Sort Funded $3.5M to Transform Blockchain UI Development

Blockchain

Sort is a blockchain technology startup provider focused on revolutionizing user interface (UI) development for blockchain applications and platforms, simplifying Web3 app development.

Sort was funded $3.5 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by prominent venture capital firms and strategic angel investors eager to support Sort’s vision of enhancing the usability and accessibility of blockchain technology.

Blockchain technology has gained significant traction recently, offering transparency, security, and decentralized solutions across various industries. However, one major hurdle has been the complex and often unintuitive user interfaces associated with blockchain applications. Sort aims to bridge this gap by developing powerful tools tailored for blockchain UI development.

With its fresh funding, Sort plans to accelerate the development of innovative software solutions that simplify the design and implementation of user-friendly interfaces for blockchain platforms. By doing so, the company aims to empower developers and businesses to create intuitive, engaging, and highly functional applications that can attract a broader user base.

Sort’s co-founder and CEO, Jason Zucchetto, expressed her excitement about the seed funding and the company’s mission. They believe improving the user experience is crucial for blockchain technology’s full potential. It enables them to build powerful tools that simplify UI development and enhance the usability of applications, ultimately making this technology more accessible to a broader audience.

The funding will primarily be used to expand Sort’s engineering and product teams, allowing the company to accelerate the development of its flagship UI development platform. The platform aims to provide a comprehensive suite of tools, templates, and libraries that streamline designing and implementing user interfaces.

Sort’s innovative approach has attracted the attention of blockchain developers and industry experts. By providing powerful tools for UI development, the company aims to foster innovation and drive widespread adoption of blockchain technology across diverse sectors, such as finance, supply chain management, and healthcare.

As Sort continues to advance its product development and expand its market presence, the company is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of blockchain technology by making it more user-friendly and accessible to a broader range of users.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

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Restaurant 365 Funded $135M to Revolutionize Food Service Software

Restaurant

Restaurant365 is an Irvine, CA-based developer of restaurant enterprise management software designed specifically for restaurants food service. The company’s all-in-one software offers cloud-based accounting, inventory, scheduling, payroll, and HR services, helping simplify the day-to-day management of operators and allowing users to control food costs and optimize labor.

Restaurant365 was funded $135 million, co-led by KKR and L Catterton, with participation from current strategic angel investors, including ICONIQ Growth and Bessemer Venture Partners. The investment will further enhance and expand its innovative software platform, catering to the specific essentials of restaurants, bars, and other food service establishments regarding their accounting, store operations, and workforce.

Restaurant365’s software platform offers comprehensive features designed to address the unique challenges the food service industry faces. It provides tools for managing inventory, tracking sales and expenses, optimizing labor costs, handling payroll, and facilitating financial reporting. In addition, the platform integrates these functionalities into a centralized system, empowering restaurant owners and managers with real-time data and insights to make informed decisions and drive operational efficiency.

The additional funding will enable Restaurant365 to accelerate product development, focusing on further enhancing its software’s capabilities and user experience. In addition, the company plans to invest in advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies to provide users with even more valuable insights and predictive capabilities. This will enable restaurant operators to identify trends, anticipate customer demands, and optimize operations for improved customer satisfaction and profitability.

Tony Smith, CEO of Restaurant365, said the investment validates our vision and the value we bring to the food service industry. They will be able to invest heavily in innovation and expand our reach to help more restaurants unlock their full potential. Their mission is to empower food service establishments with technology that simplifies their operations, boosts profitability, and enables them to focus on what they do best to serve their customers.

With its fortified financial position, Restaurant365 is well-positioned to revolutionize the industry by providing cutting-edge software solutions that maximize efficiency, productivity, and profitability for food service businesses around the globe.

By: K. Tagura

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Do you have enough reserve money for your business?

Reserve

It is common for entrepreneurs and new business persons to have very high expectations of their businesses in the beginning it should have reserve money in times of difficulties. They are often excited about how they will uniquely market the business and provide customers with something they have not tried before. A practical entrepreneur will look at both sides, the positive and negative. While there is nothing wrong with keeping your expectations high, it’s the “hope for the best and prepares for the worst” that seems to work more in life, both professional and personal.

So, it does not matter how unique your product is or how perfectly you have designed a plan to approach your target audience; you will always need some cash in reserve for the hard times. The more important question is “how much money should you have in reserve for a small business?”

How Do You Calculate the Size of Your Reserve?

The first thing you need to know here is that there are different types of businesses and thus they need to do their calculations differently.  Your first decision has to be whether you want your reserve to be enough to cover three months of costs or six months of costs. Finance experts have varying opinions, but it is up to you to decide whether it is going to be three or six months. Once you have made that decision, it is time you calculate the size of the reserve you will need. The information coming ahead is based on a six month’s reserve strategy.

