Food tech leader will use funds to expand operations and accelerate its global commercial partnerships.

PETAH TIKVA, Israel, May 25, 2023 — Today, leading global food tech company DouxMatok has announced a rebrand to: Incredo LTD. The unveiling of the new name, based on the company’s signature product Incredo® Sugar, coincides with Incredo’s announcement that it has raised $30 million in a Series C funding round to further support research and development, integrate its product in a variety of applications and accelerate its commercial partnerships. This latest round of funding is led by dsm-firmenich Venturing and Sienna Venture Capital, along with strategic commercial partners such as Ferrero and investments from new investors including Teseo Capital and existing investors Pitango and BlueRed Partners, who led the previous round.

Incredo’s capital raise will help the company expand its research, development, and commercialisation efforts into its flagship product, Incredo® Sugar. Incredo Sugar is a first-of-its-kind, delicious, clean-label sugar reduction solution that reduces the amount of sugar in sweet foods by 30-50%, with no change in taste, mouthfeel, or texture, and no additions to the ingredients label. By binding real cane or beet sugar with trace amounts of a natural carrier, Incredo Sugar aids in the delivery of sugar molecules to sweet taste receptors on the tongue. This means that less sugar is required for the same level of sweetness.

“Now that our flagship product, Incredo Sugar, has become commercially available and is gaining more awareness within the industry, we have decided to simplify our communications by unifying our identity under the name ‘Incredo’ – a single, powerful brand that will be memorable to our customers as we gear up for a period of continuous growth and commercialisation,” said Ari Melamud, CEO of Incredo LTD.

Incredo’s latest round of funding comes on the heels of a successful 2022, when it announced partnerships with Batory Foods and Blommer Chocolate Company. Incredo is looking to accelerate commercialisation of Incredo Sugar in 2023, with new and increased availability across the US, Europe, and Israel.

“Incredo has developed one of the most promising innovations in the food space we’ve seen – a delicious affordable and clean-label product that can reduce the sugar in foods without additives or changes to taste,” said Isabelle Amiel-Azoulai, Managing Partner at Sienna Venture Capital. “Incredo has everything in the right place for Incredo Sugar to appear in products around the world, and our injection of capital will help support this mission-driven company to accelerate its growth.”

To learn more about Incredo, please visit incredosugar.com, or follow along on LinkedIn.

About Incredo LTD

Incredo LTD (f.k.a. DouxMatok) is pioneering the development of efficient nutrition and flavour delivery technologies. Its flagship product is its first-of-its-kind sugar-based sugar reduction solution, Incredo® Sugar, which maximizes the efficiency of sugar delivery to the sweet taste receptors and maintains the same level of sweetness, enabling substantial sugar reduction without compromising taste, mouthfeel, or texture. Independent consumer and expert sensory panel tests have confirmed that, when using Incredo® Sugar, it is possible to reduce 30%-50% of the sugar levels in a wide range of food and snack products while retaining consumer preferences. For more information, please visit incredosugar.com, or follow along on LinkedIn. 

About Incredo® Sugar

Recognized as a special mention in the ‘Best Inventions of 2020’ by TIME, Incredo® Sugar is the flagship product of Incredo LTD (f.k.a. DouxMatok), a global food tech company pioneering the development of efficient nutrition and flavour technologies and enabling tastier and healthier consumption of foods. Incredo® Sugar is a first-of-its-kind, clean-label, sugar-based sugar reduction solution that improves the efficiency of sugar delivery to the sweet taste receptors and achieves the same level of sweetness while enabling substantial sugar reduction without compromising taste, mouthfeel, or texture. Based on real cane sugar, this breakthrough, patented sugar reduction solution enables food manufacturers to develop delicious, better-for-you formulations that deliver great taste experiences and enhance nutritional values of sweet food products while reducing sugar. For more information, please visit incredosugar.com, or follow along on Facebook and Instagram. 

About dsm-firmenich Venturing

dsm-firmenich Venturing is the corporate venturing arm of dsm-firmenich, innovators in nutrition, health, and beauty. dsm-firmenich reinvents, manufactures, and combines vital nutrients, flavors, and fragrances for the world’s growing population to thrive. With our comprehensive range of solutions, with natural and renewable ingredients and renowned science and technology capabilities, we work to create what is essential for life, desirable for consumers, and more sustainable for the planet. dsm-firmenich is a Swiss-Dutch company, listed on the Euronext Amsterdam, with operations in almost 60 countries and revenues of more than €12 billion. With a diverse, worldwide team of nearly 30,000 employees, we bring progress to life™ every day, everywhere, for billions of people.

