If you’re new here, I’m Abigail — a mechanical-engineer-turned-investor at Hyperplane, an AI/ML-focused seed-stage venture firm in Boston. Every two weeks, this newsletter rounds up Boston’s latest financings and surfaces both local and macro news.
If you were forwarded this email, you can join the thousands of Boston tech and finance folks reading along.
🍂 🍃 🍂🍃 Happy Sunday. We’re moving to this new release cadence based on last week’s feedback (and open-rate reality). It’s the right kind of day for the couch: movies (the NYT list of 2023’s best is worth a skim), football, or working through one of the year’s standout books. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and is braced for the incoming season of out-of-office replies. I’ll be adding myself to that pile for a bit as well — there won’t be an issue of Boston Tech Deals for the weeks covering late December after the next one on the 17th.
That said, there’s a lot to cover today. Over the last two weeks, 16 Boston-based startups raised more than $375M in private financings across multiple sectors, with a noticeable tilt toward healthcare and life sciences (shocking no one).
Boston news: Spotify dropped local listening stats: Boston’s most-streamed artists were Taylor Swift, Drake, and Morgan Wallen, with “Last Night” as the city’s most-played track. On the policy front, Massachusetts’ labor committee heard a proposal that would create a voluntary four-day workweek pilot for employers, offering tax breaks and other incentives to companies that opt in. If approved by both the House and Senate, the pilot could launch as early as 2025. Separately, the European Commission raised objections to Amazon’s proposed $1.7B acquisition of Bedford, MA–based iRobot, saying the deal could restrict competition in the robotic vacuum market.
Other things on my radar: Big day yesterday for Michigan football fans: they secured the Big Ten championship. Now we wait to see which two teams will face them or Washington in the playoffs. COP28, the UN climate summit, kicked off with a notable opening move: some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies signed a pledge to cut methane emissions to near-zero by 2030. Consumers also showed up in force. Black Friday online sales hit $9.8B, according to Adobe Analytics, surpassing last year’s record. Traditional TV had its own banner moment: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade drew 28.5M viewers, the Cowboys’ game pulled in 41.8M (the most-watched program since the Super Bowl), and the Packers–Lions game reached 33.7M viewers. So much for the “TV is dead” narrative.
And so, with that, let’s get into it.
Financings are listed from smallest to largest. Biotech financings over $80M+ are usually not covered.
The total amount of disclosed funding over the last two weeks hit over $375M
Cuebric | $ TBD | Media Tech
Cuebric, a generative AI system for producing and editing images for film and TV virtual production volumes, filed a Form D for an indefinite SAFE round with no first close yet (yes, this is arguably the least materially useful filing description). Launched out of AI creative production studio Seyhan Lee Collective, Cuebric lets filmmakers construct 2.5D environments and streamline production workflows, in part by generating images using Stable Diffusion. The company is partnering with XR Studios to pilot its capabilities.
Sute Media | $25K | Media Tech
Sute Media, a social platform for “edu-creators” to monetize and build communities, raised $25K from one investor in a mix of options, debt, equity, and other securities toward a $500K offering. Currently in beta, Sute supports vetted creators in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and career development. Founded by two Wake Forest alums, the company originally started as a messenger product.
Intelligent Science Group (presumably ScienceBank?) | $205K | Stealth
Intelligent Science Group (ISG) — likely the legal entity behind academic publishing startup ScienceBank — raised $205K in debt and other securities from five investors. Co-founded by Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez and former AI researcher Joshua Sandhu, ScienceBank aims to rethink academic publishing with a community-centric system built on transparent, collaborative peer review from a global network of reviewers.
Sware | $1.5M Debt | Healthcare IT
Sware, formerly Boston Technology Company, raised $1.5M in debt toward a $3.5M offering. Founded in 2010, Sware’s platform, Res_Q, automates the compliance processes required when life sciences companies implement new technologies or software that could affect patients or external stakeholders. The company recently appointed a new CEO, Ellen Reilly, and previously raised a $15M Series A led by Insight Partners in 2022.
Basil Systems | $2.3M | Healthcare IT
Basil Systems, a data analytics platform for healthcare product development, raised an additional $2.3M toward a $5.1M offering originally filed in 2021. PitchBook reports Wild Basin Investments as the lead. Founded by MIT alumni and serial entrepreneurs, Basil aggregates medtech and pharma data from fragmented sources to build a comprehensive industry knowledge base. The company last raised a $1.5M Seed in 2021 from Golden Ventures and Looking Glass Ventures.
Windgap Medical | $2.3M Debt | Medical Devices
Windgap Medical, developer of Andipen — a temperature-resilient alternative to the EpiPen — raised $2.3M in debt, options, and other securities toward a $22.4M offering. Like EpiPen, Andipen delivers epinephrine in emergencies but aims to be smaller and longer-lasting. Founded in 2011, Windgap last raised a $39M Series B led by Taiwania Capital in January 2022.
