlessly fit in the workflows. With recent integrations with Storybook, Github, Netlify, Vercel and Snack, Locofy.ai bridges the chasm between designers and developers, enabling developers to iterate designs and code more naturally. 

In addition to securing this latest round of funding, Locofy.ai has made strategic hires to support its ambitious development plans. Tien Nguyen, ex-CTO at Wego and Teko, will be joining as Vice President of Engineering; leading data scientist, ex-Founder of SWAT and AI advisor to top startups, Nick Jachowski, will be joining as Head of AI; and Nguyen Kien, ex-Director of Engineering at TIKI, will be taking on the role of Head of Engineering. 

About Golden Gate Ventures

Golden Gate Ventures is a global venture capital firm powering technology and innovation from Southeast Asia. Founded in 2011, Golden Gate Ventures combines the knowledge and experience of Silicon Valley with the passion and dynamism of Southeast Asia. For over a decade we’ve proudly backed some of the region’s most audacious founders and companies behind Southeast Asia’s incredible growth story, such as Carousell, Coda Payments, Carro, Xendit, Paper.id, Alodokter, Homage, Hijra, Rukita, and Locofy. We empower the audacious. For more information, visit goldengate.vc.

SOURCE Golden Gate Ventures

NANJING, China, May 15, 2023 — 15th May 2023, automotive system software provider AutoCore.ai announces the completion of A+ round fundraising led by Bosch Ventures and BoYuan Capital, joined by existing shareholder GL Ventures.

We are witnessing an era represented by automotive chips powered with complex and advanced computing capabilities, as well as the multifold growth of intelligent sensors. The massive amount of data has brought about exponential growth and challenges in data transmission, scheduling and management. Automotive middleware will become the fundamental must-have software for intelligent vehicle development, with its market potential reaching tens of billions of dollars in the medium and long term.

Along with the explosive growth of the market, AutoCore.ai, established in 2018, has rapidly developed into a global automotive software platform-oriented enterprise, based on the self-developed AutoCore.OS platform, providing middleware, system software products, algorithm and application software licensing services with SOA oriented architecture across entire vehicle.

AutoCore.ai has created a complete and unified in-vehicle data platform for OEMs to achieve system-level functional performance, safety and security with guarantees for real-time, deterministic and secure communication, transmission, scheduling and planning of data across all vehicle domains, supporting different EE architecture. As a global leader in providing advanced automotive infrastructure software products and services, AutoCore.ai has witnessed its significant growth each year in terms of team, product maturity, engineering capabilities, tools, and customer base.

AutoCore.ai is the first middleware supplier in the world to have its full-stack software products certified to ISO 26262 ASIL-D, the highest functional safety level, currently adopted by many leading OEMs and Tier1s in their mass production programs around the world. AutoCore.ai is also a chosen strategic partner by several mainstream chip manufacturers.

It is reported that the lead investors of this round, Bosch Ventures and BoYuan Capital, are both investment funds of the Bosch Group,  a global leader of automotive electrical and electronic architecture. Bosch Group is the main initiator and supporter of Autosar standard, the world’s largest automotive Tier1 system integrator, and has irreplaceable influence across the automotive industry supply chain. AutoCore.ai will work with Bosch Group to explore new technologies and products, work together to respond to the rapidly changing needs of the global automotive industry on a larger scale and at a faster pace.

This strategic investment marks the next step growth of its core alliance AutoCore.ai has been able to build globally. The alliance with Bosch represents the new generation EEA solution moves into a mature and mass production stage, enabling global OEMs. Bosch group believes that AutoCore.ai will also strategically benefit from Bosch’s strong network and communities for the Software-defined vehicle by leveraging collaboration opportunities with its entities and partners.

“We believe that AutoCore.ai will represent China’s outstanding innovative enterprises and become a sought-after specialist in the international automotive supply chain”, says Dr. Ingo Ramesohl, Managing Director of Bosch Ventures.

