Several e-commerce startups, including StarWind, global leader in software storage, highlight this week’s Startup Roundup.
Several e-commerce startups, including StarWind, global leader in software storage, highlight this week’s Startup Roundup.
Gagein April 15, $6.4 Million
Gagein, the founder of the patent-pending SmartTRACK technology, closed a $6.4 million Series A funding.
The private investors names have not been disclosed.
“Gagein provides multiple advantages that are unrivaled by anything available on the market today. With 300 percent user growth per month, we look forward to expanding our market reach with this funding round.” Gagein’s CEO and Co-Founder Luosheng Peng told SYS-Con Media.
The funds will grow the company’s “staff size and expand office space and resources to support even more sales professionals”
StarWind Software April 15, $3.25 M
StarWind, global leader in reliable, scalable, high-performance and easy-to-use Windows iSCSI SAN storage software closed $3.25M in Series B funding.
“Almaz [Capital led the round] with participation from ABRT Venture and AVentures Capital.” according to the press release.
The funding will enable StarWind to launch the “first solution running on Windows platform that creates clusters of multiple hypervisor hosts without separate physical shared storage.”
FireHost April 16, $25 Million
FireHost, the secure cloud company, closed a $25 million Series E funding round.
The Stephens Group, LLC led the round.
“The funding is reflective of FireHost’s rapid growth, due in large part to the security technology it pioneered that differentiates its secure cloud business from other competitors as well as its uncompromising perspective that companies should implement secure cloud operating practices and not settle for checkbox compliance. By serving customers sincere about security protection, FireHost has doubled revenue in each of the past three years.” Reports Business Wire
OwnZones April 16, $5.9M
Content curating platform, OwnZones Media Network, has closed $5.9 million in Series A financing.
The round’s participants names have yet to be disclosed.
“As we continue our rapid growth, the announced capital investment allows us to fine-tune our platform technology and build the most complete turn-key sales channel for premium partners to maximize the value of their content,” said Dan Goman, CEO of OwnZones. “The sheer quantity of media out there has resulted in discovery challenges for all but a fraction of publishers, it’s a lose-lose for both publishers and consumers that OwnZones is committed to resolving. By offering this promotional period, we are giving audiences the opportunity to experience the win-win of an ad-free, multi-media consumption experience from their preferred device.”
The funds will be used for marketing and further development of the platform.
AgilOne April 15, $25M
AgilOne, the big data marketing firm, has closed $25 million in a funding round.
The investors have yet to be disclosed.
“AgilOne’s marketing platform targets small- and medium-sized businesses that want to use big data to get insights to help grow their business. The platform promises to help clients understand which marketing activities make the most sense and which are just a waste of time and money.” Says Venture Beat.
The funding will likely go toward platform development and expansion.
ECaring April 16 $3.5M
eCaring, a health care company that provides a cloud home care management and monitoring system, recently secured $3.5m in Series A funding.
Ascent Biomedical Ventures led the round.
“The company intends to use the funds for product development as well as the expansion of sales and marketing efforts in the the enterprise markets of managed care plans, payers, home health agencies, hospitals and other health care organizations.” Reports FinSMEs.
VanDyne April 14, $15 M
VanDyne SuperTurbo Inc. has completed a $15 M Series C financing round.
“The funding round was led by Northwater Capital Management Inc.’s Intellectual Property Fund, with participation by existing investors in the company. Northwater is based in Chicago and Toronto.” Reports NCBR.
The funds will go towards the commercialization of the company’s SuperTurbo technology.
ItsOn Inc. April 15, $12.5M
ItsOn Inc., leader in Mobile Smart Services™, has received $12.5 million in a Series C round of funding.
Tenaya Capital and Andreessen Horowitz participated in the round.
“We are now selling our SaaS platform services to large, global mobile operators and our company has transitioned from startup to revenue-growth stage,” said ItsOn founder, CEO and Chairman Greg Raleigh. “We are thrilled to partner with the very experienced and successful team at Tenaya to build our company. The purpose of this financing is to accelerate the market launch for our cloud-based virtual OSS & BSS platform and grow our mobile operator customer revenues in Europe, Asia,Middle East and South America.”
Betterment April 15, $32M
Betterment, a company that offers a web-based money management service, has raised $32 million in Series C funding.
Citi Ventures, Northwestern Mutual Capital and Globespan Capital Partners, along with existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures and Anthemis Group all participated in the round.
Betterment “seeks to automate the role of traditional wealth advisors by offering investors cloud-based software to guide their savings plans and optimize investment gains.” Reports Forbes.
Ineda Systems April 21, $17 M
Ineda Systems, a US and Indian low-power SoCs (system on a chip) developer has raised $17 million in Series B funding.
Walden-Riverwood Ventures led the round with assistance from Samsung Catalyst Fund, Qualcomm Incorporated, IndusAge Partners and others, along with existing investors.
