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Apr. 23, 2024
First Off Announcements and the like. Brent: Happy Tuesday, y'all... the millions are flowing in Austin today. So let's get to it and kick a Beat... The Big One A breakdown of the day's biggest Inno story. EnergyX lands new funding
Brent: What started as a sabbatical in South America has turned into a potential game-changer in the mining of lithium used to power many of our devices and electric vehicles.
Now, Puerto Rico-based startup EnergyX, founded by Teague Egan, has raised $20M to enter the next phase of its lithium extraction tech development. The funding comes from Obsidian Acquisition Partners, Helios Capital and the University of Texas, and it follows a 2020 pilot project where EnergyX started working with Orocobre Limited, which was part of a major merger last month. The pilot projects are expected to be deployed soon.
The new funding will also help EnergyX triple the size of its team at its Austin-based Innovation Lab. It currently has three corporate roles, six science roles and six battery development positions posted on its careers page.
EnergyX last year began working with UT professor Dr. John Goodenough, a 2019 Nobel Prize winner who invented the lithium-ion battery. And in 2019, the company signed a licensing deal with UT for exclusive rights to its intellectual property on a new class of materials. Making Moves Inside the people, companies and organizations making moves in Austin. The sky's not the limit
Here's a literal moonshot in the making. Commercial space startup Firefly Aerospace Inc., which hopes to soon launch its first rocket into space and is working on a lunar lander with NASA, said today it raised a $75M series A round that valued it at more than $1B. The oversubscribed round was led by DADA Holdings, with additional investment from Astera Institute, Canon Ball LLC, Reuben Brothers Limited, SMS Capital Investment LLC, Raven One Ventures, The XBTO Ventures and others. Jed McCaleb of Astera Institute will join Firefly’s board of directors. And Firefly said that it aims to raise $300M more in late 2021, once it can launch its flagship Alpha rocket in the near future.
To compensate for "overwhelming demand" to get into the series A round, Firefly backer California-based Noosphere Ventures sold roughly $100M of its stake in Firefly in secondary transactions to series A and other investors. Noosphere, led by Max Polyakov, remains the largest investor in Firefly, having helped rescue it from bankruptcy in 2017. Polyakov told said last year he had invested $120M into the company during the previous three years.
Multicoin's $100M fund
Austin-based cryptofund Multicoin Capital today announced it has raised a new $100M venture fund to invest in startups and tokens. The new money, raised from other VC funds, family offices and endowments, will back early-stage deals with investments as small as $500K, and the firm notes it prefers to invest early and lead rounds. It says it can also put up to $100M in individual deals when it taps capital from its hedge fund. Its largest deal to date was in Helium, a Bay Area crypto and blockchain company that has raised about $54M, according to Crunchbase, including a $15M round in 2019 that Multicoin was part of.
The firm, founded in 2017, also named team members Matt Shapiro, Mable Jiang and John Robert Freed as new partners. Reed is based in Austin; Shapiro in New York; and Jiang in China. Multicoin Managing Partner Tushar Jain noted the firm is actively deploying out of the new fund and is accepting pitches via Twitter.
Olea Edge adds Google exec
Austin edge computing startup Olea Edge Analytics said today it hired former Google Energy CTO Ben Wilson as its new COO. The computing startup, which focuses on water distribution and management, raised a $9M series B last year to reach more city water departments. Earlier this year, it expanded its partnership with the City of Atlanta's watershed management department.
Austin startups win Rice biz battle
Austin-based Parasanti, a tech startup that uses data analytics to help farmers and ranchers improve production, took first place at the 2021 Rice University Veterans Business Battle in late April. Parasanti, founded by Army veteran Max Adams, was awarded a $15K prize.
Meanwhile, Austin's RavensEye was awarded the competition’s third-place prize with $5K. The company develops a Digital Accessibility for Employment Certification course to assist the visually impaired in training for jobs in the technology field. And a team from the University of Texas, named BruxAway, won the Rice Business Plan Competition, which came with $20K in mentoring from Silver Fox Advisors.
NI acquires Austin startup
NI, an Austin-based company formerly known as National Instruments that makes automated testing equipment and software, has acquired local startup MonoDrive, which makes simulation software for autonomous vehicles. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. NI hopes to use MonoDrive's signal processing and simulations to improve performance in virtual testing environments. Monodrive was founded in 2016 by Celite Milbrandt. 
Featured Jobs Below are featured jobs from our Careers Directory. To feature a job in this newsletter, read more.
In the Know The local startup and innovation stories you need to read today.
Elsewhere in Inno Stories from around the Inno network we think you'll dig. In the Community The events and happenings to know in the ecosystem
For more upcoming events, be sure to check out this month's Inno-approved events calendar or browse the Inno events directory. Keeping Austin Weird & Wired The fun stuff. May the 4th
Well, I don't want to steal any thunder from Cinco de Mayo. Not at all. But, shouldn't May the 4th just be a national holiday where we're encouraged to revisit as many Star Wars flicks as possible in one sitting?
Who's with me?
Alright, may the force be with y'all. Inno Info In-no-fo? Inn-fo? Interested in sponsoring this email? Contact sales@americaninno.com for more information and sponsorship opportunities.
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