Sugar raises $2.5M in seed funding to connect apartment residents

Sugar, a startup that aims to turn apartment buildings into “interactive communities,” has closed on $2.5 million in seed funding.  A slew of investors participated in the financing, including MetaProp, Agya Ventures, Concrete Rose, Debut Capital, The Community Fund, Consonance Capital, Lightspeed Scout Fund and Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH syndicate. Also participating were angel investors such […]

Avalo uses machine learning to accelerate the adaptation of crops to climate change

Climate change is affecting farming all over the world, and solutions are seldom simple. But if you could plant crops that resisted the heat, cold or drought instead of moving a thousand miles away, wouldn’t you? Avalo helps plants like these become a reality using AI-powered genome analysis that can reduce the time and money […]

Mindset, an artist-driven mental wellness audio platform, raises $8.7M from Scooter Braun’s TQ Ventures and others

Mindset, a platform featuring personal story collections from recording artists, announced today that it raised $8.7 million in seed funding. As co-founders of the K-pop-focused podcast production company DIVE Studios, brothers Brian Nam, Eric Nam and Eddie Nam noticed that the studio’s best-performing content came from podcast episodes where stars discussed how they handle struggles […]

Balance raises $25M in a Ribbit Capital-led Series A to grow its ‘consumer-like B2B checkout platform’

Balance, a payments platform aimed at B2B merchants and marketplaces, has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Ribbit Capital. Avid Ventures participated in the financing, in addition to existing backers Lightspeed Ventures, Stripe, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, SciFi VC and UpWest. Other individual investors that put money in the round […]

Level AI lands $13M Series A to build conversational intelligence for customer service

Level AI, an early stage startup from a former member of the Alexa product team, wants to help companies process customer service calls faster by understanding the interactions they’re having with customers in real time. Today the company launched publicly, while announcing a $13 million Series A led by Battery Ventures with help from seed […]