It was a big month for funding in the Seattle startup scene, with New York investor Tiger Global Management getting particularly busy in the Emerald City. The firm led three of Seattle’s biggest funding rounds this month, which together totaled $121 million. Meanwhile, the region’s two largest investments in May went across Lake Washington to startups headquartered in Bellevue — including Puget Sound’s newest unicorn.
Who are they, and what are they planning with all that cash? Read on to find out.
How much: $25 million
Date: May 14
Details: After pivoting from its original business model — an online marketplace for algorithms — to help data scientists deploy machine learning models at massive scale, Algorithmia raised $25 million, bringing its funding total past $35 million. Algorithmia’s technology automates a large chunk of the tasks facing any data scientist looking to build their own machine learning models, most of which are centered on the model’s underlying infrastructure. Norwest Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Madrona Venture Group, Gradient Ventures, Work-Bench, Osage University Partners and Rakuten Ventures.
Quotable quote: “As the practice of machine learning matures at a near-exponential rate, we need to be able to handle whatever gets thrown at us,” Director of Growth Mike Anderson said in an interview with Built In Seattle. “So we’re building an efficient and adaptable system that works with the machine learning workflows as they develop.”
How much: $28 million
Date: May 15
Details: In 2014, former Microsoft executive Mohit Bhende and onetime chief of staff for Melinda Gates Jeffrey Spector embarked on a startup centered around helping businesses evaluate the skills of engineering candidates. By connecting candidates with trained “interview engineers,” specialized testing software and a set of data-driven best practices, Karat puts time back on staff engineers’ plates and helps to eliminate unconscious biases in hiring. Tiger Global Management led the $28 million investment, along with Norwest Venture Partners and 8VC.
Quotable quote: “As every company becomes software-driven, we are seeing the demand for interview engineering grow exponentially,” Bhende said in a statement. “In 2019 alone, Karat’s clients will gain over one million engineering hours by accelerating hiring and unlocking developer productivity.”
How much: $43 million
Date: May 7
Details: Using Flexe’s online portal, users can browse, book and rate warehousing facilities. The company is geared toward businesses with goods to store — not rave organizers (jot that one in your “ideas” notebook, startup entrepreneurs) — and bills itself as an extension of its customers’ logistics teams, connecting them with warehouse space when and where they need it. Headquartered in Pioneer Square, Flexe now employs more than 80 people.
Quotable quote: “With this Series B investment, we will further accelerate the development of our technology platform, expand and deepen our relationships with warehouse providers, and continue to grow our amazing teams,” Co-Founder and Chief Data Officer Edmond Yue told Built In Seattle. “It’s a rewarding challenge to solve. We get to experience the multitude of different use cases for the on-demand model and help our clients grow and achieve their goals.”
How much: $50 million
Date: May 1
Details: Bellevue-based Zenoti kicked off the month with the announcement of $50 million in funding led by Tiger Global Management. The company’s business management software is tailored specifically toward the needs of larger chains of spas and salons, which are surprisingly specialized. Certain staff members can only be scheduled on certain tasks, which need to be performed in a certain order, and so on. The company is also working on automated marketing technology that reads a business’s staffing schedule and advertises services to complement its available resources.
Quotable quote: “There are a lot of areas where we can do some decision making for these businesses if we have more intelligence on our platform,” Co-Founder and CEO Sudheer Koneru told Built In Seattle. “A lot of the work we do around predictive analytics and AI-based capabilities is out of Bellevue.”
How much: $103 million
Date: May 20
Details: Bellevue gained a unicorn this month, as cybersecurity startup Auth0 announced a $103 million Series E funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. The company helps 7,000 organizations — including Atlassian and PBS — authenticate and protect identities on their online platforms, automating setup processes around logins, API security, user management and more. The funding came in a year after Sapphire Ventures led Auth0’s previous round of $55 million. The startup has now amassed more than $210 million in funding.
Quotable quote: “In the past 18 months, Auth0 has continued its international growth — including expansion of its five offices in Bellevue, Buenos Aires, London, Sydney and Tokyo,” CEO Eugenio Pace told Built In Seattle. “This latest funding round will support the further growth of those offices and regions, including our product marketing teams and developer-led go-to-market strategy.”
