Microsoft
Facts
- HQ
- NASDAQ:MSFT
- Sectors
- Technology, Workplace tools, Cloud
- Founded
- 1975
- Employees
- 221000
- Stage
- Public
Assembly acquires bootstrapped Seattle ad-tech startup Pacvue in reported nine-figure deal
Pacvue, a four-year-old Seattle e-commerce software startup that was bootstrapped without VC funding, was acquired by Los Angeles-based Assembly in a deal reported at nine figures; Pacvue provided advertising and sales tools for marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart and had tripled revenue yearly with about 150 employees.
Convoy appoints John Morrow as general counsel effective Nov. 1; ex-AWS VP Steven Shure joins Neeva as chief business officer
Convoy named John Morrow as general counsel effective Nov. 1, following multiple legal leadership departures in 2021; Morrow previously served at Apptio and Paymentus. Separately, former AWS VP Steven Shure joined ad-free search startup Neeva as chief business officer and will remain based in Seattle.
Seattle Average Tech Salary Rises 4.6% to $158,000, Second-Highest U.S. Behind Bay Area
Hired data shows average Seattle tech salaries rose 4.6% year-over-year to $158,000, the second-highest U.S. average behind the Bay Area. The report notes continued strong hiring from Amazon, Microsoft and other firms, high open roles at startups, remote-work-driven shifts in pay, and broad worker interest in new opportunities.
Life Science Washington CEO Leslie Alexandre to retire after leading state’s biotech resurgence as 2021 IPOs raise hundreds of millions
Leslie Alexandre, president and CEO of Life Science Washington, is retiring after five years leading the group during a period of strong growth in Washington state's biotech sector that recovered from a 2016 slump. The region has seen several major biotech IPOs in 2021 (including Sana Biotechnology's $587M, Absci's $200M, and Icosavax's $180M+), growing research strength and recognition as an emerging biotech market.
Spice AI raises $1M pre-seed led by Madrona; Nat Friedman and Mark Russinovich invest
Spice AI, a Seattle startup founded by former Microsoft Azure engineers Luke Kim and Phillip LeBlanc, launched an open-source project to help developers build real-time learning AI apps and raised a $1 million pre-seed led by Madrona with investments from GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich. The company has no paying customers yet but is backed by several VCs and positions itself to simplify creating intelligent applications.
Karat raises $110M Series C at $1.1B valuation to scale remote technical interviewing
Karat, a Seattle startup that runs technical interviews through a vetted network of interviewers, raised $110 million in a Series C at a $1.1 billion valuation while more than doubling revenue and customers year-over-year.
Gopuff adds Sanjay Shah, Dan Beranek and Komal Kashiramka to Seattle leadership as company valued at $15B after $1B funding
Gopuff expanded its Seattle leadership team by hiring three executives — Sanjay Shah (SVP North America fulfillment), Dan Beranek (VP product for fresh food) and Komal Kashiramka (director of engineering for Gopuff Kitchen) — after a $1 billion funding round that valued the company at $15 billion. Other regional moves include Vinayak Hegde promoted to president of Wheels Up and FlavorCloud hiring Telved Devlet as VP of customer success and operations.
Former Kymeta CEO Nathan Kundtz raises $6M seed for Rendered.ai to build customizable synthetic datasets for AI
Nathan Kundtz, former Kymeta CEO, launched Seattle-area startup Rendered.ai to produce customizable synthetic datasets and infrastructure for training AI on visual and sensor data, and the company raised $6 million in a seed round. Rendered.ai focuses on treating dataset generation as an engineering platform to improve AI training efficiency and reduce bias and data-collection costs.
Chronosphere raises $200M Series C led by General Atlantic, valuation tops $1B
Chronosphere, founded in 2019 by former Microsoft and Uber engineers Martin Mao and Rob Skillington, raised $200 million in a Series C led by General Atlantic, valuing the company above $1 billion. The cloud-native data observability startup has grown ARR 9x in 2021, has 80 employees (plans to add 35), and has raised $255 million total.
Microsoft acquires Seattle OKR startup Ally to integrate into Microsoft Viva; terms undisclosed
Microsoft has acquired Seattle-based OKR startup Ally, founded three years ago, to integrate its goal-tracking capabilities into Microsoft Viva and other products; financial terms were not disclosed.
Relevvo raises $1.5M seed to power personalized B2B sales messaging from Microsoft and LinkedIn veterans
Seattle startup Relevvo, founded by veterans from Microsoft, LinkedIn and other firms, raised a $1.5 million seed round to sell a B2B ‘relevance engine’ that delivers personalized sales messaging at scale to replace ‘spray and pray’ outreach. The seven-person company counts customers like iSpot, Esper, Hiya and CourseKey and was founded by Aashish Dhamdhere and Tushar Shanbhag.
Esper raises $60M Series C from Insight Partners to scale DevOps platform for company-owned Android device fleets
Seattle-area DevOps startup Esper raised a $60 million Series C led by Insight Partners to grow its platform for managing fleets of company-owned Android devices across retail, healthcare, education and other industries; the company has 200+ customers, raised $30M in May, expects 2021 revenue to quadruple and is not yet profitable.
Read, founded by ex-Placed team members David Shim, Elliott Waldron and Rob Williams, raises $10M seed to analyze faces and voices on video calls
Seattle startup Read — founded by David Shim, Elliott Waldron, and Rob Williams — raised $10 million in seed funding for software that uses AI to analyze participants' facial expressions and voice during video calls to measure engagement and sentiment in real time.
