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. 

Aceable

Aceable, an Austin-based education technology startup, recently secured a $50 million investment led by HGGC LLC, a private equity firm in Silicon Valley. The new funds will help Aceable expand into more states and hire new employees. For Aceable, expanding into new states includes obtaining required certifications for its courses. 

While Aceable offers over 2,200 online courses, the most popular are the online drivers ed course, the defensive-driving course, and the real estate licence course. Aceable currently operates in 13 states and has taught over 13 million people. According to Austin Inno, CEO Blake Garrett plans to eventually offer certifications in the food and beverage, hospitality, mortgage, health care, safety and hazard training, teaching, and personal training and fitness industries.

Uhnder

Uhnder Inc. recently announced a $45 million Series C funding round, bringing the total amount raised to $145 million. According to Austin Inno, Uhnder’s new funding was led by Sensata Technologies. The announcement comes after a year of developing unique technology that will ultimately rival lidar, light detection and ranging technology that is key for self driving and assisted driving automobiles. 

Uhnder has developed radar-on-chip technology that enables vehicles to identify and track thousands of objects. Founders, CEO Manju Hedge and COO Curtis Davis, report that the radar-on-chip technology is both more accurate and efficient than lidar. Lidar operates using light and laser, therefore Uhnder’s technology has the advantage in rain and snow. Furthermore, Uhnder’s radar-on-chip technology required less engineering than lidar technology today.

Self Financial 

Self Financial, a startup that is focused on helping people build credit, received a $40 million Series D funding round, right before the start of the new year. The recent funding brings the company’s total amount raised to $77 million and comes less a year after their Series C funding in February. According to Built In Austin, the Series D round was led by Meritech Capital. 

For any major purchase, having a good credit score is vital. However, many Americans have bad credit. Self Financial helps people build credit by giving individuals small loans. Individuals are able to pay off their loans in small, manageable increments. With Self Financial’s help, people are able to build their credit and raise their credit scores.

Elon Musk and Oracle move to Austin

He’s been hinting at it for months, but according to Built In Austin, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink has officially moved to the Capital City. The announcement comes after Tesla started building a new gigafactory in Austin. As Austin increasingly becomes the hottest tech hub in the nation, bringing big names like Musk and new jobs to the city, we can only expect more people. According to Built In Austin, the population in Austin is expected to double in 20 years. 

While Elon Musk has been talking about the move to Austin for quite some time now, he’s not the only company leaving the Bay Area for Texas. Built In Austin recently announced Oracle will be moving its headquarters to Austin as well. Oracle has had a presence in Austin for years but now the tech giant will officially be an Austin-based company. And of course, with the headquarter move, Oracle is bringing hundreds of job opportunities with them.

About Savannah Burns: Savannah is a Business Development Associate for Swyft, which is a tech PR agency 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.