Weekly Round Up: 8/14/20

At Greenspring we believe in venture capital's ability to propel innovation, job creation and positive societal change. We celebrate those who think differently, take measured risk and challenge perceptions. Here's what's trending in VC this week: 

Portfolio News

• Qualified.com, a conversational marketing platform for companies using Salesforce, raised $12 million in Series A financing with participation from Greenspring primary manager Redpoint Ventures. 

• Fractyl Laboratories, which is testing a clinical trial for a non-invasive treatment for Type 2 Diabetes, raised $55 million in Series E financing with participation from Greenspring primary managers Bessemer Venture Partners and True Ventures.

• Parsable, helping digitize industrial front line workers, raised $60 million in Series D financing with participation from Greenspring primary manager Lightspeed Venture Partners.

• Atomo Coffee, which is creating molecular coffee, raised $9 million in seed financing with participation from Greenspring primary manager Bessemer Venture Partners.

• Smartrecruiters, a recruiting software, has raised $50 million in Series D financing with participation from Greenspring primary manager Mayfield. Read more about the pitch deck that helped them win this funding here.

• Tess Hatch, VP at Greenspring primary manager Bessemer Venture Partners, speaks to Bloomberg Technology about the recent successful SpaceXs Falcon9 Launch and what that means for the future of space exploration. Watch here.

• Greenspring primary manager Aleph led a $5 million seed financing round in Israel-based procurement management platform Approve, whose technology supports enterprises from the initial purchase request to the final supplier payment.

• Exciting news for Greenspring direct investment Rocket Lab: Mike Griffin, the former NASA administrator who stepped down as undersecretary of defense in July, has joined the Company’s board! Read more here.

• Mux, providing API-based video streaming tools and analytics, raised $37 million in Series C financing with participation from Greenspring primary manager Accel.

• ClassPass, backed by Greenspring primary managers NFX and CRV, is now offering quarantine-friendly virtual personal training sessions through their app! Check out the new functionality, which allows you to find a trainer on the app, use credits to book it and receive a unique Zoom link for the session. Read more about how it works here.

• “Being able to integrate Cyara into [the CI/CD pipeline] to be able to conduct its testing and then check the results as an automated step is huge.” Congrats to Greenspring direct investment Cyara for integrating their software into ANZ Banking Group’s testing! This is a huge development for Cyara in the Australian market. Read more about this here.

• Charles BirnBaum, of Greenspring manager Bessemer Venture Partners, joined Karen Webster, Pyments CEO, for a chat about all the recent developments in the VC industry. Watch here. 

Greenspring News

At Greenspring Associates we believe that the empowerment of talented individuals, regardless of gender, ethnicity or background, is critical to growth, innovation and success, both at our firm and in the venture ecosystem more broadly. Read how we are #MovingForward alongside other VCs here.

We are thrilled to sponsor the Private Markets Diversity Web Meeting today and tomorrow for the benefit of the Toigo Foundation, whose mission is to transform the performance of forward-thinking organizations through education and strategies that drive greater inclusion and the ongoing development and promotion of exceptional diverse leaders. Read more information here and here. 

Check out Greenspring’s own Ollie Howie participating as a panelist on a Harvard University Undergraduate Capital Partners seed fundraising session for their virtual accelerator bootcamp!

We are thrilled to welcome over 30 interns to Greenspring this summer and will be highlighting our new team members over the course of their time with us. Join us this week in welcoming Kaarina Zhao, Brindha Kodlapur and Harika Kolluri. Kaarina is a rising Senior at New York University where she is a member of NYU’s premier VC club, Strategic Venture Society (SVS). Brindha is a rising Senior at American University where she is a Girls Who Invest Scholar. As part of the Invesment Team, Brindha is eager to learn more about the VC ecosystem and to take her knowledge back to campus this Fall. Harika is a rising junior at the University of Michigan where she is the Director of Internal Operations for a gender equity organization called Lean In. Harika is looking forward to building her technical skills and being able to learn about how Greenspring manages their investments. #InternAtGreenspring

The content here is for informational purposes only and should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice. It does NOT constitute an offer or solicitation to purchase any investment or a recommendation to buy or sell a security. In fact, the content is not directed to any investor or potential investor and may not be used to evaluate or make any investment.