About Sienna Venture Capital

Sienna Venture Capital is the subsidiary of Sienna Investment Managers dedicated to venture capital investments, founded by Isabelle Amiel-Azoulai and her team, Thomas Visan and Mikaël Pereira. Based in Paris, with an international network in the main technology hubs, Sienna Venture Capital invests in early-growth companies that aim to sustainably transform their sector and society according to their “Tech for Purpose” vision. The amounts invested per deal range from $5 million to $15 million. They will target companies in various sectors such as cybersecurity, fintech, digital health, foodtech, agritech, artificial intelligence, mobility, etc.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2076130/Incredo.jpg
Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2082519/Incredo_products.jpg
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2083486/Incredo_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Incredo

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 24, 2023 — Startup World Cup is back in Silicon Valley! The Silicon Valley Regional Competition is scheduled for August 3rd, 2023, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

Startup World Cup is looking for the best and the brightest startups to apply to compete. The selected Top 15 applicants will present on stage on August 3rd. The winner of this event will join the 50+ other global finalists at the Startup World Cup Grand Finale series, in which they will have the opportunity to win a $1,000,000 investment prize in San Francisco on December 1st, 2023.

Startups apply here: https://www.startupworldcup.io/silicon-valley-app-2023 

The application deadline is July 1! Do not miss your chance!

For more details on the Silicon Valley Regional event: https://www.startupworldcup.io/silicon-valley-regional. Check out the 2022 Silicon Valley Highlights Video.

Register for the event here.

Here are the Judges and Speakers confirmed to attend:

• Bill Reichert (Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures)
• Jihong Kim (Managing Director at Samsung Ventures)
• Ullas Naik (Founder at Streamlined Ventures) 
• Gwen Edwards (Managing Director at Golden Seeds)
• Eric Rosenblum (Managing Partner at Foothill Ventures)
• Ashmeet Sidana (Chief Engineer at Engineering Capital)
• And others!

The Silicon Valley Regional Competition is part of the Startup World Cup global competition, with regional events in 50+ cities around the world, including thousands of entrepreneurs and hundreds of investors. The mission of Startup World Cup is to highlight the best technology startups around the world, and to connect those startups into the global innovation ecosystem.

Entrepreneurs who are not in the Silicon Valley region should check out regional competitions in their part of the world and the Series of Grand Finale events here: https://www.startupworldcup.io/grand-finale.

Worldwide Regional Competitions: https://www.startupworldcup.io/

About Pegasus Tech Ventures
Pegasus Tech Ventures is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley with $2 Billion in assets under management. Pegasus offers intellectual and financial capital to emerging technology companies around the world. In addition to offering institutional investors a top-tier venture capital investment approach, Pegasus also offers a unique Venture Capital-as-a-Service (VCaaS) model for large, global corporations that wish to partner with cutting-edge technology startups. For more information about Pegasus, please check out https://www.pegasustechventures.com.

SOURCE Pegasus Tech Ventures

TULSA, Okla., May 24, 2023 — FortySix Venture Capital LLC, (46VC), a Tulsa-based venture capital firm, is excited to announce its strategic investment in Exum Instruments’ Series A funding round, marking the first investment from their recently launched Kinetic Fund. 

Exum Instruments, a Denver-based scientific instruments company, has developed the revolutionary Massbox^™, a cutting-edge instrument that democratizes mass spectrometry analysis. Unlike traditional analytical tools that were primarily accessible to PhD chemists, the Massbox’s innovative design and user-friendly software empower individuals across various scientific disciplines to conduct accurate and efficient chemical characterization in a matter of minutes with mobile capability. For a variety of end users, this accelerates new material development, quality control, failure analysis and more.

