ChargeLab a California and Toronto-based startup that develops electric vehicle charging software designed to accelerate and commercialize electric mobility. The company’s software monetizes and creates new user experiences with an electric vehicle charger infrastructure and battery swap management, enabling clients to with an open management platform that provides flexibility and expandability.
ChargeLab was funded $15 million, led by King River Capital, a venture capital fund targeting post-revenue, high-growth software businesses in large markets, and ABB E-Mobility. With the participation of existing investors, Root Ventures, Highline Beta, Third Sphere, Maple VC, and other strategic angel investors in Construct Capital.
The new funding will help the company go from its seed stage-level solution of connecting chargers and controlling them in the cloud to more advanced milestones. To accelerate growth and expand business operations.
As part of ChargeLab’s commercial agreement with ABB, the two companies will launch a bundled hardware and software solution for fleets, multifamily buildings, and other commercial EV charging use cases, according to Zak Lefevre, founder, and CEO of ChargeLab. While the partnership with ABB will certainly give ChargeLab the resources it needs to build out and scale its enterprise software, Lefevre noted that ABB’s interest in ChargeLab stems from its need for better out-of-the-box software in North America.
ChargeLab’s core product is its cloud-based charging station management system, which provides apps for EV drivers, dashboards for fleet managers, and open APIs for third-party system integration. According to the company, the hardware-agnostic software, which runs on the edge and in the cloud, also includes automated monitoring of chargers, pricing and access rules, payment processing, and electrical load balancing.
The Head of Ventures of ABB EL Ventures, Malin Carlstrom, said the EV market continues to undergo massive growth, and the value proposition of ChargeLab’s hardware-agnostic software has become increasingly apparent to both vendors and users. They believe that Zak and his team poised to create intelligent charging techniques and that ABB can be a strategic and financial supporter, benefiting both parties.
By: K. Tagura
Author statement:
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
It’s not often that business owners get the chance to pitching their startups to potential investors. Unfortunately, rare as the chances were, many owners fail to grab the opportunity that was given to them by committing serious mistakes that drive the investors away.
Here are the five common flaws committed by owners when pitching to potential investor:
Answering the wrong questions
Most of the time, the bulk of the discussion between the entrepreneur and the potential investor are centered on the description of the business and its operations. Unfortunately, most investors are not primarily interested with the “what” and the “how” of the business. Rather, they are more interested in hearing the answer to questions such as, “What will they get once they invest in your business?”
In this rapidly changing world, everything is shifting towards digitization, and businesses are also transforming their operations through technology to provide more reliable, timely, and convenient solutions to their customers. Digital transformation of small businesses will help provide better customer services, product development, and innovation in different aspects of the company.
Small businesses in their early phase can leverage this opportunity by implementing digital transformation as this will not require much effort compared to any established business. Transformation into the digital industry is not just about implementing the IT systems and installing applications; instead, it’s a cultural shift that completely changes things.
A recent example is the catastrophic disaster “COVID-19” that has changed all the ways of doing things and created the urgency to develop businesses that would operate digitally. Companies that will not adopt cutting-edge technology and transformation will risk losing their market share and will be left behind.
Before coming to the actual ways of transformation, let me first highlight the numerous benefits that small businesses can enjoy after digitization.
The transformation will help the organization in better decision-making by making available accurate and reliable data of every segment with the help of analytic tools. These tools also assist in collecting customers’ data that can help marketers make well-informed decisions. These valuable tools are also beneficial for both managerial and strategic level positions.
Large Organizations always put tremendous efforts into fulfilling customers’ expectations. Therefore, adopting or integrating technology into your business process will add immense value to the product that will fulfill customers’ needs and help small businesses to grab the market share before their competitors.
Companies that undergo the process of digitization improve profitability and reduce costs by cutting off their irrelevant expenditures. According to SAP, 80% of the businesses implementing digital transformation report increased profits. These profits can also be used for the future expansion of trade and more advancements in technology to have an edge on competitors.