As mentioned earlier, different businesses have to make calculations differently. If you are a business with running that remains pretty much the same throughout the year, you just have to look at your cash flow rate from the cash flow statement. Reviewing at least six months of statements is a good idea. If your expenses vary only slightly month after month, all you have to do is come up with an average of those six months of expenses. This will be the monthly expense of your business. Now, just multiply this average by six because you want to keep a reserve of six months.

However, you have to calculate differently for a seasonal business. Again, you will look at the cash flow statement of the past six months, but this time you will not find the average of all the six months. You will separate the month with the highest costs (expenses) and the months with low expenses. Take the five regular months and calculate the average monthly cost based on the data you have. Now, to calculate your six month’s reserve, multiply the average you have just calculated with five, and then add the cost of the highest month to that product.

What if you are a new business and you don’t have cash flow or burn rate reports for past six months. In this scenario, you will have to do the math even more strictly. You will have to work on projections and estimates. Calculate what your monthly expenses will be and base the size of your reserve on that projection. Of course, you should make adjustments as soon as you realize that your expenses or more or less than what you had projected once your business starts running.

What about Keeping a Bigger Cash Reserve?

The cash reserve is a cushion for your business and why wouldn’t you want the cushion to be bigger? Here is the thing; keeping a reserve that attempts to cover more than six months of expenses is going to be harmful to your business. What you will end up doing is putting the money that you can use in your business for its progress in the cash reserve where it will wait for the hard times to come before you can use it.

What you might not realize is that you could use the same money for business development, better marketing, and further expansion. Experts say you should not touch your cash reserves unless there is no other way out. With that in mind, you might never touch your cash reserves and use them to expand your business even when you have the opportunity.

Building a Cash Reserve

The biggest challenge is building a cash reserve because it is more like an expense for your business. You have to put some money from your profits into a separate account that serves as your business’ cash reserve account. What this means is that you will have to live with shrunken profits for some time. However, planning these things can help you. For example, fund your business wisely right from day one.

Unless your business explodes and becomes a big thing right from day one, you have to rely on proper financing to grow your cash reserves. One thing you want to keep in mind here is that your cash reserve is not just for the hard times, but it can help you on other occasions as well. Let’s say your company makes napkins, and a worldwide fast food chain places an order that goes way beyond your capacity. How do you arrange the materials to fulfill that order? While financing is an option, it is much better and safer to rely on your own cash reserves like many big companies do.

Final Words

It is a mistake that many new small business owners make when they think they won’t need any reserves in the back. Things can go wrong in a thousand different ways and you cannot predict all of them. You don’t want to be scrambling for cash or loan right from the second month of starting your business. It is best to have a financial advisor with you right from the start who will tell you how you can build your cash reserve without affecting the ongoing progress of your business and completely eating away your profits.

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Cloverly Funded $19M for Carbon Offsetting Solutions

Carbon

Cloverly, an Atlanta, GA-based. Developer of a sustainability-as-a-service platform intended to connect the voluntary carbon markets to businesses, consumers, and organizations using real-time calculations powered by API. The company’s platform calculates the carbon impact of specific enterprises and consumer activities like e-commerce shipments, rideshare, and on-demand deliveries. Then it purchases carbon offsets to make those activities carbon-neutral, enabling buyers to view in real-time the source of the balance and, through its algorithm, matches customers with the closest source of carbon avoidance or sequestration for localized impact.

Cloverly was funded $19 million led by Grotech Ventures, with participation from Aquiline Technology Growth, Impact Engine, Mission One Capital, New Climate Ventures, and CreativeCo Capital, and existing strategic angel investors of Tech Square Ventures, SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Circadian Ventures, Knoll Ventures, SaaS Ventures, and Panoramic Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to develop further its digital infrastructure for the voluntary carbon markets, including the new supplier platform, a team tripling, and launching a second headquarters in London.

Cloverly’s platform enables businesses and individuals to offset the carbon footprint of their online transactions, from e-commerce purchases to travel bookings. The company’s proprietary technology calculates the carbon emissions associated with each transaction and provides customers various options for offsetting them, from renewable energy projects to reforestation initiatives.

CEO Ason Rubottom said they are thrilled to have the support of such a strong group of investors as they continue to build out their platform and expand their reach. Their goal is to make it easy and affordable for businesses and individuals to act on climate change, and this funding will help them to achieve that goal.

The carbon offsetting industry has seen rapid growth in recent years, driven by increasing awareness of the urgent need to address climate change. According to a recent World Bank report, the global carbon offset market is expected to reach $50 billion by 2030.

With its innovative technology platform and strong customer base, Cloverly is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend and become a leading player in the carbon offsetting market.

