Celebrating the Innovators
While we often think of technology as either something entirely futuristic and out of most of our reach or something limited to a small digital sector of the world, like Silicon Valley in California, the truth is in stark contrast to that image.
Technology is critical to the progress of virtually every sector of production and services we can imagine.
From education to farming, from fashion to medicine, and from sales to service, technology can help facilitate connections and communication across industries.
The Importance of Venture Funding in Technology
Sure, many people may see the value in technology in these ways described, but still, we don’t often see the importance of venture funding in technology.
Venture funding, the private equity firms formed by investors willing to provide financing to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential.
These well-off investors are helping technological advances make immense progress where they otherwise would be unable to, which would keep critical industries in the dark ages.
Venture funding brings financial viability to entrepreneurs and small businesses, allow access to new markets and distribution networks, increase the capacity of a business to grow, enable access to new knowledge and expertise, and allow access to greater resources.
Access to cash flow is essential to new businesses, particularly in technology, and the entire world can benefit from advanced technology across sectors.
The New Kids on the Block...
To give you insight into which newly formed venture capitalist firms are operating in the market today, and which companies they are investing in, in case you might want to align your interests with theirs, we’ve compiled a list.
Flair Ventures is a pre-seed venture capital fund, meaning it provides funding to American and Canadian start-up companies in their earliest stages of development, including the funds that allow the company to first get off the ground.
Flair focuses specifically on immigrant founded, owned, and run businesses, and it prides itself on being sector-agnostic and people-centric.
The companies Flair has recently invested in include Nomad Data, Fincentify, and Nyble.
A database management company in New York City, Nomad Data helps companies become data enabled. The company was founded and is run by CEO Brad Schneider, a graduate from MIT, who makes it a mission of his company to make new types of data available to the people that will benefit most from them.
Nomad Data is currently in the seed stage of funding.
Fincentify
A company dedicated to providing a platform for financial technology, or fintech, Fincentify builds and grows fintech products to create a financial ecosystem that helps people borrow, save, and protect their finances.
The company was founded and is run by Han Xiao and Alex Yi, of Canada.
Fincentify is currently in its second round of funding, which is debt financing.
Fincentify has also worked closely with another company dedicated to providing access to credit for Canadians, Nyble.
The fintech app offers zero-interest cash advances to help people cover an upcoming bill and avoid overdraft fees, an issue that costs working class people hundreds of dollars each year, and earning banks a total of $15 billion combined per year.
Nyble was founded by three men, Alex Yi, of Canada, Neil Taylor, of England, and Lee Rowbotham, also of England.
Saka Ventures is fund based in New York City that targets large global markets. The firm has a team of founders interested in helping companies build products and services essential to customer’s lives. The fund also helps startups with go-to-market, product, and strategy support and subject matter expertise.
Saka was founded by Pankaj Jain, out of Massachusetts, who had been involved in the Indian startup ecosystem for over 15 years and in technology, finance, and entrepreneurship for 25 years, including four years as the founder of India investments in Silicon Valley.
The companies Saka has recently invested in include Nymble, Gloroots, Unifize, and Plaza Technologies.
Nymble is a tech company based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India that builds cooking robots and provides other “smart kitchen” appliances for domestic households to make cooking at home a healthy habit.
Nymble was founded by Raghav Gupta and Rohin Malhotra and is currently in the seed stage of funding.
Gloroots is a business run out of San Francisco that aims to help companies find, onboard, and manage their employees on a global scale. The emphasis is on making Human Relationships digital and technologically advanced.
Gloroots was founded by Mayank Kimar Bhutoria, Yamini Jain, and Nitai Agarwal and is currently in the pre-seed stage of financing.
Founder and CEO Ben Merton started Unifize as a means of connecting technology and manufacturing.
The company, currently in the pre-seed stage of funding and based in Palo Alto, CA, is a cloud-based collaboration software platform aimed at accelerating the quality and continuous improvement to the manufacturing industry.
Another company based in New York, Plaza Technologies is committed to maintaining a platform that makes commerce easy for creators. The app will allow commerce creators to earn more and connect with brands through a series of tools that are user friendly and free.
Founder Soaib Grewal envisioned a space where freelancers and small business owners could connect with their partners and their customers with ease.
Exceptional Capital is a relatively new fund based out of Miami, Florida, with the goal of backing founders and companies working in the Software as a Service industry.
The firm was founded and is managed by Marell E., a graduate of the University of Michigan who went on to manage investments at SoftBank and Okta.
The companies Exceptional has recently invested in include Coactive AI, Bunkyr, and Lumu.
Coactive AI brings structure to unstructured businesses through the utilization of data and analytical insights. Machine learning is the emphasis for Coactive.
Coactive AI was founded by CEO Cody Coleman, out of San Jose, CA, a graduate of Stanford University with a PhD in Computer Science.
Coactive is in Series A round of funding.
Concerned about the need for better cyber security in the areas of encryption, Bunkyr enables companies to protect their users’ data with cryptographic hardware secured API.
Founder Michael Brzozowski, out of New York City, graduated from Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in Computer Science and has since been working on hardware engineering to help people and companies feel safe on the internet.
Bunkyr is currently in the pre-seed stages of funding.
Another cyber-security company, Lumu helps enterprises identify and isolate cyper-compromise in real time. Out of Doral, Florida, the company uses advanced analytics to help businesses identify their network’s vulnerabilities.
Ricardo Villadiego is the company’s founder and CEO.
Lumu is currently in the debt financing stage of funding.
In Celebration...
Venture funding plays a critical role in the advancement of technology across industries that helps real people in real time. The venture capital companies included here today are all heavily invested in businesses that aim to change people’s lives for the better. And the recipients of their funding are creating the technologies of the future, the platforms, and systems that are likely to shape our technological landscape well into the distant future.
VC funding is the lifeblood of the technology industry.