Valuable tools and devices have reduced the hassle of maintaining employees’ attendance, salaries details, and stock management and increased the coordination between various units. Providing employees with the right tools can streamline workflow and improve productivity. Automating tasks using AI tools will integrate data throughout the business and promote a digital culture that increases collaboration and encourages transparency in the workplace.
Interestingly, most small business owners are making efforts to make digital transformation a vital component of their organizations. They need an excellent strategy to digitize their most critical business operations and start making huge profits.
Whether you are running a small business setup or just getting started and want to transform your business digitally, a well-established strategy and a well-designed plan can help you get the most out of your efforts and investment.
Here are the six steps to successfully implement digital transformation for your small business
Involve every level of the organization in the change process
To make digitization successful, it is vital to have a strong vision and the right culture in the organization that embraces digital initiatives and encourages employees in this transformation process.
It is also essential to consider your staff concerns since many employees feel threatened by the implementation of technology and automation. Many business owners have faced the challenging task of tackling employees resisting digital transformation change.
To get out of this resistance from employees towards change, demonstrate the benefits of the technology and provide necessary training to your team. Empower them to use technology to achieve their life goals.
Empower employees with the Data-Driven Decisions
Data recreates a vital role in the decision-making process. Hence, it must be accurate. Educate your team regarding how to extract data using different analytics tools and make decisions out of it.
Accurate insights regarding customers will help you understand exactly what the customer wants. Then, your product development team can design the relevant products and services to fulfill the customer’s expectations.
Ensure smooth integration of Business Systems
All business systems should communicate smoothly to streamline operations, automate workflows, and increase efficiency.
The actual point comes when you Integrate all business applications (e.g., Finance, Procurement, customer services, and operations). Then, it allows you to enhance collaborations between various departments and make a customer-centric organization.
Cloud computing makes it very smooth for small businesses to connect various applications simultaneously. It allows you to streamline workflow and manage different business functions simultaneously.
Approach and collaborate with IT Consultants
Mainly at the initial stage, businesses don’t have a large budget to hire a large IT team. Instead, you can outsource most IT tasks to maximize your resources. The first target would be to focus on areas that are the backbone of business and gradually increase investing more when your business starts to grow.
Try to work with consultants that provide in-budget solutions compatible with your company’s existing infrastructure. They should also help you identify areas that generate a high Return on Investment.
Customer Care must be the top priority
We always heard that the customer is always right. Take their views about your product and service because there is always room for improvement. Customer feedback is an essential element that encourages you to improve your product and add more features that help you to stand out.
Make a Website for your customers’ convenience, where they can view different products offered by you, make purchases and give feedback that ultimately persuades other customers to make a purchase.
The biggest challenge for business owners is to make sure the data management and security protocols remain in sync. Data protection requires IT solutions and strategic business initiatives due to the strict regulatory requirements and may face harmful consequences in a data breach.
In the end, evaluate and highlight areas where technology can help you make an impact. As a business leader, keep in mind your primary goal and create a culture for continuous learning, collaboration, advancement towards digitization, and innovation in every area that requires transformation. All of the above factors can make your goal of digital transformation achievable.
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
Altro is a San Francisco, CA-based platform that operates an online credit building platform designed to help users convert their subscription payments into credit history. It allows members to link their recurring payments, such as rent and subscription payments, to leverage unseen and uncounted costs to build their credit score, enabling individuals to upscale their credit scores.
Altro was funded $18 million led by Pendulum, with support from Jay-Z’s Marcy Ventures, Black Capital Fund, Citi Ventures, Concrete Rose Fund, and individual angel investors such as Dick Parsons and Deborah Quazzo, among others. The software company intends to utilize the new funding to build its credit and financial literacy program and bring education and economic power to those excluded from traditional finance systems.