QSimulate | $2.5M | R&D Tech
QSimulate, creator of quantum physics–based R&D platform QSP, raised $2.5M in a round led by quantum-focused firm 2xN. Founded by a quantum chemistry researcher and Northwestern associate professor, QSimulate combines quantum chemistry and quantum computing to simulate molecular interactions for drug discovery and materials science. The company previously raised an undisclosed early-stage round in 2022 from Embark Ventures, Abies Ventures, and Kyoto University Innovation Capital.
Pepper Bio | $6.5M | AI Drug Discovery
Pepper Bio, which describes itself as “the world’s first transomics company,” raised a $6.5M Seed led by NFX with participation from Merck and Silverton Partners, among others. Part of Merck’s early-stage accelerator and collaborating with Stanford’s Felsher Lab, Pepper Bio analyzes multiple layers of biological data — DNA, RNA, proteomics, and phosphoproteomics — to discover new drugs, calling this approach “transomics.” It previously raised a $4.8M round in January.
Panoptic | $7M | Crypto
Panoptic, a DeFi protocol for perpetual options trading in crypto, raised a $7M Seed extension led by Greenfield Capital. Founded in 2022 by a Cornell professor and a former Advanced Blockchain AG executive, Panoptic is built on Uniswap and enables trading of perpetual options (a derivative akin to perpetual futures) between ERC-20 tokens. The company raised a $4.5M Seed in December 2022.
Ozone | $7.1M | Media Tech
Ozone, an AI-powered, cloud-based collaborative video editor, raised a $7.1M Seed from NEA, General Catalyst, SOMA Capital, Olive Tree Capital, and others. Founded in 2021 by MIT sophomore Max von Wolff (who left to attend YC for the idea), Ozone aims to speed up repetitive editing tasks for creators. The team is launching an open beta and rolling out new features over the coming months.
Almond FinTech | $7M | FinTech
Almond FinTech, a platform for improving international payments in developing markets, raised $7M with participation from SBXi. Almond’s mobile platform uses a Settlement Optimization Engine to track hundreds of digital currencies and blockchains, identifying optimal routing for near-instant settlements, minimizing FX risk, and reducing float. Founded in 2019 by two MIT MBAs, Almond positions itself as a financial inclusion startup.
Malta | $21.6M | Climate Tech
Malta, a long-duration energy storage company spun out of X (Google’s Moonshot Factory), raised $21.6M from five investors toward a $75M offering. Malta’s Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) technology converts grid power into heat stored in high-temperature molten salt and cold stored in chilled liquid, enabling very long-duration storage. The company last raised a $50M Series B in 2021 led by Swiss energy firm Proman, with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and others.
Judo Bio | $25M | Biotech
Judo Bio, a stealth precision therapeutics company seeded by Atlas Venture and The Column Group, raised an additional $5M from both firms toward a $25M offering. According to its LinkedIn, Judo is developing a new class of precision therapeutics targeting specific cell populations, with potential applications across genetic diseases and beyond.
Eleos Health | $40M | Digital Health
Eleos Health, an AI platform that turns behavioral health conversations into automated documentation, raised a $40M Series B led by Menlo Ventures with participation from F-Prime, Eight Roads, Arkin Digital Health, and Samsung Next. Based in Boston and Tel Aviv, Eleos captures and analyzes session data through non-disruptive methods to describe client needs and inform clinical decision-making. The company previously raised a $20M Series A led by F-Prime and Eight Roads in April 2022.
Quotient Therapeutics | $50M | Biotech
Quotient Therapeutics, unveiled last week by Flagship Pioneering, raised a $50M round led by Flagship. The company uses somatic genomics to identify new links between genes and disease by systematically studying the genetic variation and evolution of the trillions of cells in the human body. It was launched in partnership with geneticists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and UT Southwestern.
Cambrian Innovation | $200M | Natural Resources Management
Cambrian Innovation, a wastewater treatment, water reuse, and energy recovery–as-a-service company, raised a $200M late-stage round from Pennybacker Capital Management. Founded in 2011 and an Elemental Excelerator alum, Cambrian helps companies extract resources like clean water and energy from wastewater. Customers include Anheuser-Busch, Sapporo, Keurig Dr Pepper, and LVMH. The company last raised $18M in development capital from Spring Lane Capital in 2019.
INNO4, which designs, installs, and supports custom mission-critical systems and tech solutions for large enterprises, raised an undisclosed amount of strategic capital from ServicePoint and Mill Point Capital.
Caraway Therapeutics, which develops treatments for neurodegenerative and rare diseases, is being acquired by Merck in a deal worth up to $610M.
New Heritage Capital, a private equity firm focused on founder-owned middle-market businesses, raised $438M for its fourth fund.
All for now!
Covering the upcoming numbers to watch for (🔜) , the relevant numbers of last week (🔙), and the tech headlines of the last two weeks (🆕).