This round of funding will play a pivotal role in supporting the company’s expansion plans. With the funding, Exum Instruments aims to establish a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant, enabling them to scale up production significantly. This increased manufacturing capacity will not only meet the rapidly growing demand for the Massbox^™ but also position Exum Instruments as a key player in the scientific instruments market. Massbox^™ has been adopted by several manufacturing concerns and high-profile laboratories, including the Department of Energy national labs, Los Alamos National Lab and the SLAC Accelerator Lab. Tracy Poole, Managing Partner of 46VC had this to say about the investment: “We were excited to be in a position to join with a group of local investors like Energy Innovation Capital, Advantage Capital, Boyd Street Ventures, Alchemy Capital and Cortado Ventures to advance innovation in the materials and energy spaces and help bring a top-notch team of innovators to build in Tulsa“. Jeff Williams, Exum CEO stated, “We are thrilled and honored to receive support from some of the strongest VCs in the region, and we look forward to leveraging their broad experience and connections to fuel our growth.”

The investment will enhance the local economy and promote innovation in the region by generating 25-30 high-tech jobs in Tulsa. This significant contribution is made possible through 46VC’s special partnership with the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) leveraging OCAST’s recent investment of U.S. Treasury’s SSBCI funds in 46VC’s Kinetic Fund.

About 46VC

46VC is a venture capital fund manager based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 46VC has a regional strategy to invest in startups and technologies in the heartland region where it has unique access to deal flow and domain expertise. For media inquiries, please contact Tracy Poole, Managing Partner at 918-605-8321 or [email protected].

For more information on 46VC please visit the firm’s website at www.46.capital

About Exum Instruments

Exum Instruments is a scientific instrumentation company building instruments and software ecosystems to increase the speed of materials development and discovery, offering easy access to high performance at a low cost. Exum’s first instrument, The Massbox^™, is the first Laser Ablation Laser Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (LALI-TOF-MS) on the market, capable of analyzing any sample you can throw at it – precisely, rapidly, and inexpensively.

For more information on Exum, please visit: www.exuminstruments.com

SOURCE FortySix Venture Capital LLC

ST. LOUIS, May 24, 2023 — Pluton Biosciences, a startup leveraging the power of microbes to create cost-effective innovative solutions that address sustainability challenges facing agriculture, announces the close of a $16.5 M Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Illumina Ventures and RA Capital, with participation from existing investors Fall Line Capital, The Grantham Foundation, and First In Ventures, as well as new investors Wollemi, Radicle Growth (first investment from their second fund), and iSelect.

“The funding will accelerate the development of Pluton’s flagship product, the Microbial Cover Crop™, through field trials and towards commercial partnerships,” remarked Elizabeth Gallegos, CEO of Pluton. “It will also enable us to expand our team, advance a microbial-derived pesticide to combat the fall armyworm, and harness the full potential of our Micromining™ platform to swiftly identify tailored solutions for agriculture.”

Illumina Ventures’ Charles Lin, PhD, who has joined Pluton’s Board of Directors, expressed his excitement about the fund’s first AgBio investment, “In the past two decades, we have witnessed how genomics revolutionized the landscape of human diagnostics and therapeutics. We expect genomics to also enable breakthroughs in agriculture. Pluton’s Micromining™ approach, combining genomics with rigorous data science, can unlock the potential of soil microbes for more sustainable agriculture and beyond.”

“Pluton’s technology will benefit farmers’ bottom lines as well as our environment,” said RA Capital’s Michael Gillespie, MD, who has also joined Pluton’s Board of Directors. “Microbial Cover Crops™ will enrich the soil with nitrogen to increase crop yields while reducing fertilizer costs, improving profits and sustainability, limiting erosion, and boosting both soil quality and carbon sequestration. We are proud to support Pluton in their work to improve nature’s toolkit and revolutionize agriculture.”

Concurrent with this investment, agricultural industry veterans Jerry Steiner and Neal Gutterson, Ph.D. also joined Pluton’s Board of Directors. Steiner, Board Executive Chair, is enthusiastic about Pluton’s promise to utilize discoveries to make a positive impact on both agriculture and climate, “Pluton’s vision of using the vast potential of microbial genetic diversity to make agriculture carbon-negative is inspiring. Our Micromining™ platform enables the vision, with field-level proof for the Microbial Cover Crop™ product building over the next few years.  This product will complement many other innovations growers can use to improve their farms’ profitability while helping the planet.”

About Pluton:
Pluton’s mission is to drive agriculture to a carbon-negative outcome by leveraging Micromining™ and cutting-edge genomic technologies through a revolutionary approach to identify and deploy beneficial microbes and their natural products. Pluton discovers novel microbes and develops world-changing solutions to the planet’s big problems, addressing challenges to climate and agriculture by tackling carbon sequestration and crop protection, sustainably improving the way we grow food. To learn more about Pluton Biosciences, please visit www.plutonbio.com

Microbial Cover Crop™, a product that sequesters carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere and deposits it into the soil.