“The market is primed for a new class of semiconductor architecture that is specifically designed to be ultra-low power and high performance for use in the rapidly growing wearable technology space,” said Ineda Systems CEO Dasaradha Gude.
The funding will be used to further develop Ineda’s new class of highly integrated, ultra-low power semiconductor and software products.
Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, is clear-eyed about the chipmaker’s many problems and the tough road ahead as he engineers a turnaround to revive this legendary Silicon Valley company.
“This is an iconic and essential company that is important for the industry and also to the United States,” Tan said in a keynote address at Intel’s conference in Las Vegas this week.
The nuclear physicist, who dropped out of the Ph.D. program at MIT, is best known for transforming Cadence Design Systems into a robust chip design and software company. He was also a board member at Intel.
“We fell behind on innovation. We have been too slow to adapt to meet your needs. You deserve better, and we need to improve, and we will,” Tan told his audience of customers and vendors. “Please be brutally honest with us.”
Tan called this juncture a “defining moment” for the legendary chipmaker.
Intel was once the world’s most valuable chipmaker — a crown that would go to Nvidia. With its “Intel Inside” branding, it was the first chipmaker to become a household name. In the 1990s, Intel and Windows became so dominant in PCs that the pair were called “Wintel.” Intel founder Gordon Moore’s “Moore’s Law” still stands 60 years after it was created.
Intel’s troubles began in the mid-2010s, when it started missing key product deadlines and struggled to advance to 10nm manufacturing, allowing rivals like TSMC and AMD to overtake it in performance and efficiency. Once the industry leader, Intel became hampered by internal bureaucracy, a rigid culture, and a hardware-first mindset that lagged behind a software- and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven future, while competitors like ARM and Nvidia thrived.
Intel also famously turned down Apple’s request to make chips for the iPhone, paving the way for Qualcomm. In the third quarter of 2024, Intel posted its largest quarterly loss of $16.6 billion, including a $15.9 billion charge to reflect lower valuations and costs to lay off 15,000 employees.
Now there are even reports of Intel as a takeover target — humiliating for a tech icon. “Intel Corp.’s fall from market dominance to takeover target is a tale marked by missed opportunities and rising expenses,” wrote Iuri Struta, senior research associate at S&P Global Market Intelligence, in a blog post. In 2020, Intel was the second most valuable chipmaker. As of last September, it had fallen to 14th place, he said.
Tan understands the enormity of his task to turn around Intel. “We have a lot of hard work ahead. We have fallen short of your expectations. I will pull together strong teams to correct the past mistakes and start to earn your trust,” he said. “I will not be satisfied until we delight all of you.”
Read more: Intel Faces Potential Breakup as Broadcom and TSMC Explore Deals
Tan faces a big challenge in reviving a company with decades of inertia to lead in a market that now moves at hyperspeed. His four areas of focus are: changing the culture, strengthening the core business, incubating and growing new business, and building customer trust.
Tan said he will bring Intel back to its roots: an engineering-focused company. He promised to meet with engineers even six to seven levels down from the C-suite to hear their ideas and unleash their creativity. Tan also promised to retain and attract key talent, which had been leaving Intel.
Tan said Intel needs to adopt a startup culture to innovate, where every day is Day One. His weekends are filled with meetings with engineers and software architects who have “brilliant” ideas and who “want to change the world. That’s when I get excited to work closely with them,” Tan said.
Tan also plans to simplify the way Intel works because “bureaucracy kills innovation.” The startup mindset will enable them to act with speed.
“We are operating in a very dynamic, fast-moving industry. Technology adoptions and disruption are accelerating faster than ever. This is being driven by the one transformational force called AI,” Tan said.
Intel will target three AI areas: cloud AI, generative and agentic AI, and physical AI such as robotics. To that end, Tan said Intel will spin off non-core business divisions but did not name which ones.
To right its operations, Tan said Intel must change the way it makes products. The company used to start by making hardware — chips — and then developing the software to make it work. “The world has changed. You have to flip that around,” Tan said. “You start with the problem, what you’re trying to solve. … Then we work backwards from there.”
Tan also addressed Intel’s product and foundry priorities. In client computing, he reaffirmed a commitment to innovation, noting the competitive landscape has shifted and Intel must not “stand still.” Pushing forward with AI-enhanced PCs, the company aims to ship its next-generation Panther Lake processors on its 18A process node later this year.
Perhaps most critically, Tan confirmed Intel’s ambitions to manufacture chips for customers around the world. “Foundry is a service business that is built on the foundational principle of trust,” he said.
At this stage in his career, Tan said he has been asked why he would take on one of the most difficult jobs in tech.
“The answer is very simple. I love this company,” Tan said, with tears in his eyes. “It was very hard for me to watch it struggle. I simply cannot stay on the sidelines knowing that I could help turn things around.”
Photo: Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Credit: Intel livestream