Dr. Hongquan Jiang, Managing Partner and Chairman of BoYuan Capital, said: “Along with the change of the whole vehicle EE architecture, the new generation of software and hardware solutions for the automotive industry are accelerating into the scale deployment stage. With the completion of this round of strategic investment, AutoCore.ai and the Bosch Group will cooperate in depth at both capital and business levels, jointly building an innovative model based in China for the world. We believe that AutoCore.ai will represent outstanding Chinese innovative companies and become a leading international core technology supplier for next generation automotive supply chain.”

GL Ventures partner Qiang Li says, “GL Ventures has been supporting AutoCore.ai since Pre-A, this is our third consecutive investment into AutoCore”. AutoCore.ai team has demonstrated outstanding capabilities in product development, market penetration as well as accumulation of abundant industry know-how in very short period of time. It has already produced many robust products, first of their kinds in the industry. Safe, high performance and high reliable middleware is one of the key areas of volume intelligent mobility. We are delighted to witness the exciting adoption from OEMs, Tier1s and other partners of AutoCore.ai’s product and technology. We trust that under Dr. Yang Zhang’s leadership, AutoCore.ai will continue to deliver critical value to its customer base, playing an important role in this wave of intelligent automotive evolution.

Dr. Yang Zhang, Founder and Chairman of AutoCore.ai, says “We are thrilled that our hard work and unwavering dedication being recognised by our wide customer base, glad that Bosch choose to be part of the journey. We expect close collaboration between us in global arena. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of AutoCore.ai’s shareholders. We wouldn’t be here without their commitment and support.”

SOURCE AutoCore Technology(Nanjing) Co., Ltd.

Company’s advanced generative AI-powered cloud platform creates clarity around healthcare pricing, coverage for consumers, employers, government agencies, hospitals, insurance companies and other businesses in the healthcare industry

SEATTLE, May 15, 2023 — Cascade Health, an intelligent platform for healthcare transparency, announced it has raised $1.7 million in venture funding led by AlleyCorp with participation from other strategic angel investors. The company also announced the launch of its first two products: a generative AI assistant to personalize the consumer experience with full visibility around cost and quality of care, as well as APIs that allow companies in the healthcare industry to access data on demand and use it to build their own internal and external products.

As healthcare costs have continued to rise in the US, the system has also grown more complex and increasingly opaque. In an effort to counter this, the US government has recently mandated that hospitals and insurance companies publicly disclose pricing data for procedures across the country. Both parties have done so, but in massive files that can’t be opened or used without substantial computing power.

Cascade Health leverages cloud and AI to aggregate these datasets, along with other public and private healthcare data, to help employers, consumers, government agencies, hospitals, insurance companies and other healthcare-related businesses better understand pricing and coverage. It is the only company that can transform these datasets along with client-specific data and use large language models to interact with the combined data to optimize decision-making in real-time to personalize the experience for anyone seeking or giving care.

“We want Cascade Health to become the infrastructure for healthcare transparency – an objective, neutral source for healthcare pricing and coverage,” said Ana-Maria Constantin, Cascade Health’s CEO and co-founder. “Our intelligent platform provides a window into all this that allows anyone on any side of the healthcare system to make data-driven decisions about the care they receive or deliver.”

The core of Cascade Health’s intelligent platform is a proprietary massive-scale cloud computing infrastructure which works alongside machine learning models and AI to help find, sort and transform massive amounts of healthcare data needed to provide transparency into healthcare pricing and coverage.

Cascade Health’s generative AI assistant lets consumers ask about coverage options, pricing for different procedures and regions, and more, then uses Cascade Health’s platform to deliver data-driven answers to those questions in plain English. The company also provides data management and warehousing infrastructure so customers can benefit from using it without having to worry about storing data.

Before founding Cascade Health, Constantin and co-founder Pulak Goyal spent six years at Microsoft building large-scale cloud systems that used machine learning to make intelligent, data-driven decisions for efficient resource utilization.

“Complexity and opacity are both endemic in the American healthcare system. It’s nearly impossible for stakeholders to make truly informed decisions, whether it’s about individual or group coverage, or how to most efficiently deliver and pay for care,” said Jane Suh, Principal at AlleyCorp. “We invested in Cascade Health because the team’s background and knowledge base perfectly aligns with their mission to bring clarity and access to an essential part of healthcare decision-making.”

