FUNDING
Irvine’s InBrace last month closed a $102 million Series D round co-led by venture capital firms Farallon Capital Management LLC and Marshall Wace.
InBrace is one of the fastest-growing startups in the $40 billion orthodontics market, according to the company. Founded by orthodontists in 2012, it’s developed a behind-the-teeth straightening device called the SmartWire.
The oversubscribed round brought InBrace’s total funding to $170 million.
“The Series D funding further validates the ability of InBrace to attract new consumers who previously opted out of orthodontic treatment because they didn’t have an option that fit their lifestyle,” CEO and co-founder of InBrace Dr. John Pham said in a statement. “InBrace taps into the recent ‘Zoom culture’ that has caused a surge of interest among consumers who want to improve their smiles with a more predictable and less disruptive process to their daily lives.”
Pham, who also won the “Best Small Technology CEO” award at Octane’s High Tech Awards Sept. 23, started developing the company’s “invisible braces” 10 years ago while he was a graduate student at USC and treating kids with cleft lips and palates at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
InBrace plans to use proceeds of the financing to expand its sales force, launch new marketing initiatives and connect with orthodontic partners across the country.
Irvine-based fintech ChargeZoom said Sept. 15 it has closed a $2 million seed round led by Laguna Beach’s Okapi Venture Capital and joined by SaaS Ventures.
“We are grateful for the trust they have placed in us and our vision,” founder and CEO of ChargeZoom Matt Dubois said in a statement. “This investment will accelerate our work empowering businesses to achieve their full potential through innovative, integrated payment solutions.”
ChargeZoom, incorporated in 2019, has developed an integrated billing and payments SaaS for merchants and businesses, allowing its users the ability to start accepting payments online, in-person, and over the phone. Its “easy-to-use” software also automates otherwise manual, sophisticated accounting processes, the company said.
Its client portfolio includes several Fortune 500 companies and some of the country’s top 20 merchant acquirers.
With this funding, the company says it will expand its service by investing heavily in its “human resources,” adding that it is seeking expert staff who can further improve its product and customer experience.
The company recently moved its headquarters to the Irvine Towers office campus.
Riverside-based WurkNow said Sept. 17 it has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Newport Beach’s Newport Hayseed Group.
WurkNow, developer of a staffing and workplace software platform for hourly work, said the funding will go towards optimizing its user base and product offering, including investments in new product development, staff growth and scaling the company’s brand and market presence. The company was previously based in Irvine, and still has employees in the area.
WurkNow’s capital raise comes after a year of growth brought on by the digital acceleration the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to many businesses, the company said.
Demand for WurkNow’s service has surged; there are currently over 125,000 active employees using the platform, a year-over-year increase of 400%.
“The labor market has dramatically shifted over the past 18 months,” Chief Executive and co-founder Sammy Singh said. “Outdated, disparate systems tend to complicate and slow hiring efforts. The need for a tech-forward single platform approach to fill jobs faster is greater than ever and, as a result, we have seen an accelerated demand for the WurkNow platform.”
San Clemente-based AtaCor Medical Inc. said Sept. 18 it has completed a Series A financing round of $8.8 million.
AtaCor, established in 2014, is the developer of the AtaCor EV Temporary Pacing Lead System, a temporary cardiac pacing system designed to leave the heart and vascular system completely untouched—for prompt pacing support without the discomfort, risk and limitations of traditional methods, the company said. Temporary cardiac pacing is often required for hospitalized cardiac patients, particularly for increasingly common transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedures.
The company won the “Deal of the Year” award at Octane’s High Tech Awards Sept. 23.
The investment was co-led by Boston-based Broadview Ventures and Israel-based Moon Ventures and will support the continued development of AtaCor’s extravascular substernal cardiac pacing system, officials said.
“We welcome our new venture partners and extend our appreciation to our earlier investors in supporting AtaCor’s goal to free patients’ hearts from unnecessary pacing hardware,” Chief Executive of AtaCor Rick Sanghera said. “We are excited to accelerate development efforts and look forward to bringing this new pacing option to patients and physicians alike.”
PARTNERSHIP
Rancho Santa Margarita-based biotech firm Cornea Biosciences announced Sept. 22 it has entered a collaboration agreement for a corneal transplant program with the Nigerian National Eye Center and is in discussions with hospital groups in South Africa and Armenia.
It’s also seeking “socially impactful” investors in the U.S.
“I consider myself a social impact entrepreneur and we are seeking social impact investors,” CEO of Cornea Biosciences Dr. Jim Socks told the Business Journal. “Ideal investors would be high-net worth investors seeking to do good, philanthropies, family offices or NGOs.”
Socks is an optometrist who has worked in the ophthalmic field for 50 years. He first founded Cornea Biosciences under a different name in Singapore and relaunched it with Octane in 2019 to develop a bioengineered cornea for countries with a shortage of organ donations.
“Outside of the U.S., there are an estimated 10 million people who need corneal transplants and can’t get them, the majority of whom are in the developing world,” he said.
Cornea Biosciences’ artificial cornea is the result of 10 years of research and development conducted at the University of Ottawa in Canada and Linkoping University in Sweden, Socks said, adding that it’s “completely biocompatible” and has a six month shelf life, as opposed to the 15-day shelf life of a human cornea.
RELIEF EFFORTS
Irvine-based renewable energy developer BayWa r.e. Power Solutions last month donated $20,000 to The Footprint Project, a nonprofit from Minneapolis which has been deploying solar power, portable charging stations and running refrigeration to southeastern Louisiana—a region still without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.
In July, Enable Energy rebranded as the startup BayWa r.e. with sustainability initiatives throughout the Americas.
The donation comes as a result of the cancellation of a big trade show, Solar Power International, which the company was enrolled to join and to be held in New Orleans, the company said.
“Since we cannot bring our people and money to New Orleans for Solar Power International as expected, we’re proud to support the Footprint Project in its efforts to aid economic recovery and help affected communities build back greener in the face of climate-amplified disasters like Hurricane Ida,” Managing Director of BayWa r.e. Axel Veeser said in a statement.
“Its work demonstrates the value of renewable and resilient approaches in a region that has inadequate access to clean energy, suffers from vulnerable power-grid infrastructure, and traditionally has suffered environmental harm from the excesses of the conventional energy industries.”
