Funding News from Four US Data Firms

Analytics and digital ID firms Tethr, Passbase and Datasembly have announced VC wins of between $7m and $15m this week; while Twilio will invest $50m in customer engagement start-ups via a new fund of its own.

Austin, Texas-based conversation intelligence platform Tethr has raised $15m in funding, led by IAG Capital Partners, with participation from existing investors. The firm's software automates the analysis of unstructured data from customer conversations, delivering insights to decision-makers. The money will go towards expansion of sales and marketing efforts, as well as continued platform development; and with it comes a new CEO, software industry veteran Robert Beasley, with twenty years' experience in founding, growing, and selling tech companies, include work with Tethr in various exec roles for the last six. He joins CTO Adam Larsen, Chief Research and Innovation Officer Matt Dixon, and Chief Product Officer Steve Trier on the leadership team.

Passbase, with offices in New York and Berlin, provides customizable, rapid-installation tools allowing companies to incorporate ID verification, AML compliance and age verification into their products and services. In addition to this week's $10m Series A announcement, the firm revealed that it raised $3.5m in an earlier Seed-2 round. The new round was led by Costanoa Ventures and will be used to scale the firm's team and product suite, and to simplify policy management for cryptocurrency, fintech and other businesses using Passbase for iD verification for compliance purposes. CEO and co-founder Dave McGibbon says, 'This is just the beginning for us as we pursue our vision of becoming a digital identity infrastructure that enables web3 companies to stay compliant and give control of digital identity back to individuals'.

Based in Tycons, VA, USA, Datasembly provides real-time product pricing, promotions and assortment data for retailers and CPG brands. Adding to $10.3m raised sixteen months ago, this week's $7m funding was led by existing investor Valor Siren Ventures, and will help the firm to accelerate the growth of its engineering and sales operations teams, as well as sales and marketing. The company has over three years of data, captured from tens of thousands of retail, grocery and QSR locations across North America through a proprietary data collection engine, and covering pricing, promotions and assortment information for both online and brick and mortar retailers. CEO Ben Reich (pictured) comments: 'We are empowering retailers and manufacturers to make better strategic decisions and react to market changes with precision, speed, and ease through our hyper-local and real time data'. The company is also adding two new board members, Valor Siren Partner Richard Tait, and Datasembly COO Lee Insigna.

San Francisco, CA-based cloud communications platform Twilio has launched a $50m fund to back customer engagement tech start-ups. Twilio Ventures will target early stage companies within its own ecosystem and adjacent areas, and will provide ongoing mentorship, potential product and go-to-market support, and exposure to Twilio's leadership, partners and customers.

Web sites: www.tethr.com , www.passbase.com , www.datasembly.com and www.twilio.com .