The Bearhug Experience

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Kinetic, led by Nikhil Naikal, raised $21 million in Series B funding. Kinetic provides digital maintenance for modern vehicles, including EVs, using AI and robotics through its network of service centers. 2. M2X Energy, led by Josh Browne, raised $40 million in Series B funding. M2X Energy develops systems to convert methane into low-carbon methanol, a...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Hona, led by Manny Griffiths, has raised a $9.5 million Series A funding round. Hona specializes in client engagement software for law firms, automating updates, data collection, and communication processes. 2. Hark, led by Fran Brzyski, has raised a $3.5 million seed funding round. Hark offers a Voice of Customer (VoC) platform that integrates video/au...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Viaduct, led by David Hallac, has raised a $10 million Series B funding round. Viaduct provides AI-driven solutions for connected vehicles to predict, identify, and solve product failures. 2. Anterior, led by Abdel Mahmoud, has raised a $20 million Series A funding round. Anterior's AI platform helps healthcare professionals manage administrative tasks...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Caju AI, led by Otavio Freire, has raised a $3 million Seed funding round. Caju AI provides a platform, renowned for its Generative AI capabilities, that captures and analyzes customer communications across all messaging channels as well as customer engagement data to deliver advanced analytics for conversation intelligence, call summaries, regional act...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. TraceAir, led by Dmitry Korolev and Maria Khokhlova, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round. TraceAir is a provider of construction site analysis and management solutions for land development and homebuilding. 2. Sagetap, led by Sahil Khanna, has raised a $6.8 million Seed funding round. Sagetap provides a B2B SaaS buying network that uses AI t...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Subeca, led by Patrick Keaney, has raised a $6 million Series A funding round. Subeca has built a smart water meter register that retrofits onto a majority of existing water meters in under one minute, essentially making dumb meters smart. 2. Ketos, led by Meena Sankaran, has raised a $10 million Equity Growth funding round. Ketos provides real-time wat...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Pepper, led by Bowie Cheung, has raised a $30 million Series B funding round. Pepper is an eCommerce platform for food services, convenience stores, and other marketplaces, which features a suite of AI powered tools for the distributor sales rep and customers to grow their market share. 2. Ndustrial, led by Jason Massey, has raised a $18.5 million Serie...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. ChangeEngine, led by Andrew Higashi, has raised a $10 million Series A funding round. ChangeEngine syncs with employee data, creates persona segments for targeted communication, aligns visual content with brand identity, and offers a suite of AI creator tools alongside a curated template library for launching workplace initiatives effectively. 2. Daloop...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Backflip, led by Josh Ernst, has raised a $15 million Series A funding round. Backflip is a real estate financial technology company that supports entrepreneurs to acquire and renovate single family homes, thereby reinvigorating the housing supply and their local communities. 2. Mimic, led by Derek Smith, has raised a $27 million Seed funding round. Mim...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Exowatt, led by Hannan Parvizian, has raised a $20 million Seed funding round. Exowatt provides a modular energy platform designed to power energy-intensive data centers. 2. Nominal, led by Cameron McCord, has raised both a $7.5M Seed + a $20M Series A funding round. Nominal provides a comprehensive data analysis platform and modern workflows specifical...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Ecotrak, led by Matt Singer, has raised a $30 million Venture round. Ecotrak is an Enterprise Asset Management software platform that simplifies facilities management through modern web and mobile applications for multi-site owners and operators of restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores, and countless other businesses. 2. Kode Labs, led by Edi...

Here’s this week’s startup funding recap: 1. Archetype AI, led by Ivan Poupyrev, has raised $13m in Seed funding. Archetype AI has emerged from stealth with the launch of Newton™, the first foundation AI model that can understand the physical world. 2. Cyera, led by Yotam Segev, has secured a $300 million Series C funding round at a valuation of $1.4 billion. As a pioneer in Data Security Posture...

Kraig Ward speaks with Rohit Gupta . The Co-Founder & CEO of Auditoria. AI – the leading cognitive automation provider for ERP and Corporate Finance teams, backed by top investors such as Venrock, Neotribe Ventures, Engineering Capital, KPMG and Workday Ventures. Rohit is a serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and software executive with over 25+ years of experience in building, scaling...

