Southern Startup Report: Medtech & Fintech Bring Home the Bacon
By Mallory Whitfield
Startup Southerner is proud to present the Startup Southern Report in partnership with LookFar, a New Orleans software development studio committed to supporting and accelerating technological innovation in the greater Southeast. The Southern Startup Report is a twice-monthly, curated newsletter covering the latest startup happenings in the American Southeast. Subscribe hereif you like what you’re reading.
Southern Startup News for September 9 — September 22:
New Orleans, LA — The huge news in the local startup scene is the $8 million fundraising round recently completed by Iconic Protein. The grass-fed protein drink brand also snagged KeVita co-founder and former CEO Bill Moses as their new executive chairman. This would be exciting news on its own, but it’s the second major funding round for Iconic in less than a year. With big money, comes a big move: Iconic is also relocating their headquarters to the health food mecca of Southern California.
The deadline for applications for PitchNOLA 2017: Education is right around the corner on October 4. Meanwhile, speaker applications for New Orleans Entrepreneur Week just opened up. Nominate someone to speak at NOEW 2018 or apply to speak by October 13 (coincidentally the same day as our very own Ada Lovelace Awards!). NOEW 2018 is slated for March 20–24.
Shreveport, LA — Nashville-based medtech startup Path Ex took home $70,000+ in cash and professional services as the winners of the Louisiana Startup Prize. Founders Sinead Miller and Alex Wieseler developed a medical device which selectively removes bacteria and toxins from circulating blood to treat and prevent sepsis, a life-threatening condition. Other finalists included PEP! (Pet Education Project), Cotton St. Farms, and Spherofill, all from Shreveport, as well as Bhoomi, a sugarcane water producer based in New Orleans.
Atlanta, GA — With news of the Equifax data breach continuing to devolve (to add salt to the wound, they repeatedly tweeted the link to a fake site), cyber security is on the minds of many Americans these days. Evident, a cyber hack mitigation startup, recently closed on a $8.8 million Series A round and launched their product in the U.S. Their cloud-based API allows sharing economy businesses to get the verified personal data they need to operate while Evident handles security of that data.
Fintech startup LendingPoint recently snagged one of the biggest loans of 2017 — a $500 million credit facility — to fund more loans to underserved customers who might be turned down by a traditional lender. Through a combination of machine learning and more than 10,000 data points, LendingPoint can make lending decisions based on a consumer’s full credit “story” rather than a traditional credit score.
Tampa, FL — We’ve been thinking a lot about all of our friends and partners in Florida and Texas, so we’re happy to hear post-hurricane startup news like that out of Tampa. Real estate developer Jeff Vinik has pledged to commit up to $20 million of his own money to a $100 million fund he hopes to raise to lure tech companies to Florida. He’s also bringing in Dreamit Ventures as the in-house accelerator program for a cohort of companies which includes Gi Fly, Cityzenith, Ecomedes, Flower Turbines, Knowify, Lotik, Raxar, and Twist Home. They’ll be based in some of Vinik’s real estate developments, including a patch of waterfront property jointly acquired with Bill Gates’ Cascadia fund.
Meanwhile, M2Gen, a spinoff of the Moffitt Cancer Center that’s building a massive database of individual patient cancer information, recently announced a $75 million investment from Hearst. The newspaper titan has become a power player in the health care field in recent years and this moves cements their position.
Louisville, KY — George Zimmer, formerly of Men’s Wearhouse, is betting big on the online suit and tuxedo rental business with his company Generation Tux’s recent acquisition of Menguin for $25 million. We met with the Menguin team last year at Collision Conference, and we couldn’t be prouder. Lookin’ good!
Recent Rounds:
Atlanta, GA — Cognosos — $7.1M Series A
Atlanta, GA — Evident — $8.8M Series A
Atlanta, GA — LendingPoint — $500 million credit facility
Atlanta, GA — Rubicon Global — $50M
Houston, TX — HighRadius — $50M
Louisville, KY — Menguin — $25M
New Orleans, LA — AxoSim — $1.77M grant
New Orleans, LA — ICONIC Protein — $8M
Tampa, FL — M2Gen — $75M
Upcoming Events:
September 22–24 — Long Beach, MS — Startup Weekend Gulf Coast
October 2–6 — Atlanta, GA —SuperNova South
October 4–6 — Orlando, FL — Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
October 11–12 — Atlanta, GA — Venture Atlanta
October 13 — New Orleans, LA — 3rd Annual Ada Lovelace Awards
October 16 — Chattanooga, TN — Will This Float? Pitch Competition
October 17 — Jackson, MS — MS New Venture Challenge Pitch Competition
November 8 — New Orleans, LA — PitchNOLA 2017: Education
LookFar Updates:
Ada Lovelace Awards — The 3rd annual Ada Lovelace Awards ceremony will take place in New Orleans on Friday, October 13th from 7:30–10:00 p.m. at Le Petit Theatre (616 St Peter St) in the French Quarter. We hope you’ll be able to attend! Admission is free, but space is limited, so attendees are required to RSVP in advance.
Announcing Daytime Workshops — In addition to the evening awards ceremony, we’re adding daytime events to the mix this year. Join us at Propeller (4035 Washington Ave) on Friday, October 13th to kick off an exciting day honoring women in tech! First, an electronics workshop for adults with Electric Girls at 10am and then, the Win-Win Negotiation Strategies Workshopwith Lelia Gowland at 1pm.
