Last month saw a slump in investments to Bay Area tech companies. The five largest funding rounds in August totaled a collective $774 million, which may seem like a lot but pales in comparison to July’s $1.04 billion total. Regardless of the recent funding slump, companies are still hard at work growing and innovating. Read on to find out which tech companies raised funds last month and how they plan to put it to use.
#5. $99 million, August 23
Anyscale raised $99 million in a Series C funding round co-led by existing investors Addition and Intel Capital. This round was an extension of Anyscale’s $100 million Series C round announced last December. Anyscale is the company behind Ray, an open source unified computing framework. The framework helps developers scale artificial intelligence (AI) and Python applications with ease without needing to build complex infrastructure. This makes it faster for organizations to bring AI products to the market and reduces costs.
#4. $105 million, August 9
At the beginning of last month, CleverTap announced a $105 million Series D funding round led by CDPQ. The investment leader chucked in $75 million for the round alongside additional investors Tiger Global, IIFL AMC’s Tech Fund and Sequoia India. CleverTap plans to use its funds to accelerate its global expansion and enhance product development. CleverTap is a SaaS engagement platform that uses machine learning (ML) and AI to help brands create lasting relationships with customers.
#3. $115 million, August 4
Afresh closed a $115 million Series B funding round led by Spark Capital at the beginning of last month. The funding round also included participation from angel investor and former Whole Food Market co-CEO Walter Robb, Insight Partners, VMG Partners and Bright Pixel Capital. This round brought Afresh’s total funding raised to date to $148 million and will be used to scale its food technology across thousands more stores and expand its Fresh Operating System footprint. Afresh’s AI-powered platform optimizes critical functions in the grocery industry, including ordering, inventory, merchandising and operations to drive sustainability and reduce food waste.
#2. $155 million, August 16
AtoB raised $155 million in Series B funding co-led by Elad Gil and General Catalyst. The company will use its funds to pay down debt and scale its services over the next year. AtoB is a fintech payments platform made for the trucking industry. It provides a suite of products to fleets such as no-fee fleet cards, instant direct-deposit payroll and bank account and savings tools. AtoB aims to fix the trucking industry’s financial system which largely relies on under-regulated and exploitative fuel cards.
#1. $300 million, August 24
Lunar Energy launched out of stealth after raising $300 million over two rounds led by Sunrun. The funding was used to expand Lunar Energy’s team, invest in product development and manufacturing and acquire Moixa, a U.K.-based software builder. Lunar Energy is an electricity technology company that aims to transition homes worldwide to 100 percent clean energy.
