• Ganaz

  Participated · Series A · Jun 2021

  Ganaz builds a workforce stack tailored to agricultural workers who often lack documentation and bank accounts, using SMS/WhatsApp for payments and offline-capable tablets for onboarding and basic training. The platform centralizes worker records and employer-facing interfaces while acting as an intermediary for text alerts and communications. Ganaz plans to issue a payroll Mastercard later this year to let workers avoid check-cashing fees and to capture a share of card transaction fees, and it intends to automate remittances through integrated partnerships. The company emphasizes low-tech, accessible UX (SMS, WhatsApp, simple web apps for sensitive flows) and has designated itself a public benefit corporation to prioritize mission-aligned decisions. Operational traction includes 75 employers signed and roughly 175,000 workers on the platform; Ganaz reports that both ARR and user count approximately tripled year over year. Near-term priorities are rapid expansion, aggressive roadmap execution, and solidifying its position in the U.S. and Mexico before broader expansion. Ganaz builds a platform that helps agriculture and manufacturing employers communicate with large numbers of workers via text from a central dashboard. The product includes onboarding tools, worker-retention features and a service that will let workers receive payment through a dedicated debit card. The startup plans to offer a built-in remittance feature so workers can send earnings abroad. Ganaz targets blue-collar industries and seasonal foreign laborers who are relatively new to technology and are underserved by mainstream SaaS. The company graduated from the Seattle Techstars program last year after pivoting from an earlier Glassdoor-like concept. CEO Hannah Freeman previously ran partnerships at Fair Trade USA; Ganaz has seven employees and is hiring engineering talent. The company has raised $3.3 million to date. Ganaz operates a platform that lets farmers post job listings, communicate directly with seasonal workers, and send urgent messages while translating communications into workers’ native languages. The product reduces reliance on intermediaries by enabling direct employer-worker connections and claims reach to hundreds of seasonal farm workers. The company was co-founded by Hannah Freeman and Sri Artham in spring 2017 and is headquartered in Seattle, serving farms up and down the West Coast. Ganaz graduated from the Techstars Seattle accelerator earlier this year and received seed funding as part of that program. With the latest financing, the company plans to at least double its five-person team and recruit diverse, customer-facing hires who are close to the communities they serve. To date Ganaz has raised close to $2.35 million.

• Soft Robotics

  Participated · Series A · Dec 2015

  Soft Robotics is a Bedford, Massachusetts–based company that develops compliant soft robotic grippers and an AI/computer vision platform for handling fragile and variably sized items, particularly in food production. Its core product, the mGripAI system, combines 3D vision with soft gripping hardware to pick up meat, produce, and other inconsistently sized foodstuffs. The company has emphasized food production as a major go-to-market strategy and has seen increased demand as soft robotics grippers have become more in vogue. Soft Robotics reported that pandemic-related dynamics helped produce the four largest sales quarters in its eight-year history. The firm announced a $26 million Series C to accelerate deployment of its mGripAI system. The round was led by Tyson Ventures, with Marel and Johnsonville joining as new investors. Previously, Soft Robotics raised a $23 million Series B and a $10 million extension in June of last year. Soft Robotics develops soft, pneumatic-powered robotic grippers combined with 3D perception and AI to allow robots to handle fragile and variable food products. Its technology augments widely available industrial robots with hand-eye coordination for tasks typically done by human workers. The company targets food-supply-chain use cases such as agriculture, food processing and logistics, where product variability and unstructured environments challenge traditional robots. Demand for its automation solutions has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic amid labor shortages and concerns about disease transmission. Tyson Foods is an existing customer and Tyson Ventures has joined the investor list. Founded in 2013 and based in New England, the company has raised roughly $58 million to date after the latest extension. Soft Robotics designs soft-material end-effectors (grippers) that allow robots to more easily grip varied objects without the precise tolerances and complex programming required by traditional industrial claws. The company has established relationships with large global clients and the article notes it likely isn’t hurting for revenue. Product efforts include the mGrip gripper and an integrated system tied to FANUC’s Mini‑P controller for easy use with FANUC robots. The new capital will fund growth initiatives to increase gripper variability and expand applications in food packaging, consumer goods, e‑commerce and logistics. Soft Robotics plans to target automation of returns processing in e‑commerce, a highlighted pain point. The company has previously raised $20M in 2018 and $5M in 2015, each described as oversubscribed rounds. Soft Robotics develops soft, air-filled robotic grippers made from rubbery materials that are more compliant than traditional robotic hands. Its grippers reduce the need for extensive pre-programming and on-board vision by adapting to a variety of objects. The company has primarily served the food industry, handling delicate products like produce and pizza dough, and counts Just Born Quality Confections (makers of Peeps) as a customer. It has also demonstrated a low-cost, AI-driven warehouse system to retrieve products from bins and fulfill retail orders with minimal oversight. Soft Robotics announced a $20 million funding round to expand operations, following a $5 million Series A in late 2015. The company plans to use the new capital to push further into food and beverage categories and to grow its presence in retail, logistics, and warehouse fulfillment. Soft Robotics has developed novel, proprietary soft-robotic technology for manipulation and material handling, capable of handling fresh produce, electronic components, consumer goods, clothing and other objects without tool changes or software modifications. The company was founded in 2013 out of the Whitesides Research Group at Harvard University and is led by CEO Carl Vause. It brought its technology to market in June 2015 and is deploying solutions with industry partners and end users across consumer products, advanced manufacturing and food handling. Soft Robotics is headquartered in Cambridge, MA. The company intends to use recently raised funds to grow commercial deployment of its technology and to support continued product development. No operating metrics (revenue or users) were disclosed in the article.

No current team members are available.