About Illumina Ventures:
Illumina Ventures is the leader in genomics and precision health investing, building the ecosystem and shaping innovation to accelerate the impact on human health. Independently managed, Illumina Ventures is an early-stage, value-add investor with a strategic partnership with Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN). Illumina Ventures helps entrepreneurs develop breakthrough science and technologies into market-leading companies to transform healthcare. The firm focuses on investments in life science tools, therapeutics, diagnostics, digital health, and environmental sciences. To learn more, visit illuminaventures.com

About RA Capital:
RA Capital is a multi-stage investment manager dedicated to evidence-based investing in public and private healthcare and life science companies. The flexibility of its strategy allows RA Capital to provide seed funding to startups and to lead private, IPO, and follow-on financings for its portfolio companies, both facilitating the crossover process and allowing management teams to drive value creation from inception through commercialization. They are committed to fostering diversity at RA, in their portfolio companies, and in the broader biotech community.

About Wollemi:
Wollemi is a global climate specialist investment firm. Wollemi is focused on investing in and supporting climate solutions businesses in the food and agriculture, energy transition, natural capital, and climate services sectors, with an aim of reducing or abating global greenhouse gas emissions. Their team has been at the forefront of climate investing for over 10 years, bringing together an unparalleled combination of industry experts with deep investor knowledge and operational expertise.

About Radicle Growth:
Radicle Growth selects innovative, early-stage companies for investment, ensuring that disruptive AgTech & Food Tech companies reach their full potential. In addition to providing seed-stage capital, Radicle Growth provides a fertile environment for visionaries in the ag and food space to flourish. Their proprietary platform is one of a kind in the ag and food industry, filling a huge void in the market by identifying the most innovative technologies and accelerating them with a range of value-creation initiatives. To connect and learn more about Radicle Growth follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Contact: Kathryn Jamboretz 
314-484-9333

SOURCE Pluton Biosciences

UNMET, in Partnership with the WA Department of Commerce, is Aiming to Improve Access for WA-Based Startups to Venture Capital.

SEATTLE, May 24, 2023 — UNMET, a mission-based organization tasked with filling an unmet need for startups raising venture capital in the US, will hold its first West Coast conference – UNMET Washington 2023, in Seattle on September 13-14.

The conference is co-hosted by the Washington State Department of Commerce and Stout Street Capital, with strong community support from Technology Alliance and WTIA. UNMET Washington 2023 will feature about 60 of the fastest-growing early-stage startups from around the country, with a majority based in Washington.

“Commerce is honored to co-host the 2023 UNMET Conference in Seattle, the heart of Washington state’s booming tech industry. Our startup ecosystem has exploded beyond the Puget Sound region.” Said Chris Green, Assistant Director, Office of Economic Development and Competitiveness at the Washington State Department of Commerce. Chris added, “Companies with massive growth potential to become the next big thing are sprinkled all over the state, and this opportunity enables founders in underserved regions to connect with top early-stage investors. Thanks to events like UNMET, innovative companies that could have previously remained hidden from elite funders are getting a better shot at the spotlight.”  

Cumulatively, UNMET WA 2023 is set to facilitate 500+ one-on-one meetings for startup founders and help facilitate valuable peer-peer and founder-investor connections. This event aims to build better connective tissue and resilience for the WA startup ecosystem. UNMET does this by engaging Government entities and Non-government organizations such as WTIA (Washington Technology Industry Association) and Technology Alliance. “WTIA is proud to support UNMET as it hosts its inaugural West Coast conference in Seattle,” said Michael Schutzler, CEO of WTIA. “By providing direct access to investors from across the country, our region’s startups will have a chance to tell their stories to new networks. UNMET will help cement Washington’s reputation as a premier startup ecosystem, bringing new talent, funding, and visibility to our state.”

Laura Ruderman, CEO of Technology Alliance, said, “We’re thrilled to join forces with Stout Street Capital as they put on the UNMET conference in Seattle. This event is sure to be a great boost for the Washington state innovation ecosystem!”

The selected seed/series-A stage presenting companies will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with 6-8 investors on average. The conferences will attract over 75 institutional VC funds from around the country. The companies/startups presenting at the conference are selected through a competitive application process starting May 15^th; interested startups/companies can apply here.

