Allbirds flocks to Back Bay on Newbury Street
Silicon Valley wardrobe staples have made their way eastward. Allbirds, the San Francisco-born shoe startup, wants Bostonians to embrace the latest wardrobe craze coming out of the Bay Area: their signature sneakers. To help introduce the shoes to locals, Allbirds opened up a brick-and-mortar store on Newbury Street, the brand’s fifth global retail location. In an effort to pay homage to Boston, the store even incorporated a green theme (because Celtics and the “Green Monster” of course). [Boston Herald]
Volta Networks’ unveils new virtual routing platform
Virtual routing company Volta Networks unveiled a new platform, the Volta Elastic Virtual Routing Engine. The cloud-based virtual platform lowers the cost of ownership by 90 percent when compared to legacy routers. The platform will help network operators keep up with the task of building and operating networks in today’s world of hyper-consumption. For math lovers, that rate of consumption is expected to reach 4.8 zettabytes by 2022 (in layman's terms, consumption should double in under five years). [PR Newswire]
MineralTree closes $50M in growth equity
Fintech startup MineralTree closed $50 million in growth equity, led by Great Hill Partners with participation from .406 Ventures and Eight Road Ventures. The accounts payable and payments automation provider plans to use the funding to accelerate new opportunities with middle-market businesses. The recent injection points to continued growth for the company that already increased its revenue by 80 percent last year. “Our partnership with Great Hill Partners represents an important milestone in our journey,” said Founder and CEO BC Krishna in a statement. “We are incredibly fortunate to have investors that share our vision—and provide us with resources necessary to achieve the growth and scale that the market opportunity demands.” [Business Wire]
More money more cyber safety: CyberX raises $18M in strategic funding round
CyberX secured $18 million in a strategic funding round led by Qualcomm Ventures LLC and Inven Capital, bringing their total funding to $48 million. Existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Glilot Capital Partners, Flint Capital, and OurCrowd also participated in the round. The startup is founded by two former military cyber experts, Omer Schneider and Nir Giller, who defended critical infrastructure. They applied that experience to help create the company’s industrial IoT and industrial control system security solutions. [CyberX]
ezCater acquires catering management company Monkey Group
Online catering marketplace ezCater acquired Monkey Group, a cloud-based catering management system. The combination will help restaurants tap into their largest growth opportunity available: catering. The new suite of tools will provide more catering orders than any other source, on top of catering software, expertise and data. “Combining Monkey Group’s industry leading offerings with ezCater’s nationwide online marketplace, expert marketing engine, and API-first platform results in faster, more profitable growth for restaurants,” said ezCater Co-Founder and CEO Stefania Mallett in a statement. [Business Wire]
