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Venture Firm Portal Innovations Seeks $100 Million Biomedical Fund
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By Brian Gormley, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Venture firm Portal Innovations is raising a $100 million life sciences fund and helping universities launch startup incubators, as institutions pursue alternatives to federal research funding.
Chicago-based Portal formed in 2020 to invest in geographies it viewed as rich in scientific talent but with limited access to venture-capital funding and specialized lab facilities. Working with real-estate developers, it established Portal labs in Chicago, Atlanta, Houston and a Boston neighborhood outside the city’s life sciences cluster.
Startups pay a membership fee that includes access to shared equipment and entrepreneurial programming.
Portal also raised four $25 million funds to finance startups in those four locations. It has 112 companies in these locations and has invested in 26 of them, said founder and Chief Executive John Flavin.
The new fund will enable Portal to invest globally, including in startups within its labs and those originating from outside, Flavin said. It expects to complete the fundraising by the end of 2026, he added.
Portal also is collaborating with institutions to start incubators that it runs and will serve as another source of potential investments for the firm, Flavin said.
Read the full story here.
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And now on to the news...
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Carbyne founder and Chief Executive Amir Elichai. PHOTO: CARBYNE
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Law-enforcement tech. Law-enforcement technology is increasingly a hot bet for venture investors. Startups developing a range of tech from artificial-intelligence voice chatbots to field 911 calls to incident-management software have collected venture dollars.
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Startups in the sector raised $990 million this year through July 9, nearly double the amount raised for all of last year, according to data firm Crunchbase.
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This summer, Carbyne added to the trend, raising $100 million from investors including the venture arm of telecommunication giant AT&T, law-enforcement tech and equipment manufacturer Axon Enterprise, conglomerate Cox Enterprises and Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank.
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Carbyne develops law-enforcement agency software that can, among other functions, use AI to route 911 calls and offer automatic translation and notetaking for dispatchers. The Wall Street Journal spoke with Carbyne founder and Chief Executive Amir Elichai to understand what is driving investor enthusiasm in the sector and how his most recent fundraising was vastly different from his prior funding round several years ago.
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$990 Million
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The amount of venture capital law-enforcement technology startups raised this year through July 9, according to data firm Crunchbase.
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Rare-Earth Magnet Maker Raises $65 Million in Push to Counter China
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Startup Vulcan Elements said it raised $65 million in a new funding round to increase production of the rare-earth magnets crucial to everything from drones to electric vehicles. The funding signals the growing push to build up an industry in the U.S. and reduce dependence on China. North Carolina-based Vulcan was valued at around $250 million in the funding round led by Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter Capital, a tech-focused investment firm that has backed companies such as OpenAI and Uber Technologies. Gerstner also led efforts to create “Trump
accounts,” the $1,000 government-funded investment accounts for children that recently became law. One Investment Management, run by former SoftBank financier Rajeev Misra, is also an investor. Vulcan Chief Executive John Maslin, a former Navy officer, co-founded the company in 2023 as a student at Harvard Business School.
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People
Cato Networks, provider of an enterprise security and networking platform, promoted Eyal Heiman to chief technology officer. Prior to joining the company in 2019, he served as director of engineering within Akamai’s enterprise security business.
Exodigo, a provider of AI-based subsurface mapping and advanced sensing technologies, appointed Omer Hameiri as chief product officer. He was previously co-founder and CTO of Mashov.
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1Kosmos, an Iselin, N.J.-based identity verification and passwordless authentication provider, raised $57 million in Series B funding, including a $10 million line of credit, from investors such as Forgepoint Capital.
BinSentry, a Canada-based startup that manages animal feed inventories for the agriculture industry, picked up a $50 million Series C investment led by Lead Edge Capital.
Novig, a New York-based peer-to-peer sports trading platform, closed an $18 million Series A round led by Forerunner Ventures.
Chowdeck, an on-demand delivery platform serving cities in Africa, secured $9 million in Series A financing led by Novastar Ventures.
Coverd.us, a New York-based gamified financial platform, was seeded with a $7.8 million investment led by Yolo Investments.
HoneyCoin, a Nairobi-based payment orchestration platform, collected a $4.9 million investment led by Flourish Ventures.
Riva Money, a payments startup using blockchain technology, landed $3 million in pre-seed funding led by Project A.
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President Trump shaking hands with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang earlier this year. PHOTO: ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES
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