Company: Submit your application to present here.
Investors: Register here.
Learn more at: unmetconference.com/wa-2023/.

About Stout Street Capital

Stout Street Capital is a seed-stage fund that invests in underserved markets in the middle of the country and sees an average of 5,000 deals per year and co-invests with over 250 VCs around the country. Stout Street Capital seeks to invest in early-stage companies focused on improving efficiency and generating bottom-line value in large, established sectors in the market. Stout Street Capital is focused on enhancing the Series A/B-funding ecosystem in the middle of the country. UNMET is one of its primary instruments, which will help companies in underserved regions meet investors and attract capital.

www.stoutstreetcapital.com

About Washington State Department of Commerce

The Department of Commerce is the one agency in state government that touches every aspect of community and economic development: planning, infrastructure, energy, public facilities, housing, public safety and crime victims, international trade, business services, and more. We work with local governments, tribes, businesses, and civic leaders throughout the state to strengthen communities so all residents may thrive and prosper.

About Technology Alliance

The Technology Alliance is a statewide, non-profit organization of leaders from Washington’s technology-based businesses and research institutions united by our vision of a vibrant innovation economy that benefits all of our state’s citizens. Through programs, events, data analysis, and policy activities, we advance excellence in education, research, and entrepreneurship to support the growth of our high-impact industries, creating high-wage jobs; and economic prosperity for our entire state.

About WTIA (Washington Technology Industry Association)

WTIA is a coalition of like-minded innovators and problem solvers who believe in harnessing the transformative potential of technology and our collective strengths to build a better, brighter world for everyone. We lead, support, and learn from our partners to create an innovative vision toward a just and equitable technology sector where all people from diverse backgrounds thrive—not simply survive.

SOURCE UNMET

Utility-Friendly Solutions Support Rapid, Low-Cost Electrification

PHILADELPHIA, May 24, 2023 — ConnectDER, the company that provides fast connection adapters for solar and other distributed energy resources (DER), has announced the closing of a $27 million Series C funding round.

ConnectDER’s innovative meter collar technology provides a low-cost, one-hour install in a single device for upgrading residential electric power systems so homeowners can easily integrate grid-ready solar photovoltaic systems regardless of a home’s age or amperage limits. ConnectDER’s solution allows the installation of these systems without complex and expensive upgrades to circuit-breaker panels or in-home wiring, and without adding more amperage from the utility company. As a result, consumers save thousands of dollars in installation costs and components and shave off weeks to months of installation time. This is a highly scalable decarbonization solution for many lower-and moderate-income households who cannot afford to upgrade their circuit-breaker panels in order to install solar systems addressing critical energy access and equity issues. ConnectDER’s product is also well-positioned and can be optimized to offer easy connections for electric vehicle chargers and backup power systems in the near future.                         

According to a 2021 study, prohibitively expensive service panel upgrades are frequently required to support the additional energy demand of new, DER products like solar panels, EVs, heat pumps, and other smart appliances, representing a $100 billion impediment to residential electrification and the energy transition. ConnectDER’s innovative meter adapter platform helps bridge that gap, especially for underserved populations that more frequently live in older, underpowered homes.

Led by Energy Innovation Capital (EIC), the round includes new participation from LG Technology Ventures, Evergy Ventures, Riverstone, and existing investors Skyview Ventures, Clean Energy Ventures, and Avista Development, among others. The funding will be used to scale up ConnectDER’s existing solar adapter into new markets, launch a new EV product line and develop a next-generation product suite for multi-asset electrification and integration.

According to Founder and CEO, Whit Fulton, “We’re blazing a technology path that will enable more people to switch to clean, safe, and resilient energy faster and at a dramatically lower cost. We couldn’t be more pleased with Rajan Gupta and the team at EIC — they’ve been enormously helpful in positioning us for our next phase of growth.  We’ve already demonstrated the fundamental value of our high reliability and lowest cost offering and this new round gives us the fuel we need to manufacture and deliver our game-changing technology.”

Already operating in 17 states, including New York, Arizona, Vermont and Colorado, ConnectDER has deployed over 15,000 units nationally to date.

