Microsoft
Facts
- HQ
- NASDAQ:MSFT
- Sectors
- Technology, Workplace tools, Cloud
- Founded
- 1975
- Employees
- 221000
- Stage
- Public
General Fusion raises $130M with Bezos Expeditions participation, total funding reaches ~$300M as firm readies UK fusion demonstration plant
General Fusion raised $130 million, bringing its total funding to about $300 million, with participation from Jeff Bezos’s Bezos Expeditions; the company will use the funds to advance its fusion technology, build a Fusion Demonstration Plant near London, and expand research facilities in Vancouver and Tennessee.
Deal mania reshuffles GeekWire 200: M&A, IPOs and SPACs push top firms out while Blue Origin stays No. 1
A surge of M&A, IPO and SPAC activity — labeled 'deal mania' — reshuffled the GeekWire 200 rankings, removing several top-10 companies that went public or were acquired and creating openings for new entrants; Blue Origin remains No. 1 while more deal-making and rule changes about private equity-owned companies promise further shake-ups.
Yadhu Gopalan
Yadhu Gopalan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Esper, the DevOps platform for intelligent edge devices. Esper is helping thousands of enterprise customers manage their device fleets, with the first DevOps enterprise-grade functionality with the ability to scale. Yadhu has over 25 years and 35 patents in embedded systems and security. Code he has built helps run over 100 million devices globally. He has held engineering leadership roles over the years, including owning systems engineering for Amazon, designing back-end solutions for FireOS and serving as the Chief Architect of Microsoft Windows CE. Yadhu spends his free time recharging by hiking…
Madrona and Goldman Sachs Publish Inaugural IA40 of Top 40 Private AI Business-App Startups; Four Seattle Firms Included
Madrona Venture Group and Goldman Sachs released the inaugural Intelligent Applications Top 40 (IA40) list of private companies building business AI applications, based on votes from 40 venture firms plus Amazon and Microsoft and narrowed by 50 judges from over 220 nominees. Four Seattle-area companies — Amperity, OctoML, SeekOut, and one unnamed here — made the list; Amperity recently raised $100 million to reach unicorn status and OctoML raised $85 million.
CoreStack raises $30M Series B led by Avatar Growth Capital, total funding $45M
Seattle-based cloud governance startup CoreStack raised $30 million in a Series B led by Avatar Growth Capital, bringing total funding to $45 million and serving over 100 enterprise customers while governing more than $1 billion in cloud consumption.
BrainSpace wins $200,000 from Seattle Angel Conference to advance automated external ventricular drain
BrainSpace won $200,000 from the Seattle Angel Conference to develop an automated external ventricular drain that monitors intracranial pressure; the Bothell startup built a working model with $100,000 in self-funding. Four other finalists — Violett, PetHub, Curie and EarthUP — competed in the conference that trains new accredited angel investors and has invested $4.6 million in 39 startups over ten years.
Andreessen Horowitz hires Seattle gaming vet James Gwertzman as first Seattle-based general partner
Andreessen Horowitz has hired Seattle gaming veteran James Gwertzman as its first general partner based in the Seattle region to join the firm’s consumer investing team focused on gaming. Gwertzman, who sold PlayFab to Microsoft in 2018 and will leave Microsoft later this month, joins a16z as it doubles down on gaming alongside hires like Riot’s Jon Lai and investments such as a $5 million round in Seattle-based Irreverent Labs.
Andreessen Horowitz leads $5M round for Rahul Sood’s Irreverent Labs to build NFT, blockchain and AI-powered metaverse game
Seattle startup Irreverent Labs, led by entrepreneur Rahul Sood, raised $5 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz to build an NFT- and blockchain-based metaverse game that uses AI-powered, ownable characters and will debut its first game next month.
HelloPrenup founders get $150,000 from Nextdoor founder Nirav Tolia on Shark Tank for 30% equity
HelloPrenup founders Sarabeth Jaffe and Julia Rodgers appeared on Shark Tank Season 13, Episode 6, and secured a $150,000 investment from guest Shark Nirav Tolia (Nextdoor founder) for 30% equity despite having only $20,000 in lifetime sales. The software platform offers a faster, cheaper way for couples to create prenuptial agreements and drew concerns from other Sharks about high customer acquisition costs and being too early.
Laura Jennings (Founder & CEO at Knack) on developing a vision, responding to failure, and letting go of other what other people think
After a long career as a VP at Microsoft in the 80s and 90s, Laura Jennings had a big vision for eCommerce. After founding Knack, her masterplan didn't play out exactly as designed. She was working out of a basement, shipping boxes, and learning how to sell merchandise with little experience. Her principles remained, but she updated her strategy after watching and listening. She created a culture that responds to mistakes by asking "what are we going to do about it?" instead of "who is at fault?" Now Knack is a growing profitable business and Laura is still looking forward.
OfferUp appoints Melinda Starbird as first chief people and diversity officer; Steve Hobbs named Washington secretary of state; Convoy engineering VP Tim Prouty moves to Headway
OfferUp named Melinda Starbird as its first chief people and diversity officer; she previously held senior HR roles at Auth0, Avanade, Whitepages and Hiya. The brief also reports Washington Gov. Inslee appointed State Senator Steve Hobbs as secretary of state effective Nov. 22, and Convoy VP of engineering Tim Prouty left to become VP of engineering at mental-health platform Headway.
Truveta launches early health-data platform, signs Ochsner, Saint Luke’s and UnityPoint; funding nears $200M
Seattle startup Truveta launched an early version of its health data platform, added three provider partners and now says it has raised nearly $200 million in funding to aggregate clinical data across systems.
Helion Raises $500M — Potential $1.7B More — to Build Polaris Fusion Generator, Aiming for 2024 Demonstration in Everett, Wash.
Helion Energy raised $500 million (with up to $1.7 billion more contingent on milestones) to build its Polaris fusion generator and finish a demonstration facility in Everett, Wash., aiming to operate in 2024 and move toward commercializing fusion power.
Echodyne wins $20M, five-year DHS CBP contract to expand EchoGuard radar deployment at U.S. borders
Echodyne won a $20 million, five-year contract from DHS Customs and Border Protection to expand deployment and explore new uses of its compact EchoGuard radars at U.S. borders and ports, after already delivering 30 systems under the IDIQ agreement.
OctoML Raises $85M Series C Led by Tiger Global to Expand ML Partnerships and Engineering Team
OctoML, a University of Washington spinout specializing in machine learning optimization, raised $85 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total to $132 million. The company plans to expand its partnerships with hardware and cloud vendors while nearly tripling its engineering team.
Bellevue’s tech boom draws Amazon, Apptio and major firms as city positions itself as Seattle alternative
Bellevue has become a major tech hub attracting companies like Amazon, Apptio, T-Mobile, Smartsheet, OfferUp and Icertis thanks to its downtown, livability, low crime and business-friendly policies, with major expansions including Amazon’s plan to employ 25,000 there.
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.
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
