This month at January Ventures: Unitary AI closes $15M Series A, The Grand raises $4.7M in seed funding, Treefera and Helios AI close pre-seed rounds and launch their platforms.
We’ve got loads to celebrate this month! Check out our portfolio news, food for thought, and more below.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Unitary AI, which has built context-aware AI to detect harmful content online, has closed a $15M Series A round led by Creandum! Their AI analyzes multiple signals to understand content and context, helping platforms proactively moderate harmful material. With the amount of online content growing at an exponential rate, AI will be key to safety. Congratulations to Sasha Haco, James Thewlis, and the entire Unitary team.
The Grand World, founded by Anita Hossain Choudhry and Rei Wang, has raised a $4.7M seed round led by Katelin Holloway and Alexis Ohanian at Seven Seven Six. The Grand is a group executive coaching platform used by the NBA and City of Angels players. They are thrilled to bring on this round of funding to support more individuals and companies with coaching and community. Congratulations to Anita, Rei, and the entire The Grand World Team!
NEW JANUARY VENTURES INVESTMENTS:
Treefera, an AI-powered data platform that revolutionizes forest data and conservation, has closed their $2.2m pre-seed round and launched their platform! With a comprehensive repository of data that easily integrates with clients through an API, Treefera accelerates the carbon offset process and brings transparency, accuracy, and trust to carbon offset projects.
Treefera was founded by Jonathan Horn, theoretical physicist and former Managing Director at J.P. Morgan, and Caroline Grey, former Chief Customer Officer at UiPath. Congrats to Jonathan, Caroline, and the entire team!
Congratulations to Helios AI on launching Cersi, the world's first Virtual Supply Chain Analyst™, and raising their $1.85M pre-seed round! Cersi is a conversational chatbot that is specialized for the agricultural supply chain. VentureBeat notes, “Users at CPGs can feed Cersi their supplier information and location, and it will automatically surf the web and track relevant updates for that location’s weather forecasts, natural disasters, the effects of climate change, and other news events that could impact the supply chain.”
Well done to co-founders Francisco Martin-Rayo and Eden Canlilar and to the entire Helios AI team!
REMINDER:
📣 Don’t forget to take The State of European Tech 2023 Survey from our friends at Atomico VC. You can complete it in just a few minutes here to make sure that your voice is heard!
IN THE NEWS:
🎤 Pano took the stage at Dreamforce 2023 to discuss how AI can be harnessed to tackle climate threats.
🧬 Richard Graves, Cofounder of Sorcero, was featured on the Cloud N Clear podcast discussing how Sorcero harnessed AI in order to improve patient care w/the help of SADA & Google Cloud.
🎤 Trouva’s CEO, Dimple Patel, shares an open and honest account of her challenges and successes with 40-Minute Mentor.
🎤 Aavia’s Aagya Mathur was a guest on Dear Media's Good Instincts Podcast to discuss cycle syncing and hormonal empowerment.
📆 Elpha will be hosting a Women in Tech networking and happy hour alongside an Expert Session for NYC Tech Week on Thursday, October 19.
📢 We are proud to share January Ventures has been selected for Recast Capital’s Accelerate cohort, which aims to help a more diverse group of managers to establish and manage institutional-quality funds. You can learn more about the cohort and the early backing from Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company, here.
🎤 Maren Bannon was on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt this month discussing what the VC environment is *really* like out there with Loren Straub from Bowery Capital, James Currier from NFX and Tim De Chant from TechCrunch (read the summary in Techcrunch here). We also judged the next wave of promising startups at the Startup Battlefield competition.
🎤 Jennifer Neundorfer attended the Equity Alliance Summit, which is an annual retreat to talk about the future of venture capital, why diversity drives returns and how the next generation of fund managers are building their firms. The Equity Alliance invests in exceptional venture capital fund managers and startup founders who are people of color and women.
SAVE THE DATE:
📆 Mark your Calendars and please say hello if you are at any of these events!
🎤 Jennifer Neundorfer will be speaking on how diversity drives returns: lessons from winning portfolios at SOCAP in San Francisco on October 25.
🎤 Jennifer Neundorfer will be speaking about taking companies from zero to one at the RAISE Global Summit in San Francisco on October 26.
🎤 Maren Bannon will be speaking about unveiling the secrets to successful AI investments at Web Summit in Lisbon on Nov 14.