About Cascade Health
Cascade Health is an intelligent platform for healthcare transparency. Its intelligent platform is the first to deliver specific data-driven insights that allow consumers, employers buying group insurance plans, government agencies, hospitals, insurance companies to make informed strategic decisions, creating a more affordable and equitable healthcare system for all. Cascade Health is based in Seattle and backed by AlleyCorp and other strategic angels.

About AlleyCorp
Founded by serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, AlleyCorp is a New York-based venture capital firm that founds and invests in transformative companies across dedicated verticals for Diversified Technology, Healthcare, Robotics, and Social Impact. Companies incubated by AlleyCorp include MongoDB, Gilt Groupe, Business Insider, Zola, Nomad Health, Pearl Health, and Transcend Therapeutics. In addition to founding companies, AlleyCorp actively invests across pre-seed, seed, and Series A. For more information, please visit www.alleycorp.com.

CONTACT:
Corey Lewis
corey(at)broadleafcomms.com

SOURCE Cascade Health

NEW YORK, May 15, 2023 — Chord, a Commerce Platform Software as a Service for modern commerce, announced that its SaaS headless commerce technology and data infrastructure has been recognized as an honoree in The Leading 100 of 2023.

The Leading 100 List recognizes high impact technology start-ups that are transforming the direct-to-consumer business model and driving business value for brands as well as retailers. These young companies are venture capital funded and predominantly in their seed or series A round of financing. The Leading 100 companies are solving business problems, powering growth and helping brands deliver on customer expectations through innovative, accessible and powerful technology solutions. All companies were vetted and selected using a rigorous methodology which measured Innovation, Business Impact, Commercialization & Customers, Teams & Experience, Competition, Media Buzz and Investor Value Creation. Company data has been collected via a combination of CEO interviews, company nomination data, and publically available market data.

“I am absolutely thrilled and deeply honoured to have Chord recognized by The Lead this year. Being in the company of such dynamic startups is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, and it reinforces our commitment to empowering businesses to take full control of their storefronts while using data to make powerful connections with their customers.” said Bryan Mahoney, CEO & Co-Founder of Chord. “At Chord Commerce, we believe that the future of commerce lies in the ability of brands to create personalized and seamless experiences for their customers, and we are proud to be leading the charge in this endeavour. This recognition fuels our passion and inspires us to continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of Brand-to-Consumer commerce.”

David Dewey, CTO of Chord, said “It feels great to be recognized by The Lead.  When we embarked on the journey to provide clean, curated, and real-world actionable data to commercial operators, we knew we were taking on a very daunting task.  This recognition shows that we’re finally delivering to the world what is actually needed for businesses to be competitive online in the modern era.  I can’t wait to share some of the upcoming innovations that will continue to empower businesses to get a clear picture of their operations and clear steps to improve with measurable results.”

The selection committee, led by The Lead’s Chief Content Officer, Sonal Gandhi, conducted an  analysis and the final selection.  “The pace of change in the fashion, beauty and consumer industries has become dizzyingly fast, even for the industry leaders,” says Gandhi. “The companies selected for The Leading 100 list represent some of the best examples of how technology innovation is helping address the needs of this rapidly evolving business environment. Some are helping brands get the best out of latest advances in powerful technologies such as AI,  while others are creating solutions to optimize efficiency and productivity across the value chain”.

Chord will be in attendance and honored at The Lead Innovation Summit on July 12th & 13th, The Lead’s flagship event where the entire fashion, beauty, home,CPG, food, beverage, health, wellness and retail innovation community will converge to engage the future of the direct-to-consumer business model. The annual event will bring together executives from enterprise brands and retailers, challenger DTC brands, innovative unicorns, technology start-ups, enterprise technology, investors, dealmakers, analysts and stakeholders that comprise The Lead’s network.

About Chord

Chord is a Commerce Platform Software as a Service that combines headless technology and cutting-edge data infrastructure, enabling brands to leverage the most sophisticated commerce tech at lightning speed — and with a lean team.

Led by former Glossier and Mailchimp C-level execs, Chord is the only commerce platform with data at its core, and counts standout brands like Caraway and Blue Bottle Coffee among its customers.

