Wayfair stock surges after Black Friday
Thanks, Black Friday. Wayfair saw a 58 percent increase in sales year-over-year during the five days following Thanksgiving, leading to an 11 percent surge in the Boston e-commerce company’s stock price by Wednesday of this week. Though Wayfair has not disclosed revenue numbers for this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the retail giant did report revenue of over $1.4 billion during the fourth quarter of 2017. That’s a lot of fake Christmas trees. [Boston Business Journal]
Goldman Sachs leads $70M round for Aras
Aras is well on its way of helping major manufacturers transform and digitize with its latest funding round. The Andover-based company, which offers product lifecycle management (PLM) software for enterprises, today announced a $70 million investment led by Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing group, with participation from Silver Lake Kraftwerk. The Series D round of growth equity will help Aras expand globally, while focusing on in-house development and technology acquisition. In tandem with the funding news, Aras announced that Hillel Moerman and Holger Staude of Goldman Sachs will join Aras’ Board of Directors as a board member and as an observer, respectively. [Press Release]
Wise Systems raises $6.9M Series D to help companies make smarter deliveries
Wise Systems, a Cambridge-based software company that helps businesses make smart delivery decisions, just raised a $6.92 million Series D round. Wise Systems' solutions (including their route optimization platform) help major brands automatically schedule routes, monitor routes in progress and adjust for delays on the ground. According to the company, their customers typically see an "80 percent" reduction in late deliveries. [Press Release]
Botkeeper raises $18M to usher in AI-driven bookkeeping
Botkeeper, a Boston-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to automate bookkeeping, just raised $18 million — a pretty impressive Series A round. The investment was led by some heavy hitters in the venture capital world, including Greycroft and Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund. Botkeeper said the funding will be used to grow its sales, engineering and marketing teams, and announced they are bringing on Chris Mahl as chief revenue officer and executive vice president. [Built In Boston]
Video game rehab? It’s a thing now
Parents are blaming Fortnite, a free survival video game, for their children’s slipping grades and sleepiness in school. Their attempt at finding a solution: Video game rehab. According to The Boston Globe, “reset” camps are being offered in places like California and North Carolina to provide group therapy and digital detox sessions. According to the game’s publisher, Fortnite (which launched in 2017) has an estimated 125 million players worldwide. No word on how many of those players identify as Fortnite addicts, however. [The Boston Globe]
Workable to grow sales and marketing teams with fresh $50M
Workable is making moves to lighten the load for recruiters everywhere with its latest $50 million Series C round. The investment, led by Zouk Capital, brings Workable’s total funding to $84 million. Workable’s CEO Nikos Moraitakis said the fresh funding will be used to grow its local sales, marketing and customer support teams. The company’s recruitment software makes finding talent easier for companies by replacing spreadsheets and emails in favor of automating large portions of the candidate sourcing process. [Built In Boston]
Evolv adds to its board of directors
Physical security company Evolv Technology announced the addition of Alan Cohen and David Orfao of General Catalyst to its board of directors this week. Cohen and Orfao join a team of trained security personnel, former CIA and FBI operatives, and tech veterans on a singular mission to improve people screening and keep people safe from mass casualty events. Both board additions have experience scaling sales, marketing and distribution for businesses like Cisco and IBM. We’ve written about Evolv’s technology here. [Press Release]