By: K. Tagura

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The Benefits of Advanced Technology to Small Business Lending

Lending

Small business lending is just one of the markets that greatly benefits from the technological advances that we are experiencing in this day and age. Because of the accessibility to larger scope information about the potential lenders, banks and other lending institutions are now able to make more detailed assessments of the risks involved in a possible agreement.

Here are some of the advantages of having an advanced technology in the small business lending markets:

  • The possibility of broadening the risks to a larger geographical and industrial market
  • Cheaper acquisition costs despite wider geographic reach
  • Lesser necessity of opening new branches
  • Paperless application of loans, improved underwriting, and faster processing of applications
  • Develop new products that will focus on providing services to smaller businesses and those that have been declined by larger lending firms.
  • Significantly lower capital, especially for non-bank lenders

Since the start of the credit crisis – or the period of reduction in the general availability of loans – small companies and business that have been operating for not more than two years started to have a hard time applying for financial support from the traditional banks. But because of the advances in technology, smaller lending companies that were able to get large amounts of information about the borrowers were able to provide loans for these small businesses.

Because of the availability of information, even people who have very low credit scores can secure loans as long as they have positive credit history and the industry and economic status in the area where they live in show optimistic figures.

Nowadays, banks and other lending institutions can check not just the basic information included on loan application documents but also wider range of data that come from credit ratings agencies such as D&B and Equifax. The availability of large information about the potential borrowers allows lenders to develop and offer special financial packages designed for small companies and startups.

This phenomenon became more common among non-bank lenders, especially after 2008 when the credit market started stringent loan application processes. In fact, Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index noted that the so-called “alternative lenders” or those that are not affiliated with large financial institutions approve around six out of ten loan applications, significantly higher than the approval rate of banks and other large financial institutions.

Aside from these benefits, the use of technology in assessing loan applications made it easier for companies owned by women or members of the minority to secure financial support. Moreover, as small business lending markets start to integrate technology in their operations, entrepreneurs save a lot of time and encounter less problems in their bid to get financial support to start or expand their businesses. This proves how technology truly transformed for the better the market of small business lending.

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Bloomfilter Funded $7M for Development of Data Management Software

Software

Bloomfilter, a Cleveland, OH-based developer of an enterprise software planning application intended to give tech leaders visibility of their software development projects to improve the process and outcomes. The company’s application provides software leaders confidence and peace of mind by integrating into their existing toolsets, enabling users to leverage an organization’s existing data to make advanced analytics and AI to drive real-time activities and attain project success.

Bloomfilter was funded $7 million led by Magarac Venture Partners with participation from Sequoia, HPA, North Coast Ventures, Techstars, and other strategic angel investors.

With the new funding, Bloomfilter plans to continue its mission of providing innovative data management solutions to businesses across industries. As the company grows, it aims to become a leading player in the field, helping organizations of all sizes and types harness their data power.

Bloomfilter’s software utilizes advanced algorithms and machine learning to help businesses efficiently manage and analyze their data. By streamlining the data retrieval and analysis process, Bloomfilter aims to help organizations make more informed decisions and improve their overall performance.

The company was founded by a team of experienced software engineers and data scientists who recognized the need for a more practical approach to data management. With the new funding, Bloomfilter plans to accelerate its development roadmap, expand its team, and enhance its product offering.

Andrew Wolfe and Erik Severinghaus Co-CEOs of Bloomfilter, said they’re thrilled to have the support of Magarac Venture Partners and other investors as they continue to grow and scale their business. Their goal is to help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, and this funding will enable them to bring their technology to even more companies worldwide.

The demand for effective data management solutions has increased in recent years, with many organizations needing help to make sense of the vast amounts of data they collect. Bloomfilter’s technology offers a streamlined solution to help businesses save time and resources while making better decisions.

By: K. Tagura

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How Do You Know Your Business Ideas are Good?

Ideas

Investors want to fund good business ideas. That’s a broad statement because what seems like a good idea to me may be different from what seems like a good idea to you. So many ideas never seem to go anywhere. Some are just so uninspiring that they can’t seem to get the attention of anyone, much less investors. You can even write a whole business plan around a bad idea, leading to great disappointment when investors spot the fact it’s bad.

A good business idea is much more than just an idea. You can sit there all day and come up with ideas, but that doesn’t make them good. Good business ideas have certain qualities that differentiate them from other ideas. For one thing, a good business idea fulfills an unmet customer need, and it is often a need the consumer doesn’t even recognize yet. That may sound odd, but great ideas are often not great until someone invents a product or service.

Determining if a business idea is a good one requires more than just knowing the market will appreciate products or services. The idea must be feasible and realistic in terms of production costs, the time from funding to sales, profitability and safety. A good business idea is also one that can be brought to fruition because the entrepreneurs have the knowledge and skills needed.