About The Lead

The Lead is a media and events company that helps brands compete in an increasingly digital and direct selling environment by introducing future business trends, presenting winning strategies, and connecting them with the right technologies. Unlike conferences and information outlets that focus either on big retail or just a single stakeholder, The Lead showcases actionable insights across marketing, ecommerce, stores, customer experience and last mile for brands selling direct.

CONTACT: [email protected]

SOURCE Chord

NANJING, China, May 15, 2023 — Recently, ChomiX Biotech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ChomiX), a leading biotechnology company focusing on the preclinical development of innovative small molecule drugs, announced the completion of millions of dollars Pre-A+ Financing by TigerYeah Capital,old shareholder Tsinghua Innovation Ventures, and Morning Spring Venture. The proceeds will be used to further develop ChomiX’s chemoproteomics platforms, expand covalent compound libraries, and initiate several screening projects against traditionally undruggable targets.

Currently, most drug discovery technologies rely on purified proteins, which greatly limits the efficiency of drug development, resulting in about 90% of disease-related targets being “undruggable”. The ChomiX chemoproteomics technologies have revolutionized drug discovery from purified proteins to living cells.

• The DIA-ABPP platform enables the discovery of novel binding pockets and ligands for endogenous proteins in living cells, especially undruggable targets that lack structural research. Now the platform has covered more than 10,000 proteins and 40,000 binding sites.
• The TED-ChomiX platform can identify the direct protein interactions for biologically active molecules in disease-related cells or tissues, and has been widely used in drug target discovery, new mechanism deconvolution and off-target protein profiling.

ChomiX will be based on the cutting-edge interdisciplinary field of chemical biology and promote the drug discovery application of chemical proteomics technology with the value of focusing on innovation.

Nan Chen Ph.D., CEO and founder of ChomiX :

We are very honored to collaborate with TigerYeah Capital, Tsinghua Innovation Venture, and Morning Spring Venture in this financing round. ChomiX is a biotechnology company with the leading chemical proteomics technologies. Our co-founder and chief scientist, Prof. Chu Wang at Peking University, pioneered chemical proteomics research in China since 2013.

Through in-depth collaboration with academic research groups, ChomiX has established two technology platforms: DIA-ABPP for high throughput discovery of covalent binders and TED-ChomiX for proteome-wide profiling of drug-binding proteins. Up to now, we have established long-term cooperative relationships with hundreds of research institutes and more than ten biopharmaceutical companies in the field of preclinical small molecule drug R&D. This financing, along with series pre-A announced last year, will significantly strengthen our capacity. Meanwhile, I will sincerely thank all partners and employees of ChomiX for their support and perseverance. By leveraging these cutting-edge chemical proteomics technologies, we could provide more solutions for undruggable targets, which will contribute to the development of more drugs that benefit patients.

About ChomiX:

ChomiX Biotech Co., Ltd. is a leading biotechnology company focusing on the preclinical development of innovative small molecule drugs. With chemoproteomics as the core technology, ChomiX is engaged in the discovery of novel lead compounds and protein targets in living cells. Officially operated in 2021, ChomiX has established multiple intersecting platforms, including chemical biology, bioinformatics, medicinal chemistry, molecular and cell biology, etc. Now ChomiX has been authorized numbers of chemoproteomics related patents and built a laboratory with a variety of advanced instruments. ChomiX has partnered with many innovative small molecule drug R&D companies, including PharmaBlock Sciences (Nanjing), Inc. (SZSE:300725), and hundreds of research institutes. ChomiX is committed to quickly breaking through the barriers of undruggable targets and accelerating the discovery of innovative small molecule drugs.

About TigerYeah Capital:

Founded in 2014, TigerYeah Capital is an independent venture capital under Tigermed. TigerYeah Capital focuses on equity investment in the early and growth stage of the medical and health field. The management team has a profound industrial background, extensive industry resources and rich investment experience. So far, it has completed ~300 million dollars and more than 100 investment projects. The investment portfolio covers medical devices, biomedicine, CRO, and health food. TigerYeah Capital creates value for the development of the medical and health industry in China and even the world by empowering the invested companies, and contributes to public health.

