Fall in Seattle began this week with a flurry of investment deals. In addition to new capital for Apptentive and Context Relevant, which we covered earlier this week, Pro.com, Array Health, Ghostruck, DocuSign, and POW announced new investments. Read on for details:
—Pro.com, a new online service for estimating home remodeling costs and connecting with contractors, raised $14 million from Seattle venture capital firms Maveron and Madrona Venture Group and earlier investors. Dan Levitan of Maveron and Scott Jacobson of Madrona are joining Pro.com’s board. The funding will be used to add customers and contractors nationally.
Pro.com, headed by former Amazon executives, including CEO Matt Williams, raised $3.5 million in seed funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz—where Williams was an entrepreneur in residence; Madrona; and Bezos Expeditions, the investment vehicle of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. This latest funding round continues a flood of money into Seattle-based companies trying to reinvent the home improvement marketplace. The other major player is Porch, which recently announced $33 million in total funding.
—Array Health has raised $13 million from Noro-Moseley Partners and Vocap Investment Partners in the first institutional funding round for the Seattle company making software to run health insurance marketplaces. We noted part of the funding based on an SEC filing late last month. The funding will help the company, founded in 2006, hire in areas including product development, sales, and marketing, as demand grows thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act, it says in a news release.
—DocuSign, which raised an $85 million Series E round in March, took what appears to be a $30 million strategic investment from the venture arm of Australian telecom giant Telstra. The size of the investment was not disclosed in the news release, but a DocuSign representative said that it has raised more than $230 million. At the time of its Series E raise, total funding was reported at more than $200 million. DocuSign, which makes tools for digital signatures, got its start in Seattle and still has a significant presence here, but is now headquartered in San Francisco.
—Ghostruck, a marketplace for professional moving services, has raised $1.8 million and plans to use the funding to hire four to eight new employees in business development, marketing, and software development. The company was part of startup incubator 9Mile Labs‘ second cohort. The company has a mobile app that allows people to upload a picture of the items they need moved and connect with available professional movers.
—Code Fellows, the Seattle-based programming school, is expanding to Portland, OR, with a four-week entry-level course in November. Code academies are proliferating in the Northwest. This week, we talked with some of the first graduates of the Ada Developers Academy, a Seattle nonprofit program to train women in software development. It’s one possible solution to the tech industry’s lack of diversity. Another is this weekend’s Hack the CD event, beginning at Garfield High School today. Here’s a bit more on how organizers hope the event can lead to new business ideas for Seattle’s Central District and greater opportunities for people of color to participate in the tech economy.
—POW, a Seattle outdoor apparel company, received a $2.5 million investment from Columbia Pacific Advisors, the companies said this week.
