Want to stay up to date on the latest startup fundings, launches, and expansions in Austin? Startup Over Coffee’s weekly roundup of startups to watch in Austin will keep you in the loop on the latest Austin tech news. 

M-Files

Finland-based company, M-Files, recently raised an $80 million capital investment and plans to spend some of it on expanding its Austin office. CEO Antti Nivala currently lives in Austin and moved M-Files’ US headquarters to the Capital City in December 2019. M-Files plans to spend a portion of the fresh capital investment on finding a new Austin office space, doubling their Austin office staff size, and investing in more marketing activities. 

M-Files creates data and content organization tool software that enables companies to organize, manage and track documents and information. The software company has a total of 11 offices worldwide including offices in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. According to Austin Inno, M-Files has raised a total of $127 million to date. Among M-Files’ generous investors are Canada-based OpenText Corp and Ohio based Hyland Software Inc. 

Molecula

Molecula, led by CEO H.O. Maycotte, recently closed a $17.6 million Series A funding round led by Ohio venture capital firm, Drive Capital. The recent Series A round brings the company’s total amount raised to $23.6 million. The Austin-based data virtualization startup plans to allocate its new funds toward launching a cloud-based feature store and growing its team.

According to Austin Inno, Molecula prepares data for analytics performed by machine learning and AI. Essentially, Molecula centralizes data for machine learning and artificial intelligence in a data system called a “feature store.” Molucula is thereby creating a data warehouse at scale that machines are able to tackle but manpower alone cannot. Companies can extract data information from this “feature store.” 

Maycotte told Austin Inno he is driven by the fact that so many Silicon Valley companies have decided to make Austin their new home. Building Molecula into a competitive force against Silicon giants is one way this Austinite is attempting to “take back our skyline.”

Knit

Formerly known as PurPics, Austin startup Knit is taking a new approach to connecting brands with consumers. Previously, the startup was focused on helping large companies reach Gen Z consumers through social media channels. Now, Knit connects brands directly with its network of 60,000 young adults who provide consumer insights via text-based surveys or video Q&A’s. The shift to text-based consumer insights was motivated by requests from existing clients. 

According to Austin Inno, Knit has raised a total of $2 million from investors such as Felton Group, Jaffray Woodriff and The Syndicate Fund. Currently the startup is focused on helping consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands. However, Knit is looking at expanding into student housing and consumer technology. 

Everlywell

In December 2020, Everlywell reported a $175 million Series D funding round. Now, one month later, Everlywell reports another $75 million capital investment from HealthQuest Capital. Everlywell plans to use the investment to provide liquidity to existing investors so the $1.3 billion valuation from December will continue to hold. 

Everlywell is an Austin-based healthcare company that develops at home testing kits. The testing kits cover a range of health conditions including food sensitivities, sexually transmitted illnesses, and thyroid issues. Everlywell attributes its rapid growth this year to their at home Covid-19 test kits. Everlywell’s products can be purchased both online and in stores such as CVS, Target and Walgreens. 

According to TechCrunch, HealthQuest Capital’s investment portfolio tends to lean towards companies that have the potential to commercialize diagnostic products. Furthermore, HealthQuest Capital has a broad network of hospitals and healthcare workers, connections which could be useful to Everlywell as they expand their business.

About Savannah Burns: Savannah is a Business Development Associate for Swyft, which is a tech PR firm in Austin and Houston and a top digital marketing and PR agency in Denver since its founding in 2011. Swyft recently opened a satellite office where it offers tech PR in San Francisco. Swyft was also listed as one of the top tech PR agencies in Texas by the B2B services review site, Clutch.co.