About Tsinghua Innovation Ventures:

Tsinghua Innovation Ventures is a professional investment institution for the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements under Beijing Tsinghua Industrial Development Research Institute (referred to as “ITRI”). Methods and professional management promote the transformation of major scientific and technological achievements of Tsinghua University. Investment cases include Pinchi Medical, a unicorn company in the field of neuromodulation in China, Yihuatong, a leader in China’s hydrogen energy industry, Huazhuo Jingke, an integrated circuit ultra-precision equipment manufacturing company, as well as Daqing Biology, Jietong Huasheng, and Langshi Instruments , Tianzhihang, Shenli Technology, Sino United and a group of outstanding enterprises.

About Morning Spring Venture:

Hangzhou Morning Spring Venture is a venture capital institution focusing on early life science investment. The company focuses on life science and medical technology investments that are cutting-edge in the world with unmet clinical needs and high barriers. Morning Spring Venture’s management team comes from first-line VC funds, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and CRO companies. The investment team has rich academic background, investment experience, industrial resources, and commercialization experience.

Cooperation：

Twitter：biotechcho14599
Websites：https://www.chomixbio.com/

SOURCE ChomiX Biotech Co., Ltd.

DUBLIN, May 15, 2023 — The “United States Venture Capital Market- Growth, Trends, Covid-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 – 2028)” report has been added to  ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering.

COVID-19 slashed the number of VC rounds in the U.S. by 44 percent. Over the course of pandemic, only 541 VC deals were made in the seed to Series B stages, compared with 964 deals in the same period in 2019 – a 44 percent decrease in deals.

The change varies across investment types, having the biggest impact on seed-stage deals, which dropped by 57 percent, down from 483 deals in 2019 within the three month time period, to 209 deals in the March-June 2020 period.

The number of VC-backed deals in the travel tech industry has decreased dramatically, down 400 percent, from 15 seed to Series B deals during March-June 2019 to three deals March-June 2020. The check size of travel tech companies has been massively hit. VC-backed Series A check sizes in the sector have dropped 84 percent, from $14.68 million in 2019 to $2.3 million in 2020.

VC fundraising showed continued strength in 2020, with the annual total surpassing 2018’s record. Fourteen US venture capital mega-funds of $1 billion or more claimed almost $27 billion as of Dec.

The number of US VC mega-rounds of $100 million or more has jumped to 306 so far this year, comfortably surpassing 2019’s total of 244. the total mega-round haul came to just over $68 billion, with Alphabet-owned Waymo taking the crown for the single largest deal at $3 billion. Additionally, the period saw the crowning of 87 unicorns in the US, also a decade high.

Companies Mentioned

• Intel Capital
• Tiger Global Management
• Bessemer Venture
• Kleiner Perkins
• New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
• Accel Partners
• Sequoia Capital
• Khosla Ventures

US Venture Capital Market Trends

Healthtech trends toward record-breaking year

At the intersection of health care and technology, health tech innovators have a unique place in the Future of Health. Investors, especially CVCs, can support the innovators and the industry in general. Innovators could bring transformative business models and a consumer-centric approach. it is imperative for investors, including industry incumbents, to coach innovators and support them with industry and regulatory expertise, in addition to capital, to accelerate toward the Future of Health together.

Growth in venture capital funding for health tech innovators, at record levels in 2020, will likely continue unabated in 2021. In 2020, venture funding for health tech innovators crossed a record breaking revenue. Even as the economy and industries, including the health care industry, reel under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, venture funding for these innovators nearly doubled in 2020, compared to 2019.

Growth in Female-Founded Startups Drive the Venture Capital Market

With recent progress, companies founded solely by women garnered only 2.3 percent of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the US. Recent studies found that for every dollar of funding, Female-founded startups generated 78 cents, whereas male-founded startups generated only 31 cents.

It has been a big year for women in VC. Female-founded companies such as Glossier and Rent the Runway picked up mega-rounds in 1H and helped move the needle to roughly $1.9 billion in capital investment toward female-founded companies.

The Bay Area has attracted more venture capital for female-founded companies since 2006, other metro areas have gained traction in recent years. VC-backed companies play an increasingly important role in the U.S. economy. Over the past 20 years, these companies have been a prime driver of both economic growth and private sector employment.

