News

Now, nearly a year after landing a Series A with this vision, Sounding Board has closed a $30 million Series B led by Jazz Venture Partners, and joined by Gaingels as well as angel investors such as theBoardlist’s Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Ancestry.com’s Deb Liu, Udemy’s Yvonne Chen and Engage VC’s Tammy Aguiloon. Previous investors in the company include Canaan Partner and Precursor Ventures. TechCrunch

To expand financial literacy education and support the next generation of financial planners to be as diverse as the clients they serve, Origin, the employee financial wellness platform, announced per a news release the formation of their new philanthropic initiative – the Origin Diversity Program. Through the program, Origin has committed time, resources, and funds to further its mission of bringing financial wellness to every employee, no matter their income, net worth, or location. Essence

Adam Olejniczak, co-founder of Buffalo Market, was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30! Forbes

For those undergoing fertility treatments or navigating complex family forming such as adoption and surrogacy, the experience is often isolating and can take a heavy toll on their physical and mental health. Carrot Fertility is the leading global fertility benefits provider for employers, built to support employees through their entire fertility healthcare journey. Forbes

Aunt Flow was featured by Fortune Magazine in regards to Ann Arbor’s landmark law mandating period products in public restrooms. CEO Claire Coder talked about how Aunt Flow is able to help businesses with this new ordinance and the conversation around menstrual equity. Fortune

Phil Libin, a creator of the Evernote app and a founder of the product studio All Turtles, was among those who just wanted things to get back to the way they were. “I was an in-person kind of person,” he says. “I was a big proponent of fancy, nice offices.” In fact, what he didn’t like was video meetings. “I didn’t realize that the office was a central problem,” he continues. “Now I think it’s literally one of the dumbest ideas.” Eventually, Libin shut down All Turtles’ physical offices and moved from San Francisco to northwest Arkansas. He and a few colleagues developed software designed to improve video presentations and calls, eventually building a whole new start-up called Mmhmm around it. The New York Times

Today, Fuzzy announced $44 million in growth funding to expand its digital pet care network of veterinary professionals to alleviate some of the strain on the industry and make care accessible and affordable to all. The San Francisco-based company previously raised $18 million in a Series B round in March. TechCrunch

Some applications may require millions of lines of code written by thousands of developers over time. Yet few developers have a complete understanding of how their entire codebase is interconnected because the tool to simplify that process didn’t exist – until now. Shanea Leven set out to change that with CodeSee, an application that automates the process of analyzing the data flowing through a software developer’s system to maintain an updated map of system architecture, its components and the connections between them. Forbes

Durham-based startup Courtroom5 began like many companies do – with frustration. Sonja Ebron was frustrated, finding herself in court, again, without a lawyer. She compares it to being “beat up” – trying to wade through a system so complex that Ebron, an accomplished electrical engineer with a doctorate degree, found it nearly impossible. Triangle Inno

Looking for a new sex-positive dating app? Give Bloom a try! Launched earlier this year by founder Luna Ray, the app is entering the dating space to support sex positive, queer, kink, and alternative communities in finding connections. PRIDE

If you were going to design an infant formula intended to appeal directly to the same millennial demographic that clicks on Instagram ads for Away suitcases, Great Jones cookware, Glossier makeup, The Sill plants, Ritual vitamins, Outdoor Voices leggings, or any of the hundreds of other direct-to-consumer, venture-funded lifestyle companies who use on their websites either the familiar millennial D2C sans serif font or have moved to a gentle, low-contrast, sometimes ‘70s-inspired serif font, you would most likely come up with something very closely resembling Bobbie, a “European-style” formula company founded by two Silicon Valley moms that launched in January. Romper

Andrew D’Souza and Michele Romanow were listed on Toronto Life’s most influential Torontonians of 2021! Toronto Life

The independent artist Houston Kendrick builds intricate, genre-bending worlds that blend rap, R&B, and pop with rich lyrics and visuals. A popular artist on Spotify, with over 2.5 million streams, Houston is always interested in finding new, deeper ways to connect with his fans beyond a social media post. When he heard about Audioshake’s ability to separate songs into their stems, it sparked an idea: What if an artist could run a remix contest powered by AI stems? Audioshake

Encantos has partnered with LA-based 3Pas Studios to develop several new IPs branded as Encantos Originals that will help kids develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This deal marks the first foray into children’s entertainment for 3Pas, which was founded in 2014 by actor/director Eugenio Derbez and Ben Odell. Kidscreen

Books are valuable resources for entrepreneurs as they provide worthwhile lessons on topics such as building a business, managing employees, and even fundraising. Shanea Leven, co-founder of CodeSee, Tiffany Dufu, founder of The Cru, Courtney Caldwell, co-founder of ShearShare, and Jasmine Crowe, founder of Goodr, shared the books that helped them navigate the VC landscape and raise over $25M in funding. Business Insider

In 2015 Claire Coder dropped out of college to found Aunt Flow with a mission of providing free menstruation products in public bathrooms. Forbes

Rad AI, the fastest growing radiologist-led AI company, today announced $25 million in Series A funding. The round was led by ARTIS Ventures with participation by several existing investors, including OCV Partners, Kickstart Fund, and Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused fund). Rad AI

Congratulations to Jasmine Crowe, founder of Goodr, and Christine Tao and Lori Mazan, co-founders of Sounding Board, for being among the 27 EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women that make up the North America Class of 2021! EY

Revenue-based financing is gaining traction in the beauty industry. Founders are trading equity stakes for revenue share, as companies such as Clearco rethink traditional investment models. Clearco, which raised $215 million from SoftBank over the summer, invests in beauty e-commerce businesses in exchange for a fee and a percentage of revenue. The company has already seen success, investing $2.5 billion in more than 5,500 start-ups worldwide since it was founded in 2015. WWD

Wearing a great pair of loafers with everything from cropped, wide-leg chinos to classic suit pants to sweatpants may feel like one of the fresher flexes permeating menswear right now, but for Chris Echevarria, it’s a move that stretches back to childhood. “I was raised by my great-grandmother and my mom, and one of the things that I was required to do was go to church every weekend,” the designer of Brooklyn-based brand Blackstock & Weber explains. “The uniform for church was a pair of khakis, white shirt, penny loafers. And the loafers—and everything in that outfit—have never left my wardrobe. So I’ve always been wearing these loafers in very interesting ways.” Esquire