📢 Number releases to watch:
Monday: U.S. factory orders
Tuesday: U.S. services PMI and job openings
Thursday: Jobless claims, consumer credit, wholesale inventories
Friday: U.S. jobs report and preliminary consumer sentiment
Deeper: Many analysts expect a November uptick in jobs growth to be driven largely by the rebound from the United Auto Workers strike, rather than a broad re-acceleration in the labor market.
At a glance: The S&P 500 closed at a 20-month high on Friday, and U.S. Q3 GDP beat expectations. India also significantly outperformed its GDP forecasts in Q2. Inflation, as measured by the PCE price index, and the ISM Manufacturing PMI were both in line with expectations: PCE ticked up modestly, and the manufacturing index remained below 50, signaling continued contraction.
🛍 Consumer activity: Cyber Monday e-commerce spending hit $12.4B, up 9.6% year-over-year. Black Friday online sales reached $9.8B, up 7.5%. A meaningful chunk of that spending is being financed via credit and Buy Now, Pay Later products.
🏡 Real Estate: Home prices were up 4% year-over-year in September as demand continues to outstrip supply.
🌍 International: China’s data again disappointed; factory activity contracted further, and services sector consumer spending shrank for the first time this year. The broader picture suggests China’s global economic weight is stagnating or declining for the first time since the mid-1990s.
⚡️ Energy: OPEC+ members released a series of individual statements announcing voluntary production cuts — an unusual, disjointed communication approach that may foreshadow more price volatility and potential increases in oil and gas prices.
🤑 Earnings notables: Snowflake reported $698.5M in October-quarter sales, up 32% year-over-year and ahead of its own guidance. Nuuly — Urban Outfitters’ clothing rental business — reported Q3 gross profit of $17M, double last year’s figure, with sales reaching $65M.
⚖️ Weight-loss arms race: Pfizer is discontinuing development of its twice-daily experimental weight-loss pill after trial side effects. Eli Lilly’s new drug Zepbound, meanwhile, has launched with efficacy claims that outstrip Wegovy and at a price roughly 20% lower.
✈️ A losing incumbent: The U.S. Air Force dropped Boeing from the competition to build the successor to the E-4B Nightwatch, its airborne nuclear command post. The only publicly known remaining bidder is Sierra Nevada Corp..
🇺🇸 A controversial passing: Henry Kissinger, former national security adviser and secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford — a central and deeply polarizing figure in U.S. foreign policy across Vietnam, Chile, and the broader Cold War — died at age 100.
🚢 Rebalancing imports: Walmart is reducing its dependence on Chinese imports (currently ~60% of U.S. shipments) and increasing sourcing from India (currently ~25%), a shift that mirrors broader supply chain diversification efforts.
💳 Swing and a miss: Apple will wind down its credit card partnership with Goldman Sachs over the next 12–15 months, marking a significant retreat from Goldman’s push into consumer lending.
🏀 It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later: After 24 years, Mark Cuban is selling his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks but plans to retain a smaller position and full control of basketball operations.
📈 A Berkshire era ends: Charlie Munger — Warren Buffett’s longtime partner at Berkshire Hathaway, CEO of Wesco Financial, Daily Journal publisher, Costco board member, and prolific investor and writer — died at 99.
🔋 Big moves for American solar: SB Energy Global, backed by SoftBank and Ares, is set to be the first to qualify for new federal tax credits tied to using U.S.-made components. The company secured solar modules built in Ohio, steel from Texas and Georgia, and other domestically produced equipment.
🤖 Governance and optics: Sasha Luccioni, an AI ethics researcher at Hugging Face, said she would not consider joining OpenAI’s all-male three-person board, calling it emblematic of the industry’s diversity issues.
😬 Cringe: Onstage at the NYT DealBook Summit, Elon Musk responded to advertisers pulling back from X (formerly Twitter) after his amplification of an antisemitic conspiracy theory by saying, “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fk yourself. Go FK yourself.”
🇺🇦 Ukraine update: Ukraine reported the largest drone attack on Kyiv since the war began, with injuries and damage across multiple districts. Analysts like former British intelligence officer Frank Ledwidge have compared the current state of the front lines to World War I: entrenched, grinding, and difficult for either side to decisively break.
Tues, Dec 5, 2–3PM: Geospatial Data Science at Scale with Esri and AWS, hosted by Data Science Connect
Wed, Dec 6, 1:30–7PM: Greentown Labs Manufacturing Sector Pitch Day
Wed, Dec 6, 9–10:30AM: Boston Tech Breakfast Club with The InnoCrew, Venture Daily, and Fidelity’s Shoobx
Tues, Dec 12, 5:30–7:30PM: Boston–Cambridge Healthtech Mixer hosted by The InnoCrew and Founder Collective, with Alexa Murray and Tracy Lahey
Now open: APRÈS @ Deck 12 — YOTEL Boston’s Seaport rooftop has gone full ski-lodge, with gondolas, chair lifts, and winterized Adirondack chairs.
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