But American startups founded solely by female founders raised a large revenue in 2020, down only a billion dollars from in 2019 – the peak year for funding to sole female founders. 140 new women-led investment funds launched in the past four years, more than doubling the number that existed before 2017. Majority of the women partners in a survey said they had started their own firm. These emerging managers, as the VC industry calls new fund managers, are investing from small first funds and are heavily focused on seed- and early-stage deals.

Key Topics Covered:

1 INTRODUCTION

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4 MARKET INSIGHTS AND DYNAMICS

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 Funding and Revenue Statistics in Venture Capital Space of United States

4.3 Market Drivers

4.4 Market Restraints

4.5 Porters Five Forces Analysis

4.6 PESTLE Analysis

4.7 Impact of COVID-19 on the Market

5 MARKET SEGMENTATION

5.1 By Industry Type (2018-2022)

5.1.1 Banking & Financial Services

5.1.2 Healthcare

5.1.3 Telecommunications

5.1.4 Government Agencies

5.1.5 Other Industries

5.2 By Startup Stage (2018-2022)

5.2.1 Seed Stage

5.2.2 Startup Stage

5.2.3 First Stage

5.2.4 Expansion Stage

5.2.5 Bridge Stage

5.3 By Major States (2018-2022)

5.3.1 California

5.3.2 New York

5.3.3 Massachusetts

5.3.4 Washington

5.3.5 Others

6 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

6.1 Market Concentration Overview

6.2 Company Profiles

7 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS

8 DISCLAIMER AND ABOUT US

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/s4f7fq

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world’s leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

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Research and Markets
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SOURCE Research and Markets

Prime Roots brings innovation to deli counters with freshly sliced plant-based meat

SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2023 — Prime Roots, the leading innovator of deli-style meats made from koji mycelium, today announced $30 million in Series B funding from True Ventures, Pangaea Ventures, Prosus Ventures, Top Tier Capital, Diamond Edge Ventures, SOSV/IndieBio, Solasta Ventures, Monde Nissin, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, Meach Cove Capital, The House Fund, and Hyphen Capital bringing their total funding to approximately $50 million. The fresh funding will enable Prime Roots to scale and expand to deli counters and restaurants nationwide.

Through its innovative and proprietary fermentation and food science technology, Prime Roots is the first and only company tackling the deli case with the identical microscopic texture of meat, along with its umami taste made from plants. Acclaimed chefs helped develop the most popular deli products-including cracked pepper turkey, black forest ham, hickory bacon, salami, and pepperoni to emulate the savory, meaty taste, and texture that consumers demand for meat substitutes. Plus, nutritionally, Prime Roots’ products have no nitrates, preservatives, cholesterol, soy, wheat and are lower in sodium than the leading brand.

Additionally, in line with its mission to sustainably satisfy meat cravings with better tasting food, it only takes three to five days to make Prime Roots’ deli meats, compared to years for some conventional meats. A third-party impact lifecycle assessment found that Prime Roots’ methods are 89-92% more sustainable than conventional meats by limiting emissions and land usage.

“People are asking for sustainable meat options that taste good, make them feel good and do good with less planet impact. Prime Roots delivers on all three: taste, nutrition, and sustainability,” says Kimberlie Le, Founder and CEO of Prime Roots. “This new funding is a testament to the market opportunity for the next generation of plant-based meats that meet consumer expectations while forging into old world categories like deli with disruptive innovation.”

Consumers are convinced: retail partners report that Prime Roots’ deli meat consistently sells out before lunch and sales are pacing at 5-10x higher than other plant-based alternatives. 

The market for deli meats in the United States is huge and rapidly growing, with over 300 million sandwiches eaten daily. Prime Roots products currently covers over 75% of the deli meat offerings in the market with plant-powered turkey, ham, salami, pepperoni, and bacon.

About Prime Roots
Founded in 2017, Berkeley-based Prime Roots is a plant-based deli and charcuterie company on a mission to satisfy meat cravings with better tasting food that nourishes in naturally better ways, sustainably. The start-up innovated the first-of-its kind line of sliceable deli meats and charcuterie which includes popular flavors like turkey, ham, salami, pepperoni, as well as bacon, pâté and foie gras. These products are made from koji and are designed for use in deli counters and restaurants.

