New York City startups saw a strong month for raising venture capital to start off 2017, raking in over $500 million in January. This was a $35 million increase from investment dollars raised in December. The top six rounds alone raised over $323 million. Here’s a look back the top five six this month.
Payfone, $23.5 million, January 5
Investors: Rogers Venture Partners, Verizon Ventures, American Express Ventures, Early Warning Services, Relay Ventures, Opus Capital, RRE Ventures, Transaction Network Services (TNS), Strauss Zelnick, Andrew Prozes and BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners.
Bio: Payfone is a pioneering company in mobile identity authentication for digital channels.
News: Payfone’s latest funding will reinforce the company’s leadership in the high-growth authentication market and allow the company to use digital channels to help enterprise businesses grow.
Button, $20 million, January 25
Investors: Northwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, DCM Ventures and Greycroft Partners.
Bio: Button’s technology connects apps so that mobile users can complete multiple actions without bouncing between apps.
News:The company plans on using the funding to continue to invest in people, products and partners, as well as expand its global footprint.
OrderGroove, $20 million, January 17
Investors: National Securities.
Bio: OrderGroove runs a SaaS subscription enablement platform used by some of the biggest companies in the world.
News: The company plans on using the capital to expand its business, which includes utilizing bots.
WorkFusion, $35 million, January 26
Investors: Georgian Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, iNovia, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), Greycroft and RTP Ventures.
Bio: Founded in 2010 out of work at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, WorkFusion’s platform combines robotic process automation with workforce orchestration and machine learning.
News: The company’s long-term vision is to help businesses drive rapid productivity through improvements with AI, which it will first do by offering AI-powered chatbots to assist with front-office operations.
Namely, $50 million, January 5
Investors: Altimeter Capital, Sequoia, Matrix Partners, True Venture, Greenspring and Four Rivers.
Bio: Namely is an all-in-one platform for cloud-based HR software.
News: The new funding brings Namely's total capital raised to $158 million. According to Namely founder and CEO Matt Straz, the company plans on using the new financing to further develop out its HR platform for mid-sized companies.
Letgo, $175 million, January 17
Investors: Naspers, Accel, Insight Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates and 14W.
Bio: Letgo is an online marketplace for used goods.
News: The new funding will be used to accelerate letgo’s U.S. and international growth as well as further develop the company’s artificial intelligence and image recognition technology.
Correction: An original version of this post included Velocidi, which raised a $12 million round this month.
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