The Big Headlines
* Atlanta-based Sovereign’s Capital, a diversified alternative asset manager dedicated to excellence in faith-driven investing, has closed its largest venture capital fund to date, Venture Capital Fund IV, LP, with over $60 million in committed capital. The fund’s investors include both existing limited partners and new institutional investors, making it the firm’s largest pool of capital dedicated to early-stage technology startups. As of June 2024, Sovereign’s Capital managed more than $780 million in assets across five asset classes: venture capital, private equity, public equities, fund of funds, and real estate. Full press release here.
* Triangle Tweener Fund in North Carolina announced its Q2 investments, which totaled $804k in 15 Triangle Startups. Twelve are new companies, and three are existing portfolio companies. New investments include:
· LoanWell (Tweener) – LoanWell is a FinTech company that provides a platform supported by automated lending and grant technology to help community lenders deploy more capital, more efficiently. LoanWell gives a solution to out dated technology and manual processes for community lending, providing customized service for intake, origination, underwriting, closing, servicing, and reporting. www.loanwell.com
· Plantd (Tweener) – Plantd is leading a shift to carbon-negative materials, using carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into durable and useful products. Plantd offers an innovative approach to tackle climate change, with the vision of building a factory of the future that locks away carbon in the production of new building material made from grass instead of trees. www.plantdmaterials.com
· Murphy’s Naturals (Tweener) – Murphy’s Naturals eliminates obstacles that prevent people from getting outdoors with high quality and uniquely tested insect repellant products. Murphy’s Naturals is dedicated to making along-lasting, positive impact on the world, creating high quality products withethical standards in mind. www.murphysnaturals.com
· CycleLabs (Tweener) – Cycle Labs is a software company that provides end-to-end automated testing solutions for enterprise organizations. Cycle Labs provides services that reduce risk, lost hours, and lost revenue for a wide range of companies across the globe. www.cyclelabs.io
· AgEye (Tweener) – AgEye believes the future of agriculture is data driven, aiming to make advanced technology available to every grower. AgEye uses innovative crop intelligence and automated vertical farming racks that are transforming urban agriculture into a productive reality. www.ageye.com
· Remoov (Tweener) – Remoov provides an efficient and sustainable solution to decluttering your home. Remoov collects unwanted items from customers’ homes, handling them through sales, donations, and recycling efforts in order to clear clutter responsibly and give back to the community. www.remoov.com
· Grogo (Pre-Tweener) – Grogo is a patent-pending app offering a more balanced approach to screentime. The app is a control solution to screen time, using self-esteem building educational interruptions. www.grogo.com
· NDustrial (Tweener) – Ndustrial’s Energy Intensity platform accelerates the optimization of energy intensity in industrial facilities, helping to decrease costs and increase sustainable operations. NDustrial processes over 100 million data points every day to make smarter energy spending decisions in real time. www.ndustrial.io
· Flytes (Tweener) – Located in the Raleigh-Durham Metro area, Flyte is bringing culinary innovation to airports. Flyte offers a simplified and efficient airport dining experience, optimizing revenue generation by reducing the capital investment typically required to establish a dining presence in airports. – www.getflytes.com/
· Ardent (Pre-Tweener) – Ardent AI is building a platform with tools that helps anyone create, share,and remix AI-powered apps. Ardent believes that AI will create a future whereeveryone can build software for themselves, boosting productivity andefficiency for all users. – www.ardent.ai
· Harmony (Pre-Tweener) – Harmony helps healthcare providers hire credentialed healthcare workers withan AI powered system that automatically verifies credentials. – www.harmonyforstaffing.com
· Gemini Sports Analytics (Pre-Tweener) – Gemini gives sports teams a co-pilot for advanced data analytics. The data is used for roster development, recruiting and on-field tactics. – www.geminisports.ai
* Atlanta-based Sparq, a company that provides outsourced digital engineering for Fortune 1000 and technology companies, announced it is acquiring North Carolina-based Kingsmen Software. Atlanta Business Chronicle has the details.
In Other News…
* Atlanta-based work club concept Switchyards announced the location of its first Outside The Perimeter location. Switchyards Roswell, located at 1237 Strickland Road, is a 5,200-square-foot warehouse space and will be the flagship club in the Roswell market. The club is right down the street from historic downtown Roswell, and is within minutes of Sandy Springs, Alpharetta, and East Cobb.
* Roots, the startup bridging the city’s wealth gap by allowing anyone — even its residents — to invest in its affordable workforce housing REIT, announced that it has secured a near record $6.7M in quarterly investment. This brings the total investment since founding in July of 2021 to a $36M.