Microsoft invests in Seattle startup Truveta and partners to run health-data analyses on Azure
Seattle health-data startup Truveta will use Microsoft Azure under a new partnership and received an undisclosed Microsoft investment; the company aggregates de-identified data from 17 health systems representing about 15% of U.S. patients. Truveta, led by former Microsoft exec Terry Myerson, previously raised $95 million from healthcare partners including Providence and says the data will support research and care decisions, not targeted patient advertising.
Cloudentity Names Jason Needham as CEO After $13M Series A; Leafly Appoints Suresh Krishnaswamy as CFO; Chris Suh Joins Cardlytics Board; Three Named HHMI Investigators
Seattle startup Cloudentity named Jason Needham, ex-CloudCoreo and VMware multi-cloud security lead, as CEO and board member after a $13M Series A; Leafly hired Suresh Krishnaswamy as CFO as it prepares for a SPAC, and Microsoft CVP Chris Suh joined Cardlytics' board. Trevor Bedford, Frederick Matsen IV and David Veesler were named 2021 HHMI Investigators, each receiving roughly $9M over seven years.
Remitly IPO Marks End of 10-Year Journey for Seed Investor Who Led Early Round and Served on Board
Investor and VC recounts Remitly’s IPO, celebrating the Seattle fintech’s public debut after a decade since he led its Seed round and served on the board, praising the founders’ methodical approach and noting the milestone’s importance to his investing career.
98point6 board ousts co-founder Robbie Cape to seek CEO who can scale growth; Jeff Greenstein named interim leader
98point6's board removed co-founder and CEO Robbie Cape last month to install a leader better suited to scale the telehealth startup, according to board member Lisa Brummel, who said the decision was routine and not due to impropriety; interim CEO Jeff Greenstein is now leading the company after Cape left the board. The Seattle company has raised $247 million and saw large customer demand during the pandemic.
Mystery pivots from surprise dates to ‘morale as a service,’ selling virtual team events to Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks and more
Mystery, a Seattle startup that began by organizing surprise date nights, pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic to virtual events and now markets a B2B employee-engagement product it calls “morale as a service,” attracting clients like Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Apple and Zillow. The company offers six categories of virtual experiences tailored to team types and says it has codified its event design into a tech-centric platform to deliver surprise-driven morale-boosting events.
Four High School Interns Analyze GeekWire 200 Rankings with UW Bothell Dean via SparkSIP
Four high school students worked with UW Bothell Business Dean Sandeep Krishnamurthy through the SparkSIP program to analyze the GeekWire 200 startup rankings over a summer, using the April update, past lists and public data. They aimed to apply data analysis to understand factors behind successful Pacific Northwest startups and gain entrepreneurial and regional startup insights.
AI2 Adds Bioengineer Jenny Cronin to Incubator; Icosavax Names Bekiroglu, Russo and Two Board Members; Proprio’s CMO Browd Expands Role
AI2 hired bioengineer Jenny Cronin as a principal for its startup incubator, bringing experience from s2s Public Relations, NanoString, and a UW bioengineering Ph.D.; AI2 has incubated startups like Ozette, Modulus and MajorBoost. Seattle biotech Icosavax named Elizabeth Bekiroglu general counsel, Thomas Russo CFO, and added Heidi Kunz and Ann Veneman to its board; pediatric neurosurgeon Samuel Browd is taking partial leave from UW/Seattle Children’s to expand as CMO of surgical tech startup Proprio.
Humanly raises $4.3M led by Zeal Capital Partners to scale automated hiring tools; total funding $5.3M
Seattle HR startup Humanly raised $4.3 million led by Zeal Capital Partners (bringing total funding to $5.3 million) to expand its recruiting software that automates candidate screening, scheduling, initial communications and reference checks, and claims sixfold revenue growth over the past year.
Remitly Global files for IPO to raise up to $294 million by selling 7 million shares at $42, ticker RELY
Seattle-based Remitly Global filed to go public aiming to raise up to $294 million by selling 7 million shares at up to $42 each, with its board and management planning to sell an additional 5,162,777 shares; the fintech serves predominantly immigrant customers sending money from several developed countries to over 115 destinations.
Former Microsoft VP and ex-RingCentral CRO Phil Sorgen joins Tola Capital as venture partner
Phil Sorgen, a former Microsoft corporate vice president and most recently RingCentral chief revenue officer, has joined Seattle-area investment firm Tola Capital as a venture partner; Tola manages $440 million and focuses on enterprise software.
Cascadia Capital Raises $150M SPAC and Eyes Pittsburgh Tech Acquisition, CEO Calls City 'Seattle 10–15 Years Ago'
Seattle investment bank Cascadia Capital raised $150 million for a SPAC, Cascadia Acquisition Corp., and is targeting a Pittsburgh tech company—citing local strengths in AI, robotics, automation and research from Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh. CEO Michael Butler, who has spent more time in Pittsburgh recently, said the city resembles Seattle 10–15 years ago and is poised for a tech boom.
Kymeta and OneWeb Successfully Test u8 Antenna-Based Mobile Satellite Broadband at 200 Mbps Using OneWeb’s LEO Constellation
Kymeta Corp. partnered with OneWeb to test satellite broadband services using Kymeta's u8 flat-panel antenna, achieving promising results for mobile connectivity with OneWeb's LEO satellite network. The tests in Toulouse demonstrated about 200 Mbps reception, targeting first responders, government, military, and enterprise markets.
People
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Ali Farhadi Executive, Former Allen Institute for AI CEO
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Bill Gates Executive, Former CEO, Co-founder
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Gaurav Sareen Executive, Chief Technology Officer - CAP
