ClearMotion reels in $115M to make your car rides smoother than butter
ClearMotion, a Woburn-based auto tech company, just raised the bar for Boston tech’s fundings in 2019 with an impressive $115 million Series D round. The investment was led by Franklin Templeton Investments, and will be used to commercialize ClearMotion’s product: hardware and software that senses roads’ unevenness and works to make a smoother ride for drivers and passengers. Sounds like the future of driving could be smoother than butter. [Xconomy]
Emotion AI company Affectiva looks to raise $30M
Affectiva, a Boston-based AI company that can measure human emotion with its software, is looking to raise $30 million, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows. So far, the company has raised $20 million of a prospective $30 million round of investment, with the funding coming from just two investors. An MIT spinout, Affectiva has created a series of emotion recognition products used by industries ranging from cars to market research. Using deep learning and machine learning methodologies, the company analyzes millions of facial expressions from the world’s largest emotion data repository, and then uses the insights from that data to classify emotional responses. [Boston Business Journal]
Facebook reveals quirky new offices at Binney Street
“Like” this: Facebook is opening a brand new Cambridge office, with room for 650 employees. The new office at 100 Binney Street features three floors providing over 130,000 square feet of space, and is designed to help the social media giant roll out its next phase of expansion in Boston, the city of its storied conception. Employees there will work on projects like Facebook’s “Connectivity Lab,” which is developing new ways to bring internet connections to underserved regions. Amenities in the new office will include eight art installations, 90 bike parking spaces and the “Hack Shack Café,” which will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to Facebook employees. [Built In Boston]
Tidelift just raised $25M to support open source creators
Open source is about to get even better, thanks to Tidelift, a Boston-based startup that gives software development teams professionally maintained, secured and licensed open source software. The startup announced on Monday that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding to double its team in 2019 and accelerate the adoption of its new business model, which gives open source project teams a new platform and market for building profitable businesses around their projects. [Built In Boston]
Humatics raises $28M to help people and machines collaborate
Humatics announced a $28 million Series A round led by Tenfore Holdings this week, which brought the company’s total financing to more than $50 million. Blackhorn Ventures and JCI Ventures — as well as all former major investors in Humatics’ last Series A round — also participated in the round. Humatics will use the funding to expand operations at its new 25,000-square-foot headquarters in Waltham, as well as scale productions of its “breakthrough” microlocation products. The investment comes on the heels of a major year for Humatics, which acquired 5D Robotics and its subsidiary, Time Domain, this year. [Built In Boston]
