HBS Alumni Startup Corner: Spring Funding Update

Keith Bender, Contributor

Alumni founders have raised $2.5B+ in venture capital so far in 2022. Keith Bender (MBA ’20) reports.  

Startups founded by HBS alumni have raised more than $2.5B in venture capital funding in 2022, including $2.2B since mid-January – the time of our last alumni funding update—through press time for this issue (April 26, 2022). Here, I review the publicly disclosed funding rounds, categorized by industry: 

Consumer

1. PolicyGenius, an online insurance marketplace founded by Francois de Lame ’11, raised $125M from PAcific Life, MassMutual, KKR, and Norwest Venture Partners.
   

2. TripleDotStudios, a mobile game studio founded by Akin Babayigit ’09, raised $116M from Lightspeed and The Twenty Minute VC.
   

3. Chief, a private women’s network founded by Carolyn Childers ’08, raised $100M from CapitalG, GGV, and General Catalyst.
   

4. Gravie, a health insurance marketplace founded by Abir Sen ’05, raised $75M from Georgian, FirstMark, and Split Rock Partners.
   

5. Endless West, a sustainable alcoholic beverage company founded by Alec Lee ’16, raised $60M from Level One Fund and Indiebio.
   

6. FitOn, a fitness app founded by Lindsay Kane ’10, raised $40M from Delta-v, MANTIS, and Accel.
   

7. GetMyBoat, a boat rental marketplace founded by Sascha Mornell ’97, raised $21M from Yanmar Marine International.
   

8. Blueland, an eco-friendly refillable packaging company founded by John Mascari ’12, raised $20M from Prelude Growth Partners.
   

9. Oxygen E-Sports, a gaming team founded by William Collis ’11, raised $20M from Banner Ventures and professional athletes including Rob Gronkowski, Jon Rahm, and Danny Ainge.
   

10. APLUS home, a Vietnamese housing startup founded by Minh Bui ’14, raised $2M from CrossFund, Sketchnote, and Ventek. 

Enterprise

1. Glance, a Singapore-based software company that delivers content to lockscreens on Jio smartphones founded by Naveen Tawari ’05, raised $200M from Jio, Google, and Mithril Capital.
   

2. Bloomreach, a customer experience and insights company founded by Raj Datta ’03, raised $175M from Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital Ventures.
   

3. Platform Science, a fleet management platform founded by Jack Kennedy ’97, raised $115M from Softbank Vision Fund and Prologis Ventures.
   

4. Radar, a location data infrastructure platform founded by Nick Patrick ’13, raised $55M from Insight, Accel, and Two Sigma.
   

5. Zubale, a gig staffing platform founded by Sebastian Monroy ’18, raised $40M from QED, MAYA, and Felicis.*
   

6. TruEra, an AI quality assurance automation platform founded by Will Uppington ’04, raised $25M from Menlo Ventures, Wing VC, and B Capital Group.
   

7. Tint.AI, an AI-based insurance modeling platform founded by Matheus Riolfi ’13, raised $25M from QED, Nyca Partners, and Plug and Play.
   

8. Melonn, an e-commerce fulfillment platform founded by Andres Gomez ’19, raised $20M from QED, GFC, and Pear VC.*
   

9. Safebase, a security assessment company founded by Al Yang ’20, Adar Arnon ’20, and Stan Chang ’20, raised $18M from NEA, J Ventures, and UpHonest Capital.
   

10. Hemlane, a property management platform founded by Dana Dunford ’15, raised $9M from Asymmetric Capital Partners and StartX.
    

11. Sona, a frontline staff scheduling company founded by Oli Johnson ’11, raised $6.8M from Gradient and Speedinvest.

Fintech, Crypto, and Real Estate

1. Capchase, a fintech platform founded by Przemek Gotfryd (MBA ’21) and Miguel Fernandez Larrea (MBA ’21) that provides upfront funding to SaaS companies based on their future revenue, raised $80M from 01 Advisors, QED, and Thomvest Ventures.
   

2. Modern Treasury, a payment operations platform founded by Dmitri Dadiomov ’15, raised $50M from Silicon Valley Bank and Salesforce Ventures.
   

3. Nous, a personal finance platform founded by Greg Marsh ’06, raised $6M from Mosaic.

Healthcare 

1. Somatus, a vertically integrated kidney healthcare company founded by Ikenna Okezie ’99 raised $325M from Wellington Management, Fidelity, Deerfield Management, and BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners.
   

2. Omada Health, a digital care company for chronic conditions founded by Sean Duffy ’11 raised $192M from Wellington Management and Fidelity.
   

3. LifeMine Therapeutics, a genomics company founded by Hingge Hsu ’90, raised $175M from Fidelity and GlaxoSmithKline.
   

4. Proof Diagnostics, a CRISPR-based molecular test developer founded by Siddharth Shenai ’09, raised $45M from F-Prime, ARCH, SV Angel, and Madrona.
   

5. Season Health, a nutrition planning company founded by Josh Hix ’10, raised $34M from Andreessen Horowitz and Company Ventures.
   

6. Minded, a consumer telehealth company founded by David Ronick ’94, raised $25M from Trousdale, Link, and Streamlined.
   

7. Alife, a fertility diagnostic and recommendation tool founded by Paxton Maeder-York ’19, raised $22M from Lux Capital, Union Square Ventures, and Maveron.
   

8. Avant-Garde Health, a healthcare provider cost optimization company founded by Derek Adam Haas ’10, raised $12M from General Catalyst, Founder Collective, and Tectonic Ventures.
   

9. POC Pharma, a retail pharmacy coordination platform founded by Thomas Miklavec ’09, raised $10M from FJ Labs and Picus Capital. 

*The author is an investor at Pear VC, which is an investor in these companies. If you believe any HBS alumni startup fundings from this winter are missing, please reach out to me via the contact information below!

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Keith Bender (MBA ’20) is an investor at Pear VC in Palo Alto, where he invests at pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds across industries. He leads Baker Founders, a community dedicated to HBS alumni entrepreneurs. Previously, Keith worked at Bessemer Venture Partners and BCG. He is a graduate of Harvard College and is originally from Arizona. For comments and questions, please reach out to keith@pear.vc.