EIC Senior Managing Director, Rajan Gupta, will join the ConnectDER Board. “Increasing home electrification is a powerful trend driven by solar, storage, EV charging, and electrification of other home appliances,” Gupta said. “ConnectDER’s meter adapter packs in functionality right behind the electric meter, and dramatically reduces the cost and time for residential customers to adopt electrical solutions. We are thrilled to partner with the ConnectDER team on its journey to enable faster and cheaper electrification and decarbonization for the residential mass market.”

About ConnectDER 
ConnectDER unlocks the massive potential of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) by turning the meter socket into an all-in-one plug-in point for solar and storage systems, electric vehicles, and beyond, with specific benefits for the user, utility, and the environment. Our solutions decrease interconnection time, enhance safety, and decrease balance-of-system costs. For more information, visit www.ConnectDER.com.

About Energy Innovation Capital
Energy Innovation Capital is the premier capital provider for innovators serving the energy industry. EIC provides early and growth-stage funding for visionary entrepreneurs tackling global energy challenges with transformative, market-leading solutions. EIC’s team leverages our industry expertise, networks and collaborative approach to help talented entrepreneurs push the boundaries of what’s possible and build great companies. To learn more, visit www.energyinnovationcapital.com.

Contact:
Daysa Corrington
212-220-6045
[email protected]

SOURCE ConnectDER

LONDON, May 24, 2023 — DataOps.live, The Data Products Company, announced today that it has raised $17.5M in a recent Series A financing round. The investment comes 15 months after the company’s initial seed funding of $10m in January of 2022, during which time the market has grown exponentially.  The round includes new investor Notion Capital, who joins existing investors Anthos Capital and Snowflake Ventures.

The new investment comes as DataOps.live experiences explosive growth, with a breakout FY23 that saw 400% ARR growth as demand for its products accelerated and market awareness grew. Use of the DataOps.live SaaS platform has grown exponentially, with more than 1 million pipelines runs, more than 10 million jobs orchestrated, and more than 50 million tests performed over the last year.  The company’s momentum is expected to continue, as it expands its product offerings and increases its market share.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Notion Capital to the DataOps.live family,” said CEO Justin Mullen. “Their investment is a validation of our vision to make DataOps more efficient, scalable, and secure for enterprises of all sizes.”

DataOps.live provides a platform that helps organizations build, test and deploy Data Products by streamlining and automating data operations (DataOps), making it easier for companies to manage and analyze large amounts of data. On average, DataOps.live has seen cost reductions in excess of 30% and often much greater for clients.  Its products help companies automate repetitive tasks, increase efficiency, and improve security. With the new funding, DataOps.live plans to further develop its platform and expand its team.

Stephanie Opdam, Principal at Notion Capital, remarked that “Today, data is the lifeblood of business, but managing and scaling data operations can be a daunting task. Data needs can grow faster than operations teams can process, leading to either slow or one-off development efforts. DataOps.live is at the forefront of a movement that enables companies to improve data quality, streamline many data processes simultaneously and accelerate product development. DataOps.live has a fantastic and growing team, a great product, and impressive traction. We believe it has the potential to become the next category leader in a $3bn market.”

The market for data products is growing rapidly, and DataOps.live is well-positioned to take advantage of this trend. In their recent “Market Guide for DataOps Tools,” Gartner stated that “By 2025, a data engineering team guided by DataOps practices and tools will be 10 times more productive than teams that do not use DataOps.” In the same guide, Gartner estimated “the DataOps market potential at around $3 billion.” Both assertions serve to validate the opportunity seen by DataOps.live and more coverage is available in this blog post about the Gartner Market Guide.

“We are excited to continue partnering with the world class management team at DataOps.live as they help define the DataOps category and empower data teams at the world’s largest organizations to build data products that delight their customers and internal stakeholders,” said Jeff Stapleton, Investment Professional at Anthos Capital.

Contact

Patrick Connolly 
[email protected]
1 608-738-8029

Ben Goldsmith 
[email protected] 
+7788295321

About DataOps.live

The Data Products company, delivers productivity breakthroughs for data teams by enabling agile DevOps automation (#TrueDataOps) and a powerful Developer Experience (DX) to modern data platforms. The DataOps.live SaaS platform brings automation, orchestration, continuous testing and unified observability to deliver the Data Products you want at the speed the business needs.  DataOps.live is a global company funded by Anthos Capital, Notion Capital and Snowflake Ventures, with enterprise clients including Roche Diagnostics and OneWeb.  For more information, visit www.dataops.live, #TrueDataOps and connect with the team on LinkedIn or Twitter.