Before the Altro build, the founder Michael Broughton had trouble securing the necessary financing to pay his tuition in college. That experience stuck with him. Then, he met Ayush Jain at the University of Southern California, and the couple connected over their view that credit access should be free. They came up with the concept of helping people make credit via recurring payment setups such as virtual subscriptions to Netflix, Spotify, and Hulu.
In December 2019, they started Altro and hunkering down in a Hacker House with a few others to make out a platform that locates a person’s recurring transactions and links them to a trade line that reports to all three credit bureaus. For the unacquainted, a tradeline is a line of data that goes directly into a bureau’s system that affects a person’s FICO score, used for underwriting.
Broughton said they’re not creating their score, but instead, it is a direct correlation to your actual score enhanced over time, which a user can see in our app. The users would be spending a charge, but a percentage goes to them rather than the companies. They don’t want to charge users for access to something they already have.
Altro concentrates on educating users via a catalog of over 350 educational audio clips covering topics like cryptocurrency, investing, and trading. Watching the snippets, the company says, allows users to become more financially savvy and positively impacts users’ scores the more they engage.
Also, the company plans to allow people soon to build credit by completing rent payments on time. An offering that was open on its platform before and is being carried back in the coming months. Platforms like Altro can promote change that will improve people’s lives and help this country achieve more significant economic possibilities.
By: K. Tagura
Author statement:
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
New York-based Tomorrow Farms is a provider of food and beverage brands intended to solve the food system’s problems. The company’s services offer animal-free dairy chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry milk without any artificial ingredients, enabling entrepreneurs to produce and prepare foods for consumption and resolve the climate and ecological crisis.
Tomorrow Farms was funded $8.5 million led by Lowercarbon Capital and additional vital investors, including Valor Siren Ventures, Maveron, Simple Food Ventures, and strategic angel investors in SV Angel.
The company partners with creative, deep tech food companies to produce consumer-friendly, retail-ready, animal-free brands and products. This round marks the beginning of a generation for Tomorrow Farms as it prepares to launch its first products, grow its internal team, build meaningful retail relationships, and court new food technology partners to solve some of our food system’s biggest problems.
Berman began Tomorrow Farms almost a year ago after a job in the food space. He owned a food truck called Mainely Burgers, which expanded into three trucks and 16 employees. From there, he established Good Pizza from his apartment, and during the pandemic was dropping pizzas out of his windows to people as he raised funds for local charities. That business is currently part of Philabundance, a hunger relief organization in Philadelphia.
With a lot of investment funds going into the future of food companies, Tomorrow Farms. Which was incubated at the SALT Fund in early 2021 and has a mission of being the front-end partner for many of these deep tech food science companies building new products and brands.
Tomorrow Farms were gearing up for its first product takeoff and worked with an ingredients company to create a product around that company’s formulation. They are working to bring the future of food to consumers today, partnering with the most innovative food science companies to design products that make a difference for people, animals, and the planet.
By: K. Tagura
Author statement:
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
Cartwheel is a Los Angeles, CA-based developer of an on-demand delivery management software designed to serve courier companies, restaurants, RDS, and medical deliveries. The company’s software offers logistics data analytics, warehouse management, and asset tracking services, enabling businesses to plan and manage their dispatch schedule, delivery routes, and capacity cost-effectively.
Cartwheel was funded $3 million led by Moonshots Capital, with participation from Chingona Ventures and existing investors, including TenOneTen Ventures, Act One, Pitbull Capital, and other strategic angel investors.
The company plans to utilize the latest funds for further product development, partner integrations, and company expansion.
Cartwheel has tripled its comprehensive customer base and developed to serve brands alcohol industry in the past year. As a result, the company’s tools are now available to more than 8,000 establishments nationwide. In addition, Cartwheel is now one of the leading self-delivery providers for Olo, a top on-demand marketing platform powering the digital transformation of more than 500 restaurant brands.
Craig Cummings, General Partner of Moonshots Capital, said, That Moonshots Capital invests in extraordinary leadership. The group at Cartwheel has the leadership, knowledge, and strategic vision to change on-demand delivery. Cartwheel’s technology leverages a customizable solution that improves any delivery program to meet consumer demands.
