📅 [10/5/20–10/11/20] DWDG Digest #2

Published in

The Good AI Podcast

3 min readOct 19, 2020

Welcome everyone to the second weekly digest for DWDG (couple of days late)! Hope you enjoyed your (potential) 3 day weekend 😀.

Check out below for the latest in DWDG companies, fundings and jobs!

DWDG News

Check out our latest DWDG podcast and transcript with CEO and founder of Copia, Komal Ahmad, where we talk about solving world hunger one meal at a time and learn how Copia is Doing Well while Doing Good.
Broadridge, a financial brokerage based in North America, released their 2020 Sustainability Report, a common practice among public companies to showcase their positive impact in the world.

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.

Uni, a months-old, India-based company that wants to expand the credit card market in the country and whose founder, Nitin Gupta, is a financial services veteran (he co-founded PayU India, then ran the financial services business of the ride-hailing firm Ola), has raised $18.5 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed and Accel. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Their product expands access to credit to new vulnerable populations previously unable to access financial products critical to survival.

Abridge, a two-year-old. Pittsburgh, Pa.-based startup that helps patients better understand their medical plans of action, raised $15 million in seed and Series A funding co-led by Union Square Ventures and UPMC. Other backers include Bessemer Venture Partners, Pillar, and KdT Ventures. [ Crunchbase Report]

Doing Good: The patients most vulnerable to adverse financial or health outcomes are those that do NOT understand their medical plans of actions. Abridge improves those outcomes through more transparent information sharing.

Zira, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose software aims to help businesses more effectively schedule their hourly workforce, has raised $3.1 million in seed funding co-led by General Catalyst and Abstract Ventures. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Zira helps managers of typically blue collar hourly workers be more efficient, while also improving the experience of employees to have a better working experience via benefits, rewards, and more meritocratic promotions and thus more predictable incomes

Lark Health, a nine-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based chronic disease management platform, raised $55 million in Series C funding, and an additional $15 million in debt funding. King River Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Franklin Templeton, SteelSky Ventures, and Olive Tree Capital. [ MobiHealthNews Report, Business Insider Interview]

Doing Good: Lark Health’s platform improves health outcomes for patients made vulnerable due to chronic health conditions.

Avail Medsystems, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based medical technology company that develops software intended to digitize physical presence in operating rooms, has raised $100 million in Series B funding. D1 Capital Partners led the round, joined by 8VC. the company has now raised $125 million altogether. [ Crunchbase News]

Doing Good: Avail Medsystems video conferencing solution makes operating room help more accessible breaking down economic barriers to enable hospitals serving the most vulnerable to seek help from remote experts.

Redaptive, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based energy efficiency-as-a-service startup focused on helping their customers reduce their carbon footprint, has raised $157 million in funding led by CarVal Investors, with participation from earlier backers CBRE, Engie New Ventures, Evergy Ventures, and Linse Capital. [ Bloomberg News]

Doing Good: Each unit of software delivered incentivizes businesses to reduce overall carbon footprint thus battling climate change, a phenomenon shown to disproportionately affect those most vulnerable [e.g. Resilience Divide].