About Notion

Notion Capital is a European B2B SaaS and Cloud VC with more than $1bn assets under management and with more than 100 investments to date. The Notion team founded, built and exited two highly successful SaaS businesses – Star and MessageLabs – and invests exclusively in exceptional founders with the ambition to build global category leaders. The Notion portfolio includes GoCardless, Mews, Paddle, TestGorilla and YuLife. Notion is also the founder of Included VC, the venture capital fellowship for individuals from diverse and overlooked communities from around the world.

SOURCE DataOps.live

The company has gained hundreds of paying customers through product-led growth

SAN FRANCISCO, May 24, 2023 — WireMock today announced that it has raised $6.5 million in seed funding for WireMock Cloud, the first API developer productivity platform. The funding round was led by Ridge Ventures joined by First Rays Venture Partners and Scribble Ventures alongside several angel investors. Building on the success of its popular open source API mocking tool, WireMock Cloud fixes the struggles of developing for modern, API-rich architectures.

APIs are vital to modern businesses, enabling them to connect and integrate with platforms and apps from third parties, and internally between their own software and teams. According to Gartner, 94% of organizations either use or are planning to use third-party APIs, up from just 52% in 2019. However, building software that interacts with APIs is difficult. Using live APIs for development can be expensive and won’t always give the full range of responses that the developers need, or the loads for testing at scale. Sandboxes offered by API providers, if they exist at all, tend to be unstable, unreliable and slow. Dev teams often need to integrate with internal APIs that don’t exist yet, creating bottlenecks in situations such as for frontend teams that are trying to develop in parallel with their backend colleagues.

“You can’t build useful integrated software without consuming a lot of APIs,” said Uri Maoz, co-founder and CEO of WireMock. “But building, testing and maintaining that software shouldn’t have to rely on live APIs or inadequate sandboxes from multiple companies, not to mention under-development internal APIs. That’s a terrible model and it makes development slow, expensive and frustrating.”

WireMock has created WireMock Cloud, the first API developer productivity platform for developing and testing software in an API-dependent environment. Whether from an OpenAPI specification, by recording API traffic, using an SDK or even created manually, the platform can simulate both third-party and internal APIs quickly, safely and reliably. It can even simulate nonexistent APIs still under development, so that different software teams can keep developing simultaneously, especially in microservice architectures.

WireMock was co-founded by Uri Maoz and Tom Akehurst, the company’s CTO. Akehurst originally created the open source API mocking tool WireMock. It now has more than four million monthly recorded downloads of its Java library, 200 contributors and is being used by over 3,000 open source projects

“I built the WireMock OSS because I knew there had to be a better way for developers to develop in an environment where so many API dependencies were holding them back and slowing their delivery,” said Akehurst.

WireMock’s API developer productivity platform, WireMock Cloud, incorporates the open source solution alongside other developer productivity features, and offers free, team and enterprise tiers. By focusing solely on bottom-up product-led growth, WireMock Cloud has won hundreds of paying customers including Bilt Rewards, OVO Energy, Jumia and ePay, and thousands of signups monthly.

“Often, investment is educated guesswork about the market and its needs. When it comes to WireMock, there was no need to guess; the impressive customer base proves that they’re filling a growing need,” said Akriti Dokania, Partner at Ridge Ventures. “With API use exploding, WireMock’s approach, allowing companies to simulate APIs robustly, accurately and quickly, is the winning formula that software engineers need.”

WireMock will use the investment to build out a US go-to-market team as well as its engineering team. The company plans to further develop WireMock Cloud to cover more of the API lifecycle, building towards a comprehensive API developer productivity platform.

“APIs are the glue that holds our interconnected software world together,” added Maoz. “They shouldn’t be getting developers stuck. WireMock frees developers and QA teams from their dependence on live or unimplemented APIs, so they can build and test connected applications with freedom and confidence.”

About WireMock:

WireMock is an API platform to improve developer productivity. WireMock enables developers and testers to mock APIs in every stage of the API lifecycle — allowing teams to reduce dependency on 3rd party and internal APIs and develop much faster. WireMock Cloud is a platform built on the open-source Wiremock mocking software. WireMock is used by thousands of companies and more than 2M developers around the world.