Prime Roots recently became a B-Corp and was honored with the Food and Wine Magazine ‘Game Changer’s Award’ and Fast Company ‘World Changing Ideas Award.’ For more information, visit http://www.primeroots.com.      

Media Contact:
Sonia Rodrigues
Rodrigues PR
301-452-7852/[email protected] 

SOURCE Prime Roots

GÖTEBORG, Sweden, May 15, 2023 — OptiGroup has raised EUR 100 million via a first lien term loan tap issue in a private transaction in addition to its current EUR 425m first lien and EUR 200m second lien debt financing. Leading international and Nordic institutions participated, and the transaction was oversubscribed. The strong interest is a clear indication of the market’s confidence in the OptiGroup’s ongoing growth journey. The proceeds will be used to accelerate growth of the Group, including through add-on acquisitions in the large and highly fragmented and attractive European B2B distribution market, estimated at EUR ~150 billion. 

OptiGroup is a leading European distributor that provides customised supply solutions to over 100,000 B2B customers in over 20 countries. The Group has a broad product offering in Medical, Facility & Safety, Packaging Solutions, and Business Supplies. 

The funding will further strengthen OptiGroup’s target to enhance its position as a leading European B2B distributor. The Group has a strong track-record of successful and synergistic acquisitions, recently with Facility Trade Group and MaskeGruppen, two leading distributors of medical and facility products in the Benelux and Nordic regions, respectively. OptiGroup’s M&A strategy continues to prove successful, and the Group has several potential targets in attractive market segments identified in the pipeline, in line with its business strategy.  

In 2022, OptiGroup delivered a solid operational and financial performance, which generated revenues of EUR ~1.7 billion with growth of more than 20%, whereof organic growth of ~9%. 

“We are very pleased to raise this debt funding, which will allow us to take significant steps in our journey towards becoming a strong market leader in the highly attractive B2B distribution market in Europe. For our internationalization and growth phase, the debt funding, and the support from our owners, will help us to drive further growth, including through acquisitions within not the least the Medical and Facility & Safety segments and Packaging Solutions.” Sören Gaardboe, President and CEO at OptiGroup.

The shareholders of OptiGroup, with controlling owner FSN Capital VI continue to be committed in the business’ growth journey. 

“Since FSN Capital VI became majority owner of OptiGroup in March 2022, the Group has demonstrated that it has attractive customer offerings throughout Europe, which has led to its strong financial development. We are committed to support and work closely with the management team of OptiGroup, to continue the Group’s profitable growth journey.” Niclas Thiel, Principal at FSN Capital Partners (investment advisor to FSN Capital VI). 

The transaction was led by Jefferies, JP Morgan, Danske Bank (lead joint bookrunners and lead arrangers) and Baker McKenzie (legal).

For further information, please contact:
Sören Gaardboe, President and CEO, OptiGroup, [email protected]  
Stefan Sikander, Corporate Communication Director, OptiGroup, [email protected]

SOURCE OptiGroup

ThayerMahan to anchor acoustic mitigation systems headquarters in New Bedford as it expands to further serve the offshore wind industry

NEW BEDFORD, Mass., May 12, 2023 — Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and AVANGRID, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), today announced a pilot program to deploy and test a secondary bubble curtain during foundation installation through a partnership with ThayerMahan, a firm that specializes in seabed surveys, acoustic mitigation and monitoring, and other maritime related services, with facilities in Connecticut and Massachusetts.  The $5 million in funding comes from Vineyard Wind’s Industry Accelerator Fund, which is administered by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC). 

As a part of the agreement, ThayerMahan will move its headquarters for their bubble curtain acoustic mitigation product line to New Bedford, sharing part of the Foss Marine Terminal.  ThayerMahan, partnered with the world leader in Big Bubble Curtain technology – Hydrotechnik-Luebeck (HTL), has committed to hiring locally for a wide array of positions, from deckhands to data scientists.  The firm has already established a training/internship program with UMass Dartmouth, in addition to agreeing to assembly and manufacturing operations for future projects in New Bedford.  Once this partnership is executed, ThayerMahan will be the first American company to provide bubble curtain services to the US Offshore Wind industry.

