Weekly Update #13 🥕
The newsletter is back with a streamlined version. This format featuring only Q&As and updates from founders that recently raised capital is one you can count on moving forward.
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MedCrypt (Mike Kijewski, CEO)
MedCrypt, an Encinitas, California–based medical device cybersecurity technology provider, raised a USD 1.9m seed round back in June.
Raised the round, from start to close, in 4.5 months.
Spoke with approximately 40 investors for the seed round.
MedCrypt has a ballpark valuation of USD 10m after the round.
The vast majority of the capital raised will be to increase the engineering team.
The total amount raised to date is USD 3m.
The unding will allow MedCrypt to deploy its medical device cryptography solutions for the first batch of customers whose devices are currently under FDA review.
Tray.io (Rich Waldron, co-founder and CEO)
Tray.io, a San Francisco-based startup provider of an API integration and automation platform for citizen automators, raised a USD 14.3m Series A back in mid-June.
Devoted a week to meet with investors, then another week for follow-on meetings, which led to multiple term sheets. Investor interest in the General Automation Platform category is high. This is undoubtedly a function of several factors. The market is shifting technologically toward APIs and serverless architecture, as well as toward the democratization of integration platforms, leading to the emergence of the citizen automator.
Did due diligence with quite a few potential investor, many of which had extremely impressive resumes and outstanding portfolios on offer. The company is happy to have partnered GGV Capital, and honored to have Glenn Solomon join as a board member. Glenn’s list of previous investments is impressive (including the likes of Zendesk, Square, SuccessFactors, Slack, Airbnb, and HashiCorp, and many other Silicon Valley success stories), and his counsel is invaluable.
Tray.io has seen remarkable growth velocity in our customer list, which now includes the likes of IBM Cloud, Lyft, Trimble, Forbes, Udemy, and many other enterprises and rapidly-growing companies.
Primarily looking to invest in two key areas. One area is product enhancements to enable customers to get even more out of the platform, including expanded collaborative features and growing automation support for the most popular business applications on the market. The second area is strategic hiring to support growth.
The company has raised USD 22m to date.
“Automation has traditionally been the domain of developers, but we’re enabling professionals in marketing, sales, support, finance, HR, and many other roles to take control of their data, focus on high-level strategy, and get more important work done, and faster. We believe the automated organization is the future of business.”
MyFolk — (P, co-founder)
MyFolk, a New York City-based social buying app, raised a USD 5.3m seed round in late June.
Company was approached by one of its investors, who heard through a back channel about what the co-founders were interested in doing. This investor was instrumental in getting the rest of the pieces in place.
The entire capital raise process took about seven months.
Company spoke with a bit less than 10 investors. “I think the power of the idea and the connections of our lead investor facilitated a lot for us.”
The valuation for the round was between USD 25m and USD 55m.
The total amount raised to date is USD 5.3m.
“Shopping has never been harder, and by that I mean it's never been more disorienting for buyers. Our research has shown that consumers have never before wanted more guidance—moral, sociopolitial, and demographic—in how they spend their dollar, to make sure their spending how their networks are. Just pulling one example from the news, does a consumer want to be eating at a place like Red Hen? Well that depends on not just how they feel about dinner but how they feel about the GOP, personal liberties, and on and on. We help them figure all of that out, so they can eat in peace!”
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What people have said about this newsletter 🙌
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— Andrew Jasco, CEO of Blocksphere
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If you’re a startup and you’re raising capital and would like to be featured in next week’s newsletter, reach out by emailing: chris@pdreporter.com.
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