Cartwheel’s Hybrid Delivery standard allows businesses to keep an in-house program alongside their third-party partners, helping them to self-select some orders for self-delivery and redirect the rest to third-party services. In addition, during extreme periods when an in-house fleet is occupied, Cartwheel automatically taps into outsourced driver fleets and permits businesses to set automatic rules for order routing.
The company matches driver supply with individual business needs, providing operators with additional capacity when needed. In addition, its interface offers branded tracking links, making outsourced delivery feel like an in-house order to the client.
By: K. Tagura
Author statement:
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
Agility Robotics, a Corvallis, OR-based. Creator of bipedal walking robot planned to offer efficient, elegant, and complete legged platforms for real-world applications. The company’s robots offer human-like abilities that permit them to work with and alongside people to complete simple tasks with minimal or no extra programming without modifying offices, factories, or homes. In addition, it provides clients with a new mobility option to automate applications that navigate various terrains.
Agility Robotics was funded $150 million was led by DCVC and Playground Global with participation from The Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, MFV Partners, ITIC, Robotics Hub, Safar Partners, Sony Innovation Fund, TDK Ventures, and other strategic angel investors.
Agility’s system is unique, matching design, software, and hardware expertise to control robots that can manage virtually limitless tasks as part of a combined workforce. Despite the conventional wisdom that many endeavor problems have been addressed by automation, most robotics technologies today are purpose-built for single tasks, making them inflexible, expensive, and quickly obsolete. As described by Agility Robotics CTO Dr. Jonathan Hurst in a recent blog post, Agility’s robots are – by contrast – built to be versatile, cost-effective, and durable helpers to people.
This capital raise will accelerate the delivery of the next generation of Agility’s robots, extending its path document of performance that began with its first customer shipments in 2018. Agility’s most developed robot will be deployed at customers’ sites later this year. As has been its practice since the company’s founding, these deployments allow Agility to iterate with real-time customer feedback and gain insights into operating environments, discover new uses for its robots, and refine their capabilities.
Digit has a max speed of 1.5 m/s and can run for 3 hours doing light work. Doing heavy work, the robot will last 1.5 hours. The robot can currently move totes and packages and unload trailers, but the company hopes to expand its capabilities to last-mile deliveries soon.
CEO Damion Shelton said unprecedented consumer and corporate demand had created a great need for robots to support people in the workplace. With this investment, Agility can ramp up the delivery of robots to fill roles where there’s an unmet need.
By: K. Tagura
Author statement:
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
Chances are this is not your first business plans if you are considering starting a new business. Studies have shown that today’s successful entrepreneurs have tried 3 or 4 times before to start a business sales. Sharing that information is not meant to be discouraging though. It’s meant to be motivating because true entrepreneurs don’t give up easily.
In fact, you may like to know that Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft in 1981 after 3 prior failed business attempts. The 3 failed attempts were The Lakeside Programmers Group in 168, Traf-O-Data in 1970 and Micro-Soft partnership in 1975. In reality, the 3 failed companies were not failures at all in one very important sense. These 3 companies taught Gates and Allen a lot about business planning and development. They used that information to start Microsoft, Inc. and the rest is history as they say.
One of the strategies for managing a new business venture is the business plan. Because it forces the entrepreneur to identify sales specifics so that investors are comfortable providing equity, loans or other capital. The entrepreneur should also consider a graceful exit should the business not succeed as planned. Though you would not present a business destined to fail to investors, the people you are asking for money also want to know how their investment will be protected as much as possible.
When developing sales projections for the business plans, it’s important to go through each step with due diligence. It begins with a product or service description, followed by a market study. A sales estimate is calculated which drives needed production capacity. The needed production capacity then drives facilities planning and workforce estimates. Finally, the financial analysis is calculated.