“Our agreement with ThayerMahan ensures that for the first time, a US-based company will perform the service of providing a bubble curtain mitigation system for an offshore wind project,” said Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus S. Moeller.  “We believe this is the first step of getting US firms experience in this new industry and sets the stage for rapid expansion in the coming years, particularly in our hometown of New Bedford.”

“The deployment of this bubble curtain by ThayerMahan marks another milestone in the construction of this nation-leading project and demonstrates offshore wind’s potential to create local jobs and economic impact,” said AVANGRID CEO Pedro Azagra. “We are proud to come to this agreement with a local maritime services firm that will help us deliver on the successful, environmentally responsible installation of this project and launch the offshore wind industry in the United States.”

A bubble curtain, which is comprised of large, perforated hoses and specialized air compressors, is designed to absorb and dampen sound during foundation installation.  The hoses are placed on the seafloor around the monopile before being filled by compress air.  Once the hoses are inflated, the air escapes through the perforations and creates a barrier of bubbles that reduce noise.

These operations will be conducted from the Northstar Navigator, a vessel that will be operated out of the Port of New Bedford.

“We are proud to support Vineyard Wind in the construction of the United States’ first large scale offshore wind development,” said ThayerMahan Chairman and CEO Michael Connor.  We appreciate the support of Massachusetts Clean Energy Center in establishing a world class noise mitigation capability in New Bedford that will serve construction efforts throughout the region.  We continue to hire motivated workers who want to be a part of an effort that helps deliver a sustainable energy future.”

“We are thrilled to see ThayerMahan bring its innovative solutions and acoustic mitigation operations base to New Bedford, and we commend them for their commitment to building a local workforce. This is yet another first for Massachusetts’ offshore wind industry and cements our growing leadership,” said MassCEC CEO Jennifer Daloisio. “MassCEC is proud to support Vineyard Wind’s Industry Accelerator Fund, which is catalyzing local innovation and job creation in the Commonwealth’s growing offshore wind industry.”

“We’re very happy to welcome ThayerMahan’s world leading autonomous maritime solutions to New Bedford’s growing ocean cluster and by the company’s commitment to hiring local,” said Jennifer Downing, Executive Director of the New Bedford Ocean Cluster (NBOC). “ThayerMahan’s partnership with UMass Dartmouth is particularly exciting as it will help to prepare our local workforce for future job opportunities as the company continues to expand its operations in New Bedford. We are once again seeing an exciting first for U.S. offshore wind unfold in the Port of New Bedford, further solidifying Massachusetts and New Bedford as a leading hub for the industry.”

Vineyard Wind recently submitted its first annual report to the state compiled by UMass Dartmouth and Springline Research Group that found Vineyard Wind more than doubled early estimates for the number of jobs created and dollars invested.

An 800-megawatt project located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind will generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, create 3,600 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) job years, save customers $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road annually.

About Vineyard Wind

Vineyard Wind LLC is an offshore wind development company that is building the first commercial-scale offshore wind energy project in the U.S., to be located 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Vineyard Wind 1, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is 50 percent owned by funds of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and 50 percent by Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of AVANGRID, Inc. (NYSE: AGR). For more information, visit www.vineyardwind.com.

About ThayerMahan

ThayerMahan, Inc. is a maritime technology company dedicated to providing its government and commercial clients with turn-key autonomous marine solutions, including deployment, operations, data gathering, and analysis services, using state-of-the-art acoustic and electronic sensors integrated on a variety of host platforms tailored to specific mission criteria. ThayerMahan is a market leader in marine services support to the USOW industry including Acoustic Mitigation and Monitoring to protect marine mammals, precision seabed surveying, and UXO/MEC survey and remediation.  The company is headquartered in Groton, CT with additional locations in Lexington, MA, Boston, Washington, DC and now New Bedford, MA. For more information, please visit www.thayermahan.com/sectors/offshore-renewables or contact Richard Hine at [email protected].

Contact:  Andrew Doba | [email protected] | 203-850-7400

SOURCE ThayerMahan