Ooho maker Skipping Rocks Labs, insurtech provider BIMA and food-waste startup Wasteless were among this past week’s notable investing deals.
Skipping Rocks Labs – this week’s spotlight (see video) is the maker of balls of water called Ooho – a replacement for plastic water bottles that is biodegradable and edible —saving the dumping of one-billion wasted bottles per year, among the chief sources of microplastics that end up in our planet’s oceans and recently evidenced off the waters of the Arctic. $1.05 million in equity crowdfunding via Crowdcube. Based in London, UK.
BIMA – an insurance technology (insurtech) firm that provides mobile-delivered microinsurance to underserved families in emerging markets including Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Honduras. $16.8 million in Series D to now total $82.2 million from 5 investors. Based in Stockholm.
First Circle – fintech startup based in the ASEAN region that is aiming to improve access to lending and capital for small-to-medium enterprises (SME’s) in emerging markets. $1.3 million in venture funding to now total $2.5 million from 6 investors. Based in the Philippines.
Frequency Therapeutics – develops small molecule drugs that activate progenitor cells within the body to restore healthy tissue. Invest Impactly covered how investments in small molecule drug technology can help fight Rheumatoid Arthritis. Frequency is aiming to re-create sensory cells in the inner ear to treat chronic noise induced hearing loss, which affects over 30 million people in the U.S. alone. $32 million in Series A from 5 investors. Based in Woburn, Massachusetts.
Lyndra – developer of an oral, sustained-release and long-acting drug delivery technology and platform, which its CEO claims can help the approximately 50% of patients in the developed world who do not take their medications because they feel tethered to their daily pills. $23 million Series A to total nearly $29 million in funding from seven investors. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Teamable – an employee referral and diversity hiring platform that transforms social networks into high-performance talent pools. $5 million in Series A from 3 investors. Based in Redwood City, California.
NeuroTronik – develops a medical device as an alternative for the drugs used currently to treat heart failures. Its experimental technology allows inserting stimulation catheters into a vein near the heart to increase cardiac output without increasing heart rate. $23 million in Series B to now total $36.2 million from 6 investors. Based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Wasteless – is aiming to tackle food waste and inventory inefficiency, a $1 billion costly issue in retail groceries according to the startup, through a real-time tracking solution. $400 thousand in Seed A from 5 investors. Based in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Products of Note
Aipoly uses artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and the technology of smartphones to help the blind see. Based in New York, New York.
Bempu Health – a bracelet device that keeps a watch on a baby’s temperature in India where 8 million children are born prematurely every year. Funding via the Gates Foundation, USAID, and UKAID. Based in Bangalore, India.
Other News
Two activist law professors tried to mimic big activist hedge funds, investing their retirement savings in a small, languishing public company and trying to make impact, shake it up. They share their experience in a story this past week in the Atlantic.
Sources: Crunchbase, TechCrunch, Atlantic, CNBC, AgFunder
