For many people, the end of September means cooler temperatures, warm seasonal coffee beverages and listening to that one Earth, Wind & Fire song ad nauseam. But for tech companies, it means closing out Q3 and heading into the final quarter of the year.
A number of Seattle tech companies raised new rounds of funding in September, giving them tailwinds heading into the final months of 2021. Here are the five Seattle tech companies that raised the largest rounds last month.
#5. $33 million, Sept. 22
Plenty of people want to use renewable energy sources like solar, but not everyone has done the due diligence to see if the money they invest in building solar infrastructure is worth the returns. Omnidian helps people do that. Its technology provides continuous solar monitoring and alerts for both commercial and residential solar projects. In September, the company raised $33 million in a Series B round led by Activate Capital. The new funding will allow Omnidian to offer more energy services, as well as expand internationally. The company says it expects to significantly grow its employee headcount over the next few years.
#4. $36 million, Sept. 29
As hinted by its name, Seattle startup DroneSeed uses a fleet of advanced drones to strategically distribute seeds over a large area. The company is especially useful for helping with reforestation efforts after wildfires, far outpacing manual reforestation techniques. DroneSeed raised a $36 million Series A to help the company grow, but it’s also doing so at a very pivotal moment. The 2021 fire season was especially destructive, with millions of acres burning across multiple states. This new capital will help DroneSeed fund new projects in order to rebuild after these destructive wildfires.
#3. $50 million, Sept. 27
Syndio announced its $50 million Series C, led by Emerson Collective and Bessemer Venture Partners, at the end of the month. This comes after a big year of growth for the company. Syndio builds HR software that allows companies to analyze salaries across the organization and across different demographics. With this information, companies are able to ensure that they are paying their employees fairly and avoiding unintentional pay discrimination. The company tripled its annual recurring revenue last year, then did so again this year, and is on track to triple it in 2022.
#2. $130 million, Sept. 14
This past month, SkyKick raised a $130 million financing round, bringing the company’s total funding to $200 million. SkyKick builds software for IT teams and businesses to do things like automate cloud operations, migrate data, provide back-ups and more. With the increased adoption of cloud-based tech services over the past few years (and especially in 2020), SkyKick has seen a jump in demand. It saw demand for its Cloud Manager product increase by over 1,000 percent in the past year alone. To meet this growing demand, the company is reportedly adding another 100 employees over the next 12 months.
#1. $200 million, Sept. 1
The largest local funding round of September came in on the very first day of the month. ProbablyMonsters announced that it raised a $200 million Series A, which was led by LKCM Headwater Investments. According to ProbablyMonsters, this is the largest Series A raised by any gaming company. But the company’s organization and strategy makes it a unique type of video game company. ProbablyMonsters internally spins out different video game studios, which are each responsible for developing their own game. Meanwhile the ProbablyMonsters umbrella company is responsible for things like game publishing, marketing, HR and other business operations for all of these studios. But what makes this large round of funding even more interesting is the fact that it comes at a time before ProbablyMonsters has officially announced a single game. Not bad for a company that emerged from stealth mode just two years ago.
