We love keeping you connected to all things business and tech in the Southeast and beyond. This month, we covered some major new developments in M&A, funding, new hires, and more. Check out a few of the features stories below.
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Atlanta Funding News
Sonar Software Raises $12M & Plans to Triple Team
After raising a $12M Series A, Sonar Software, a tech stack management startup, has plans to triple its 25-person team and make its product more collaborative. Sonar gives product developers a blueprint for how software changes could affect other teams. By implementing the software, developers can make sure their changes don’t have unforeseen consequences that need troubleshooting. Despite hardships from growing remotely, the startup’s revenue has grown by nearly 3,000% in the past year. As teams went remote, employees couldn’t brainstorm software changes together or have troubleshooting sessions. Sonar gave developers the ability to see exactly how certain product changes would affect the rest of the company without needing those interactions. Learn more about Sonar, its founders, and its customers here.
Fulcrum Equity Partners Closes Growth Fund IV at $275M
Fulcrum Equity Partners recently announced that it had closed its oversubscribed Growth Fund IV at $275M. Fund IV saw close to a 100% participation rate from institutional investors in prior funds, and several investors even increased their allocations from previous commitments. Fulcrum Equity Partners focuses on investing in healthcare services, HCIT, B2B SaaS, and tech-enabled services and works alongside the startups’ management teams to build the companies into scalable, professionally-run organizations, assisting in attracting talent, executing strategic initiatives, and implementing operational discipline. With the ability to invest $4 to $25 million, Fulcrum can provide significant funding to drive growth initiatives, acquisitions, and shareholder liquidity. In fact, two Fulcrum portfolio companies made the Inc. 500, and eight in total were listed on the Inc. 5000.
Mergers & Acquisitions Are On the Rise in 2021
According to Lucinda Shen’s Term Sheet update, 1st quarter M&A surges to the highest level since at least 1980. Per Marc Cooper, CEO of boutique investment bank PJ Solomon, M&A is expected to show strong numbers in the latter half of 2021 because of strong signals from backlog volume and the length of time it takes to get these deals done. Cooper also states that dealmakers are feeling bullish as the U.S. and global economies emerge from the pandemic. Learn more about the Q1 M&A surges here.
Venture Capital Invests in Climate Tech
According to Matthew Speiser at AngelList Venture, VC investment in climate tech reached record highs in 2020, and Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson said investing in climate technologies over the next decade will be like investing in the cloud in 2010. Here are some reasons why: First, improved infrastructure continues to lower the cost of renewable sources of energy. Second, informed investing is now leveraging existing capabilities that don’t require large infrastructure build-outs. Federal support, like Biden’s plan to invest $2B in climate science over the next four years will open doors and create less red tape. AngelList highlights two areas fertile for investment: carbon sequestration (removing pollutants from the atmosphere) and adaptation (adjusting to the new climate reality). Learn more about the VC climate tech boom here.
Top Atlanta Stories
Verusen Signs Andrew Vaughan as the Startup’s New CTO
Verusen, Atlanta’s fast-growing startup focused on materials management in the supply chain space, just tapped a new CTO. Andrew Vaughan signed on as the startup’s new Chief Technology Officer. Having joined Groupon’s engineering team in Chicago right before the company’s IPO and later serving as Hyatt Hotels’ Global Chief Product Officer, Vaughan brings a wealth of leadership experience across the technology, product, and supply chain spaces to the table. This news comes on the heels of Verusen’s January announcement that it had closed an $8 million Series A funding round. In fact, the Verusen team plans to nearly double the size of its team over the course of 2021 and is currently recruiting data science, product, and customer success roles. Read the full story here.
Shoutout to Hypepotamus for their Q1 2021 Review, ‘Around the Southeast’
We frequently shout out Hypepotamus in our weekly reporting, and this week is no different as we highlight their Q1 2021 review. This ‘Around the Southeast’ update covers unicorn news, all the series A, B, and C rounds you need to know about, as well as new key hires in this region and the biggest stories of the quarter—including the Atlanta lawyer and engineer who is building a bot to help with vaccination scheduling. Read the full report here.
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