Contact:
Lazer Cohen
[email protected]

SOURCE WireMock

Funding led by Stage 2 Capital with participation from Gutter Capital, NextView Ventures, and Bling Capital will support Opus’ SaaS platform development and accelerate growth in new industries

NEW YORK, May 24, 2023 — Opus, a training platform for businesses with a deskless workforce, today announced the close of a $6.8 million Series A funding round led by Stage 2 Capital. Existing investors including Gutter Capital, NextView Ventures, and Bling Capital also participated in this funding round. The funding comes on the heels of a $2 million round less than a year ago, led by Gutter Capital with participation from Chelsea Clinton’s Metrodora. This Series A capital will help Opus confront the frontline worker shortage via the same AI technology that the majority of software companies are leveraging for desk-workers. It will also accelerate Opus’ growth including the expansion of the engineering and go-to-market teams, the further development of the SaaS platform, and the integration into new industries.

Businesses in the United States employ a total of 110 million deskless workers and make up relatively 70% of the overall workforce, yet they lack access to technology to help them do their jobs better. There are reportedly 1,200 learning management systems, “LMS” on the market, yet only 30% of businesses with deskless workers have invested in one. Over 70% of Opus customers are switching from no software at all such as Shipley Donuts, & Pizza, and Salt & Straw. Since 2021, employers have seen record high voluntary turnover rates, contributing to the post-pandemic labor shortage. Businesses are now investing in new software like Opus to deliver training throughout the employee lifecycle in order to increase employee output and retention while lowering labor costs.

“Training technology is not accessible to the majority of American workers, but we’re changing that,” said Rachael Nemeth, co-founder and CEO at Opus. “In today’s labor market, Opus is an essential tool for businesses with frontline workers. We’re building a world where employers are not just checking a box, they are getting frontline business intelligence so they can make better decisions about their majority workforce. What’s next in the world of work is new knowledge, new growth and creating space for everyone. We’re thrilled to partner with Stage 2 on our next chapter.”

Opus is designed to help businesses with a large distributed workforce minimize labor costs and increase sales by offering accessible training technology that can reach 99% of employees. General learning management systems only reach 1 in 5 employees due to being desktop-based, English-only, and burdensome to field managers. Opus automates every part of the employee training lifecycle in a single system and delivers all forms of training to employees’ phones through a mobile application that is available in more than 100 languages.

Opus is leveraging AI through their translation technology and content builder. The content builder helps customers take any content, such as a procedure change, and convert it into an interactive lesson 20 times faster than legacy solutions. As a result their customers are seeing a decrease in manager admin time by 40% while lowering frontline labor costs by 5%-15%. Opus translation technology helps reduce operating costs by automatically translating every course, message and interaction on the platform into over 100 global languages. By leveraging neural networks for automated translations and a proprietary machine learning model which understands the quality of the translations the system produces, Opus achieves 95-99% accuracy.

“The deskless workforce, those that work in restaurants, manufacturing, logistics, and facilities, are the foundation of our economy. It’s imperative that the businesses who employ these people deliver effective training that is accessible and leads to better workplaces,” said Mandy Cole, Partner of Stage 2 Capital. “We invested in Opus because the company is trailblazing a training solution for any business with a frontline workforce – something that is lacking in the current market. And, we’re excited to join their Board of Directors to help the team scale and make an impact in today’s working world.”

Since launching in early 2020, Opus has built a customer portfolio of top food service brands including Taim, Kevin Hart’s Hart House, Just Salad, Luke’s Lobster, Swingers Golf, Gregorys Coffee, Vanderbilt University, and Rhode Island School of Design. In addition to welcoming Mandy Cole, Partner of Stage 2 Capital, as a Board Director, Opus expanded its executive team with Doug Freeman as the Chief Revenue Officer, coming from Remesh, The Muse, and Living Social, Frances Liu as VP of Marketing, coming from Instawork and Upwork, and Opus’ Co-founder Jeffrey Silver was appointed as Chief Technology Officer and Board Director.

To learn more about Opus visit https://www.opus.so/

About Opus
Opus is a mobile-first learning platform that helps businesses get their frontline teams up the productivity curve quickly. Opus unlocks human potential and strengthens an employees’ relationship with their coworkers. With accessible, AI-enabled technology for frontline workers, Opus helps businesses accelerate into the new era of work.

Press contact:
Frances Liu
E-Mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Gutter Capital