📅 [10/12/20–10/18/20] Weekly Digest #3

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The Good AI Podcast

4 min readOct 19, 2020

Happy Monday! Welcome to the latest weekly digest in Doing Well by Doing Good, where we’ll catch you up with the latest news, funding rounds, and job opportunities.

DWDG News

We made a trailer for the Podcast! Check it out on Spotify (or your favorite podcasting service).
NACD, the National Association for Corporate Directors, invited Anand Giridharadas, writer of Winner Takes All, to speak about corporate responsibility at their annual conference…and things got a bit heated. Business Insider Story

DWDG Fundings

Much of my research on the details of VC fundings for DWDG companies comes from combing through the great and thorough reporting from StrictlyVC. If interested in more detailed VC reports, definitely subscribe.

Newlight Technologies, a 17-year-old, Huntington Beach, Ca.-based developer of ocean-degradable biopolymers, has raised $45 million in Series F funding led by Valedor Partners, with participation from earlier investor GrayArch Partners.

Doing Good: Newlight is helping the creatures and people who can’t help themselves, by creating products that can naturally disintegrate and prevent pollution and degradation of ocean environments.

Whisper, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of a hearing aid system, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Quiet Capital, with participation from previous investors Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital. The startup has now raised a total of $53 million. [ TechCrunch Article]

Doing Good: Whisper’s hearing aids focus on enabling a better more affordable experience for their end users (typically senior citizens).

Elenas, a 2.5-year-old, Bogota, Colombia-based social commerce platform that’s helping tens of thousands of women sell their products on WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media sites, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Alpha4 Ventures, Amador Holdings, Polymath Ventures, and Meesho. [ Crunchbase News Report]

Doing Good: Elenas helps women earn more consistently in LatAm markets where there is typically a barrier for women business owners to maximize profits due to a manual direct-to-consumer model for business.

Playbook, a nearly five-year-old, New York-based fitness platform that helps personal trainers stream their content (and charge a monthly fee for it), has raised $9.3 million in Series A funding from , Michael Ovitz, Abstract, Algae Ventures, Porsche Ventures and FJ Labs. The company had closed a $3 million seed round back in June. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Personal trainers and fitness creators are often bound by larger organizations to maximize the value of their work. Playbook focuses on empowering this group via better creator-focused tools to make them more financially independent.

Twentyeight Health, a two-year-old, New York-based health tech company offering access to women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare, has raised $5.1 million in seed funding. Third Prime led the round, with added participation from Town Hall Ventures, SteelSky Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, GingerBread Capital, Rucker Park Capital, and Predictive VC. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Twentyeight Health’s mission is to provide women who are Medicaid or underinsured should not be deprived of the same kinds of care that patients who have more income security or better healthcare coverage enjoy, leveling the playing field for the most vulnerable patients.

Zora, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based marketplace that’s aiming to allow creators or artists to launch products and then continue to participate in their second market value, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, with added participation from numerous individual investors. [ TechCrunch Article]

Doing Good: Zora uses blockchain to enable creators and artists, often the ones getting the short end of the stick when it comes to reaping the rewards of their merchandise and works, to continue to make money from secondary markets.

Eargo, a 10-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of hearing aids, meanwhile saw its shares “rocket” as much as 143% in their market debut today. The stock opened at $36, double its $18 IPO price, then hit a high of $43.80. Shares closed at $33.68, up 87.1%. The strong performance came after Eargo increased the size of its deal, raising $141.3 million late yesterday. Eargo sold 7.85 million shares at $18 each, up from the 6.7 million it had planned to sell at $14 to $16. [ Barron’s Article]

Doing Good: Eargo’s hearing aids focus on enabling a better more affordable experience for their end users (typically senior citizens).

Profitboss, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based direct online ordering system for independent restaurants with automatic marketing built-in, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Redpoint, with additional participation from Kimbal Musk, Dylan Field, The Chainsmokers and Naval Ravikant, among others. [ Business Insider Report]

Doing Good: Profitboss started to help struggling small businesses to maximize their reach and profit. These struggling brick & mortar businesses often are at a disadvantage compared to tech-forward companies, and their product helps bridge that gap.

Cove.tool, a 3.5-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based startup selling building performance analysis (so buildings can comply with changing energy codes without it costing an arm and a leg), has raised $5.7 million in Series A funding. Mucker Capital led the round, joined by , Knoll Ventures and Atlanta’s own TechSquare Labs. [ TechCrunch Report]