Dallas Venture Deals

August 2023

Howdy!

Welcome to the second edition of the Dallas Venture Deals newsletter! We are grateful for the responses, feedback, and engagement. Our goal remains simple: shine a spotlight on DFW’s venture capital activity, in a region where remarkable transactions often go unnoticed. Cheers to the future of DFW startups!

Venture Deals

DFW-Based Company Fundings - August

Agora Data (Arlington, TX), an automotive industry fintech business revolutionizing financing for car dealers and finance companies, secured $160M private term financing.
Aircon (Dallas, TX), a provider of a gateway-as-a-service in the air cargo industry, raised $3.3M in Seed funding led by Underscore VC.
MobileComm (Dallas, TX), a global telecom engineering firm, has been acquired by UST, a Temasek-backed IT services company.
Taysha Gene Therapies ($TSHA) (Dallas, TX), a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing and commercializing AAV-based gene therapies for the treatment of monogenic diseases of the central nervous system (CNS), announced $150M Private Placement Financing led by RA Capital Management, with participation from PBM Capital, RTW Investments LP, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, TCGX, Acuta Capital Partners, Kynam Capital Management LP, Octagon Capital, Invus, GordonMD Global Investments LP, and B Group Capital.

DFW-Based Investor Transactions - August

Academy Medtech Ventures (Frisco, TX) has acquired Altis Movement Technologies (Fort Lauderdale, FL), a human kinematics AI and computer vision company.
Align Capital Partners’ (Dallas, TX) portfolio company, Schneider Geospatial (Indianapolis, IN), a leading GIS-based SaaS provider of land and asset management solutions for the GovTech industry, acquired Spatialest.
Avidity Partners (Dallas, TX) participated in $105M crossover financing round for CG Oncology (Irvine, CA), an oncolytic immunotherapy company focused on developing therapeutics for patients with urologic cancer. The round was co-led by Foresite Capital and TCGX, with participation from BVF Partners, Janus Henderson Investors, Acorn Bioventures, Ally Bridge Group, Decheng Capital, Longitude Capital, Malin Corporation and RA Capital Management.
Beyond Capital Ventures (Dallas, TX) co-led $11.2M pre-Series A round for Zanifu (Kenya), a fintech startup providing inventory financing to micro, small and medium-sized businesses. The round was comprised of debt and equity, co-led by Variant Investments and included participation from Founders Factory Africa, AAIC Investment, Google Black Founders Fund, and Launch Africa.
Bimini Health Tech (Plano, TX) acquired substantially all of the assets of Ideal Implant, Inc. (Dallas, TX), a provider of artificial breast implants.
Blue Star Innovation Partners (Frisco, TX) announced a partnership with PlayMetrics (Morrisville, NC), a leading provider of operations management software for youth sports organizations.
Delta-V Capital & Interlock Partners (Dallas, TX) portfolio company Perceptyx (Temecula, CA), the leading employee listening and manager effectiveness platform, has acquired Humu (San Francisco, CA), a behavioral change and productivity software business co-founded by former Google HR chief.
Energy Transfer LP (Dallas, TX), acquired Crestwood Equity Partners (Houston, TX), a publicly traded master limited partnership that owns and operates midstream assets, for $7.1B.
Fifth Growth Fund (Dallas, TX) invested $5M in D’Amelio Brands (Los Angeles, CA), a new venture and cross-platform company, to fuel expansion into the food & beverage sector.
Freeman Group (Dallas, TX) led $55M Series C for Helm.ai (Menlo Park, CA), a provider of next-generation AI software for autonomous driving and automation of robotics, with participation from ACVC Partners, Amplo, Honda Motor, Goodyear Ventures, and Sungwoo Hitech.
LA WY Capital Partners (Dallas, TX) participated in $2.8M Seed round for Browse AI (Vancouver, BC), a no-code software platform designed for extracting and monitoring website data at scale, alongside Interface Capital, Alpine Venture Capital, AltaIR, Banana Capital, Creator Ventures, Trust Fund, Singularity Capital, Goodwater Capital and several prominent industry angels.
Maverick Capital (Dallas, TX) participated in $100M investment round for Tenstorrent (Toronto, ON), a next-generation computing company that builds computers for AI. The round was led by Hyundai Motors Group and Samsung Catalyst Fund, with additional participation from Eclipse Ventures, Epiq Capital, Kia Corporation, and Fidelity Management & Research
TPG Rise (Fort Worth, TX) led $50M Series C-1 round for Persefoni (Tempe, AZ), a climate management & accounting platform for enterprises and financial institutions, with participation from Clearvision Ventures, ENEOS Innovation Partners, NGP Energy Technology Partners, Prelude Ventures, Parkway Ventures, Rice Investment Group, Bain and Co., EDF, and Alumni Ventures.
Trive Capital (Dallas, TX) acquired Hypergiant Industries (Austin, TX), an AI defense platform and solutions company. The deal complements Trive’s existing portfolio company, Forward Slope (San Diego, CA). Prior Dallas-based investors in Hypergiant include Green Park & Golf and Perot Jain.