Monday Fund-Day: Who Raised What in the Startup South — May 3-9

Raining Money Umbrella Man

It was another $140 million week in raised capital for the South, and this time Georgia is back in the game (there’s probably a football joke there, but having attended Morehouse I’ll leave it to the Georgia Tech grads).

Welcome back to Monday Fund-Day, your start-of-the-week primer on who raised significant capital in the South in the seven days leading to this past Sunday. Read below and discover where those three companies are located and what they do. And get in touch to let us know if your startup is raising money this week, and we’ll add it to the next edition.

 

RWDC Industries: $133 Million

Based in both Athens, Ga., and Singapore, this biotech company intends to use some of the $133M it announced raising on May 5 to bring 200 jobs to a production plant in Georgia. There it will create tons of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), or bioplastic alternatives to single-use plastics, made from used cooking oil, which RWDC says is “fully biodegradable in soil, water, and marine conditions.”

The confident amount of funding says a lot for the state of environmental investment, but also the fact that alternatives to harmful plastics are perhaps more viable than ever before. And Dr. Daniel Carraway, Athens-based CEO of RWDC, wants to be ready when the tipping point arrives. 

“This investment will help us significantly increase our production capacity so that we can meet needs of brand owners who want to improve the lives of their customers by offering materials that have a positive effect on human health, while improving environmental stewardship,” Carraway said in a statement.

Learn more about RWDC Industries at their website

 

MEDcraze: $3 Million

This Atlanta company announced early last week it raised a $3M seed round of financing from a single investment group, private holding company JG Griffeth Investments LLC, which according to records is primarily in the business of commercial healthcare real estate development, but is backing MEDCraze due to the “exciting prospects it brings to patient empowerment.” 

“At MEDcraze, we create a win-win. Patients benefit by easily accessing information on newly released products that address their diagnosis and/or surgical procedure and medical companies benefit by getting great exposure of their product offering,” said Dr. Manny Trujillo, MEDcraze co-founder, in a statement

From the language on its website, MEDcraze’s goal appears to be helping patients who need certain surgical procedures have more informed conversations with healthcare providers about the available technologies. For instance, if you fracture your wrist, you can learn about volar locking plates that help you start moving your wrist again more quickly, avoiding stiffness as it heals. 

Learn more about MEDcraze at their website

 

MemberHub: $3.3 Million

After recently investing $500,000 in Reveal Mobile, VentureSouth made the same commitment to another Raleigh company. This time it was MemberHub, which helps more than 2 million parents of K-12 students, usually via groups such as PTAs and booster clubs, with communication, fundraising tech and e-commerce to support their children’s schools. AIM Group also joined the Series A round, which totalled $3.3M. 

“With the disruptions schools and families are facing, there has never been a more important time for K-12 organizations to use technology to engage and support their communities,” said MemberHub CEO Will Bowen in a statement

 Learn more about MemberHub at their website

 

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