There are more qualities associated with good business ideas, but one of the most important is related to innovation. Good business ideas offer a new twist on products or represent creative and innovative new products. The new twist or innovation should represent something that matters to people which means it brings some kind of satisfaction.

There are no hard and fast rules or magic formula to define a good business idea. Instead, investors will consider all of the qualities of the idea coupled with the marketing, competitive and financial factors.

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SuperDuperSecret Co. Funded $1M to Add Battle Royale Twist to Classic Games

Games

SuperDuperSecret Co., a San Francisco, CA-based, Operator of a meta-game platform, planned to make a chess battle games. Instead, the company offers ten players encounter in a blazingly fast-paced showdown, making their activities synchronous matches against the other nine players individually, enabling users with a multiplayer game.

SuperDuperSecret Co was funded by $1 million investors, including 13 Digital Asset Funds, Merit Circle, Polygon Ventures, Solana Foundation, LD Capital, Overwolf, Big Brain Holdings, and angel investors. The company’s launch title, Royale Chess—a 10-player, battle royale chess game—honors the first of many games across their underlying meta-game platform, concentrating on multiplayer, evergreen games.

According to SuperDuperSecret Co., the new mode will allow players to compete against each other in epic battle royale-style gameplay, but with the added twist of classic games such as chess, checkers, and tic-tac-toe. The company believes this new mode will revolutionize how people think about classic games and make them more engaging for a modern audience.

“We’re thrilled to have raised over $1 million in funding for our latest project,” said the CEO of SuperDuperSecret Co. “We believe that adding a battle royale mode to classic games will breathe new life into them and make them more appealing to younger generations who are used to fast-paced, competitive gameplay.”

The company has yet to announce a release date for the new game. Still, it has stated that it is currently in development and will be available on multiple platforms, including mobile, PC, and consoles.

The success of SuperDuperSecret Co.’s crowdfunding campaign is a testament to the growing demand for innovative gameplay experiences. With this new project, the company hopes to tap into the trend of battle royale-style games and bring a new twist to classic games that have been played for centuries.

By: K. Tagura

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Ditto Funded $45M to Accelerate the Data Sync Technology Offline

Data Sync

Ditto, a San Francisco, CA-based, is a developer of a software development kit and application designed to help data sync with or without connectivity. The company’s software development kit directly communicates with other devices without the need for a server and automatically manages the complexity of using multiple networks means of transport, like Bluetooth and wifi, to discover and connect to different devices and then synchronize any changes, enabling developers to build applications that sync with each other with and even without internet connectivity.

Ditto was funded $45 million led by Acrew Capital, with participation from U.S. Innovative Technology Fund and existing angel investors, True Ventures and Amity Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the development of its revolutionary data sync technology, which allows users to sync their data offline.

Ditto’s data sync technology is a breakthrough that solves the problem of syncing data in areas with poor or no internet connectivity. The technology allows users to sync data offline and automatically update it when an internet connection becomes available. Particularly useful for people who work in remote areas or travel frequently.

The new funding also will be used to develop the technology further and expand Ditto’s operations. The company plans to hire more engineers and data scientists to accelerate its technology development. Ditto also plans to expand its operations globally to reach more users.

It comes at a time when data privacy and security concerns are at an all-time high. Ditto’s technology uses end-to-end encryption to protect user data, which is becoming increasingly important to users. The company’s commitment to privacy and security has helped it gain a loyal user following.

The future looks bright for Ditto as it continues to innovate and develop its technology. With the support of its investors, the company is poised to become a leader in the data sync space and revolutionize how people sync their data offline.

By: K. Tagura

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Think Like an Investor and Consider What Leads to Business Failure

Investor

 

To successfully land funding, you need to think like investor when reviewing the business plan. If you were considering lending money to a business what would be one of your first concerns? Naturally it would be the chances of the business failing. An investor lends money with the intent on getting a return on that investment. So it makes sense that the business plan should be evaluated from the same perspective by the business owner.

Small businesses have a high rate of failure according to the Small Business Administration. There have been many studies done to determine why this is so. These studies have identified common errors that businesses make, so you want to consider these problems before they ever become an issue. Realistically, potential investors will have them in mind before agreeing to lend money so being prepared to respond is important.

Typical reasons for small business failure include over-expanding to prove growth to investors, underestimating expenses or overspending, assuming too much debt based on revenues and cash flow and underestimating the competition. Also included on the list are choosing a poor location and lack of capital. The likelihood of these factors occurring in your business will be considered by investors evaluating a business plan.

If you have already thought through the reasons for failure, investors will recognize that fact. For example, location is high on the list of reasons for small business failures. Presentations to investors, therefore, should address the choice of business location and explain the competition and accessibility by customers. Making sure you address the reasons why your business could fail is an important step towards ensuring it doesn’t.

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