Kraig Ward speaks with David Connors , Co-Founder & CEO of The Swarm . David is a 3x startup founder, including an exit to Sequoia Capital who acquired his outbound recruiting automation startup Automately. After the acquisition, David joined the Sequoia team as their Director of Recruiting Operations, where he went on to build custom tools for Sequoia's recruiters, investors, and founders...

Kraig Ward speaks with Maria Khokhlova , the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at TraceAir , a sitework intelligence platform for Land Developers and Homebuilders.  TraceAir is the #1 provider of construction site analysis and management solutions for sitework. TraceAir’s cutting-edge technology helps builders save time and money by improving efficiency, and introduces radical transparency into...

Kraig Ward speaks with Aaron Rubens , the Co-Founder & CEO of Kudoboard , an online workplace appreciation software that’s helping tens of millions of people every day at top companies globally, work harder, and stick around longer, thanks to feeling more appreciated at work. Aaron graduated from Tulane University, after becoming a high school math teacher through Teach for America. After teac...

Kraig Ward speaks with Phil Dur , the Co-Founder & Managing Partner of PeakSpan Capital , a growth equity firm with over $1.5B in AUM (Assets Under Management) based in New York City and San Mateo, CA.  In addition to being a graduate of Princeton University and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Phil has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and has been a software i...

Kraig Ward speaks with Jake Braly , the Chief Revenue Officer of Krisp. Ai – the world’s first AI-powered Call & Meeting Assistant software that enhances voice communication through audio cleansing, noise cancellation, accent localization, call transcription, and summarization. Krisp processes over 75 billion minutes of voice conversations each month helping thousands of businesses deliver bet...

Kraig Ward speaks with Spencer Dusebout , a serial entrepreneur, and the Founder, and CEO of Aidiu m , a software platform that helps mortgage professionals automate their lead conversion, transaction management, and client retention workflows and has become one of the fastest growing software companies in the prop-tech sector.  Prior to starting Aidum, Spencer co founded Hands4Others a youth base...

Kraig Ward speaks with Aashish Dhamdhere , the Co-founder and CEO of Relevvo , an AI-powered B2B Sales & Marketing platform that helps B2B companies identify and target the 5-10% of accounts in a company's addressable market that are engagement-ready at a given point of time. Before founding Relevvo, Aashish served in various product and program management roles at Microsoft on the Visio a...

Kraig Ward speaks with Samantha Burns , a distinguished marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in the construction industry, and the Head of Marketing at TraceAir . TraceAir is a leading Construction Technology platform that specializes in providing rapid and precise 3D data to home builders and land developers, aiming to revolutionize residential construction workflows and processes. S...

Kraig Ward speaks with Steve Dell'Orto , the founder and CEO of ConCntric . As a seasoned Construction Executive with 28 years of industry expertise, frustrated by the disjointed and inefficient preconstruction planning process, Steve embarked on a mission to revolutionize the construction landscape. He envisioned and developed a groundbreaking software platform that seamlessly integrates peop...

Kraig Ward speaks with Nev Hyman . A serial entrepreneur who’s a legendary pioneer in the world of surfboard manufacturing, and went on to build a global surfboard empire under the NEV Futureshapes brand. He set 4 Guinness World Records, and more recently won Pitch@Palace, becoming the worldwide Entrepreneur of the Year, thanks to his recent endeavor where he’s helping to solve the world’s plastic...

Kraig Ward speaks with Nick Ezzo , VP of Strategic Accounts and Market Development at Auditoria.ai . While Nick boasts an illustrious career as a sales and marketing trailblazer, his true passion lies in being a data-driven demand generation marketer who’s committed to enhancing the efficiency of finance and accounting professionals through the power of Artificial Intelligence and Automation. Beyo...

Kraig Ward speaks with Jennifer Gill Roberts , Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Grit Ventures . Jennifer, a technologist, repeat entrepreneur, and dedicated advocate for diversity, is also an early-stage venture capitalist. She specializes in sourcing and investing in groundbreaking sustainable technology innovations from the nation's top labs. These innovations tackle real-world challenges,...