Start-ups that take our breath away

Start-ups that take our breath away

New York, 6.6.2020

The startup wave continues to roll. All over the world, breeding grounds of technology companies are emerging that are producing amazing results or will soon take the world’s breath away. They are all being idolized by numerous investors. Who has „the big thing“ in the can?

Here is a selection:

Streem

Total fundraising: $10.5 million

Among the investors: Flying Fish Partners, Loup Ventures, Greycroft

Streem was founded in 2017 and provides simple and convenient customer service that can be accessed with a tap of a finger on a smartphone. Its advanced technology uses computer vision, machine learning, object recognition, pose tracking and spatial mapping to deliver enterprise-quality software.

Streem, based in Portland, Oregon, is one of the few technical start-ups that has filed a number of outstanding patents in a short period of time.

https://www.streem.pro/

dahmakan

Total fundraising: $9 million

Among the investors: UpHonest Capital, White Star Capital, Partech, Y Combinator, Atami Capital

dahmakan is an online food delivery platform based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Batch, Dahmakan creates its own meals and offers about 40 options from a database of 2,000 dishes. It uses artificial intelligence in food preferences, logistics and spending habits to make delivery affordable.

In a press release on the financing of Dahmakan, White Star Capital’s Managing Partner, Eric Martineau-Fortin, said: „Dahmakan, with its unique, technologically advanced approach to taking control of the entire value chain to provide affordable delivery options to the emerging middle class in Southeast Asia, is well positioned to meet the growing demand for food delivery services in Southeast Asia“.

https://dahmakan.com/kuala-lumpur/food-delivery

Feather

Total fundraising: $16 million

Among the investors: Perkins, Bain Capital Ventures, SV Angel and others

Feather is a furniture subscription service where users can rent furniture at a low monthly price. This New York-based technical start-up company currently serves New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orange County.

Feather’s primary demographic target is millennials who have graduated and do not yet have the funds to buy their first home. It allows users to add, trade, buy or return as much furniture as they want.

Prices start at around $150 per month for a complete bedroom and living room set. Delivery and installation is free, and there is a $199 pick-up fee for start-up.

https://www.livefeather.com/

LeafLink

Total fundraising: $35 million

Among the investors: Thrive Capital, TIA Ventures, Nosara Capital and others

LeafLink is one of the few cannabis tech startups at the forefront of this growing industry. It helps retailers with the management aspects of this business. Based in New York, LeafLink offers a range of business solutions including CRM, reporting tools and streamlined ordering processes.

LeafLink provides services to more than 1,200 cannabis brands and 3,500 cannabis retailers and operates in 20 territories in the United States and Canada. It is the largest marketplace for wholesale cannabis transactions, accounting for 16 percent of all B2B cannabis orders in the United States.

https://www.leaflink.com/

Peloton

Total fundraising: $550 million

Among the investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, GGV Capital, Tiger Global Management

The New York-based peloton is a well-funded manufacturer of bicycles and treadmills for stationery with Internet access. By August 2019, the company had reached a total of 1.4 million community members, defined as every person with a peloton account.

According to John Foley, co-founder and CEO of the peloton company, „peloton sells happiness“.

„The peloton is so much more than just a bike – we believe we have the opportunity to create one of the most innovative global technology platforms of our time,“ Foley said. „It’s an opportunity to create one of the most important and influential interactive media companies in the world; a media company that changes lives, inspires greatness and connects people.“

Founded in 2012, Peloton has raised $550 million in venture capital funding in 2019 with a valuation of $4.15 billion.

https://www.onepeloton.com/shop/bike

Airtable

Total fundraising: $100 million

Among the investors: Thrive Capital, Coatue Management and others

Airtable is a cloud-based workflow system that allows anyone to analyze data, share insights and generate reports. The six-year-old start-up company was valued at over $1 billion in its most recent round of financing.

„The vision was to democratize the value proposition,“ said Howie Liu, CEO and co-founder of Airtable. A database that „can be adapted in its most flexible form to what you need, and that would be better than using someone else’s existing database model.

Airtable is used by 80,000 organizations today.

https://airtable.com/

Kano

Total fundraising: $50 million

Among the investors: Marc Benioff, Index Ventures, Breyer Capital, Troy Carter and others

Kano is a UK-based start-up company that produces special computer kits that can be assembled from the start without any specialist knowledge.

Founded in the second half of 2013, the start-up has already won several awards for innovation and growth. Not only can you create your own computers, you can also program them yourself. The assembly process is similar to that of Lego and has also proven to be child-friendly.

The start-up gained its first popularity with a popular kickstarter campaign based on a robot toy built with Raspberry Pi.

Briggo

Total fundraising: $19 million

Investors include: 7-Ventures, Sevin-Rosen funds and others

Briggo is an automatic coffee dispensing machine developed with the help of robot technology. Briggo was founded in 2008 and is based in Austin, Texas. The start-up integrates cloud computing, advanced mobile technology and AI-based robotics to transform your coffee experience.

Briggo coffee machines do not have human names. They are affectionately called coffee houses because they are shaped like little houses.

„The idea of a tapered roof and the word ‚house‘ convey a sense of durability, reliability and accessibility, which we believe is really important in the context of the coffee emotion,“ says Kevin Nater, the company’s CEO. „People don’t really treat it like a robot, they treat it like a beautiful house.

https://briggo.com/

Mieron VR

Total funds raised: Not disclosed

Among the investors: Not published

Mieron is the world’s first virtual reality neurotherapy system that helps in the rehabilitation of patients all over the world. MieronVR, the company’s brand new virtual reality technology, is used by physicians and alternative practitioners to help patients in the rehabilitation of spinal cord and craniocerebral trauma.

The Mieron library is full of exercises for locomotion training, trunk stability, strength and conditioning, upper body mobility, lower body mobility, balance and stability exercises that complement physiotherapy and occupational therapy practices. The aim is to improve mobility, task performance, independence through improved mobility and mental well-being.