Personal blog of Yzmir Ramirez

 Utah-based Peak Ventures has closed on a second fund for $50 million, outpacing Kickstart Seed Fund as the seed VC firm with the largest coffers in the state thus far. Peak took in $23 million for the first fund and has since invested in local startups like Owlet and Homie as well as the New York-based Nigerian education startup Andela. Sid Krommenhoek and Jeff Burningham launched the fund… Read More

 Alchemist Accelerator has closed a $2.5 million fund for very early-stage investments in tech startups serving large organizations in an era when robotics, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are fundamentally changing the way they operate. Limited partners in Alchemists’ second fund included Johnson Controls, Ericsson and Analog Garage, a VC arm of Analog Devices.… Read More

 Three members of the senior investing team at Genesis Partners, a major Israeli venture firm, are stepping out with a new, early-stage fund of their own called F2 Capital. For the unfamiliar, Genesis Partners’ portfolio companies have been acquired by the likes of Apple, IBM, Microsoft and Sapiens over the past decade, and have gone public on the Nasdaq exchange in the U.S. as well.… Read More

 A “pottech” company called Wurk has raised $1 million in seed funding to help cannabis businesses such as dispensaries or growers comply with all the different regulations coming into play around the burgeoning legal cannabis industry. The seed deal closed before various ballots issues were voted on today in the U.S., which could make the sale and use of marijuana legal… Read More

 Bee Partners in San Francisco has raised a $30 million fund, its second, to lead investments in very early stage startups based in the U.S. Founded in 2009, the firm is best-known as the first investor in TubeMogul, now a publicly traded adtech company. Bee was also an early backer of the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, drone tech startup Skycatch, the second-hand fashion marketplace Tradesy… Read More

 London-based startup Beamery, formerly known as Seed.Jobs, has raised $2 million in a seed round from Edenred Capital Partners and Grupa Pracuj, a human resources tech firm. Beamery makes software that helps recruiters or employers identify, get connected to and nurture relationships with prospective hires, long before they apply for a job. The company’s client roster includes employers… Read More

 Email has always been a poor file manager and startup MxHero wants to change the way we manage email attachments. To that end, it announced it closed its seed round today with a $500K contribution. Funders include lead investor White Star Capital along with contributors GW Holdings, Esther Dyson, Ari Kushner, Actinic Ventures and a strategic Miami-based investor group they chose not to name.… Read More

 Voyat, a social CRM tool aimed at the hotel industry, came out of stealth today and announced $1.8M in seed funding from Metamorphic Ventures, Eniac Ventures, BoxGroup and several angel investors, including Brett Crosby, who was co-founder of Google Analytics. Metamorpic Ventures is led by David Hirsch, who worked out of Google’s New York office for 8 years. These Google connections… Read More