📅 [12/7/20–12/13/20] DWDG Weekly Digest #11

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The Good AI Podcast

5 min readDec 14, 2020

👋🏽 Welcome to Doing Well by Doing Good, a newsletter and podcast series highlighting the companies aiming to be profitable with a purpose.Get the latest updates

Happy Monday folks! Here’s to a fun pre-Christmas week, full of (zoom) holiday parties, and tasty (homemade) desserts. Here’s some encouragement from Elf himself

Enjoy the latest in DWDG News, Funding, and Jobs from last week and stay tuned this week for an update on the latest Silicon Valley IPOs from last week DoorDash and Airbnb where we ask: How much good have each of these companies done through their services?

DWDG News

Business Connect, a company based in Grand Rapids Michigan, recently got WHO certification for use of a VF100 water purification filter in 67 countries across Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, to help bring clean water to these regions. [Learn More Here]
Social Enterprise UK, the British Council, and the UN ESCAP compiled this report in December on how social enterprises have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

DWDG Funding

Finn.auto, a less-than-year-old, Munich, Germany-based startup that invites customers to subscribe to their car instead of own it, has raised $24.2 million in Series A funding round. White Star Capital and Zalando co-CEOs Rubin Ritter, David Schneider and Robert Gentz provided the capital along with previous investors. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Finn Auto, by providing a subscription service for car ownership is enabling car users to reduce their individual greenhouse emissions. As they expand, in aggregate their solution helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, incentivizing lower, more efficient car usage.

Gotham Greens, an 11-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based operator of tech-enabled leafy-greens-producing greenhouses, has raised $87 million in Series D funding equity and debt funding led by Manna Tree, with participation from The Silverman Group and other earlier investors.

Doing Good: Gotham Green’s urban farming products addresses increased demand for foods without propagating the use of pesticides resulting in a more sustainable climate safe future.

Albo, a four-year-old, Mexico City, Mexico-based challenger bank, has raised $45 million in funding from Valar Ventures and earlier backers Greyhound Capital, Mountain Nazca and Flourish Ventures. The company has last year raised $7.4 million in Series A funding. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Albo’s services is focused on bringing low-to-middle income Mexicans into the banking market, by expanding deposit locations to places this population frequents (e.g. grocery stores).

GoHenry, an eight-year-old, U.K.-based company that provides a pre-paid debit card and corresponding app to minors as young as 6 and no older than 18 years old, has raised $40 million in funding. Edison Partners led the round, joined by Gaia Capital Partners, Citi Ventures and Muse Capital. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: GoHenry’s goal is to enable a new generation of credit and financial conscious children who grow up to become responsible adults. The low price point enables access, but it’s not clear how many low-middle income households use this yet

Modal, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based digital platform for auto brands and dealers looking to provide a more transparent digital commerce experience their customers, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by American Honda. The company has now raised a little more than $20 million altogether. [ Crunchbase News Report]

Doing Good: Modal is aiding auto dealers and brands previously cut out of the e-commerce experience to take control and create their own digital presences.

Sunday, a 1.5-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based subscription-based startup that sells environmentally friendly lawn-care products, has raised $19 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from earlier backers Tusk Ventures and Forerunner Ventures. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Sunday’s sustainable lawn products is positively contributing to reducing greenhouse emissions by replacing unsustainable lawn products with sustainable ones while encouraging positive and less wasteful methods of maintaining greenery.

HealNow, a two-year-old, New York-based ordering and payments platform for pharmacies, has closed a $1.3 million round of funding from SoftBank Opportunity Fund and Alabama Futures Fund. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: HealNow is a white label solution for small mom-and-pop pharmacies and retail pharmacies to create a digital storefront and delivery system to compete against larger players like Amazon Pharmacy.

Pair Team, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based operations platform for primary care providers and patients, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding, including from Kleiner Perkins, Craft Ventures, and YCombinator. [ HIT Consultant Report]

Doing Good: Pair Team is building a more automated primary care workflow that works for Medicaid, Medicare, and all other patients.

Cityblock Health, a 3.5-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company that provides healthcare services to low-income communities, has raised $160 million in new funding at a post-money valuation of more than $1 billion, it says. The round was led General Catalyst, with participation Wellington Management and earlier investors Kinnevik AB, Maverick Ventures, Thrive Capital, Redpoint Ventures and others. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Cityblock Health is focused on building helping in low-income communities by aiding those with Medicaid plans and dually-eligible patients. Eventually their goal is to bring down healthcare costs to increase accessibility.

Swell Energy, a six-year-old, L.A.-based installer and manager of residential renewable energy, energy efficiency and storage technologies, is raising $450 million to finance the construction of four virtual power plants. Ares Management and Aligned Climate Capital are among the investors in the deal. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Swell Energy’s primary product and business goal to expand renewable energy to more households replaces the use of greenhouse gases and reduces the impact of climate change.

Fairmarkit, a 3.5-year-old, Boston-based sourcing platform that aims to help organization more efficiently purchase the goods and services they need, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. GGV Capital and Insight Partners led the round, joined by earlier backers 1984 VC, NewStack and NewFund. The company has now raised $42 million altogether, it says. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Fairmarkit’s procurement system not only helps large customer cut spend on vendors, but enables small vendors to have a fighting chance to win procurement deals increasing vendor diversity and promoting a fair more meritocratic system.

Infra.Market, a 4.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based B2B marketplace for small businesses, just raised $20 million in Series B funding from Evolence India Fund, Sistema Asia Fund, Fundamental and earlier backers Accel, Tiger GlobalManagement and Nexus. [ TechCrunch Report]

Doing Good: Infra.Market is enabling small businesses providing raw materials to better connect to large construction and infrastructure projects to expand their business and enable a more equitable system.