One of the issues to be addressed in the business plan is the timing of sales growth. This is where entrepreneurs often get too optimistic. The end result is disappointed investors and a failed first, second or third venture. Sales projections need to be as realistic as possible because inflated numbers don’t do anyone any good. The business plan needs to tell an honest story and that will greatly increase your chances of getting the new business right the first time.
Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com
DoControl, a Software-as-a-Service security company, after dealing with various angel investors and other equity companies, recently announced that it had closed a $30 million Series B funding through the New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners, together with StageOne Ventures, Cardumen Capital, RTP Global, and CrowdStrike’s early-stage investment fund, the CrowdStrike Falcon Fund.
The issue that DoControl is tackling has grown with the way that enterprises work today. As more companies change their IT activities into cloud environments, collaboration doesn’t just happen between people in the same company; increasingly, people share documents and data across different companies, too.
Adam Gavish saw this problem first-hand when he worked on privacy and security at Google Cloud prior to funding DoControl. It was there that he first started seeing the problem however struggled to get people to want to build something to address it.
Things are speedily changing, however, with security breaches such as the one at Okta focusing on how an app authentication may not always be enough to protect data.
DoControl’s solution is built on the idea of attaching a zero-trust security principle to data access, similar to the zero-trust approach that many vendors have built around network or app access, where users are required to log in to use apps.
The investment from Insight Partners will enable DoControl to double its headcount and advance its market penetration in the United States and overseas. DoControl will also create a national channel partner program to enable MSPs, resellers, and other key partners to provide Zero Trust SaaS data access control capabilities to a broader user base. Most importantly, DoControl will leverage its funding to develop innovations that meet the needs of modern businesses reliant on SaaS tooling while extending its use cases to new vertical markets.
By: K. Tagura
Author statement:
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
Landed, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an end-to-end recruiting workers platform to help restaurants and hospitality employers hire candidates. The company’s conversational AI technology connects candidates to employers based on each employer’s custom criteria, screening candidates based on data points, enabling employers to hire better candidates faster.
Landed was funded $7 million in the round led by Javelin Venture Partners and Blockchain Capital with support from Lightspeed Venture Partners, the angel investor, and founders of Warby Parker, Harry’s, the creators of celebrity chef José Andrés’ ThinkFood Group, and Allbirds’ Good Friends fund.
The funding will help fuel the aggressive development of Landed’s user base and new product offerings to provide end-to-end support for hiring at big diner and hospitality chains. Landed will even be adding new services for blue-collar employees on its platform to enable financial wellness, including fair and acceptable financial products such as earned wage access and crypto-enabled bank accounts.
The company was established in March 2020 by Vivian Wang, who watched her parents start as a dishwasher and waitresses at local Chinese restaurants and two decades later become software engineers.
Vivian Wang said she learned that blue-collar workers want to have a career and move up the ladder. Then she watched the gig economy, characterized by companies like Uber, Instacart, and Lyft, take off primarily by commoditizing labor. She felt like their methods were a bit short-sighted. Blue-collar workers want to earn skills.
The concept for Landed came when Wang was working for Gap Inc., advising the administrative team on corporate strategy connected to workforce management, where she saw firsthand the challenge that works turnover had for the brand and its operations. Their solution was to leverage mobile technology to reduce turnover rates in the stores while also providing long-term livelihood opportunities for workers.
In expansion, the company is developing financial products for its more than 150,000 employee users that, in the future, will have upskilling via certification and education programs.
Wang commented that the company was looking for partners, like Javelin, skilled at marketplaces, and Blockchain Capital, as Landed has plans to leverage some cryptocurrency technologies.
By: K. Tagura
Author statement:
Funded.com is the leading platform for accredited investors network worldwide. We monitor and provide updates on important funding events. Angel Investors and Venture Funding can be a key growth for a startup or existing business. Whether it is a first, second or third round financing having a strategic alliance with an Angel Investor or Venture Capital financing can propel a business to the next level and give the competitive edge.
