Follow the Money:
ParkHub Buys Competitor, Closes $13M Series B Round; Kibo Makes Acquisition

You’ll also find news about Neighborhood Goods' newest round and upcoming expansion, Peloton Therapeutics, Shop Simplay, Banner Oak Capital, Hyphen Solutions, and Naya Ventures in this roundup of investment, merger, and acquisition activity involving people and companies with ties to North Texas.

What companies are finding funding or having a big exit? From startup investments to grants and acquisitions, Dallas Innovates tracks what’s happening in North Texas money every Thursday. Sign up for our e-newsletter to stay in the loop.

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ParkHub closes $13M round; acquires SpotHero’s enterprise business

ParkHub, the Dallas-based B2B parking technology provider, announced it has completed its $13 million Series B funding round and has acquired a competitor.

ParkHub offers subscription-based solutions that help parking professionals improve customer experience and drive revenue with streamlined operations and the abililty to gain real-time analytics, Founder and CEO George Baker Sr. said. The Series B round was led by Santa Monica, California-based Arrowroot Capital, and it will allow ParkHub to drive sales and marketing growth and hasten product development.

ParkHub

George Baker, CEO of ParkHub. [Image: Rebeca Posadas-Nava]

Baker told Dallas Innovates in an interview that the money is the first institutional funding raise for the startup. Starting in 2014, ParkHub raised $10 million in funding from high-wealth individuals such as Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones [in 2016], Bruce Williams, John Jaggers, Rugger Burke, Scot Harper, Ryan Osborne, and others.

“Jerry Jones’ investment came through Blue and Silver Ventures,” Baker said. “We were one of his first investments.”

As part of the Series B funding raise, Arrowroot Capital Partner Kareem El Sawy and Chuck Hailing from their Strategic Resource Group will join the ParkHub board.

“This partnership will undoubtedly accelerate our growth,” he said of the relationship with Arrowroot Capital.

“We’re at the intersection of where parking is becoming synonymous with mobility.”
George Baker Sr.

Among ParkHub’s customers are AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the Super Bowl, American Airlines Center, and Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

ParkHub acquired the enterprise business of Chicago-based SpotHero, further enhancing ParkHub’s ability to provide improved services to consumers, event venues, and parking operations. 

According to Baker, here’s how ParkHub will benefit drivers and venues:

  • Drivers will see faster, easier, and more convenient parking enabled by technology for rapid cash-free payment processing and digitized parking passes;
  • Venues will be able to offer a better overall guest experience and get visitors from “street to seat” more quickly. They will see an increase in parking revenues because guests will realize the benefits of digital parking solutions; and
  • Parking operators will be able to recommend a more robust parking technology “toolkit” to their clients and use it to streamline day-to-day operations and parking sales.

The deal with SpotHero also gives ParkHub a large market share in the northeastern United States “SpotHero is an asset purchase agreement,” he said. “We kept competing with them on the enterprise side.”

ParkHub’s growth and product enhancement will lead it into the future of parking. “We’re at the intersection of where parking is becoming synonymous with mobility,” Baker said. That’s because of the proliferation of ride services and other forms of transportation, such as scooters, bicycles, and public transit.

“We will continue to invest in our products that our industry loves and our clients love,” he said.

Peloton Therapeutics nets $150M in Series E funding

Dallas-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical company Peloton Therapeutics Inc. announced the closing of an oversubscribed $150 million Series E financing round.

ParkHub

John Josey, CEO, Peloton

Peloton is a drug discovery and development company that is advancing first-in-class oral medicines for cancer and other serious conditions.

According to a release, the round was led by RA Capital Management and was joined by new investors including Eventide Asset Management, Biotechnology Value Fund, OrbiMed, EcoR1 Capital, Vida Ventures, Curative Ventures, and Driehaus Capital Management LLC.

Peloton said its existing investors, including The Column Group, Nextech Invest Ltd, Topspin Fund LP, Tichenor Ventures LLC, and Foresite Capital Management also participated in the financing.

“Proceeds from this financing will be used to advance Peloton’s research and development pipeline, including our lead drug candidate, PT2977, a potent and selective oral HIF-2α inhibitor,” Peloton CEO John Josey said in a statement.

Neighborhood Goods rakes in $8.8M in additional funding, announces expansion

Dallas-based Neighborhood Goods, a retail innovator that launched its first location in Plano last year, is continuing its upward trajectory. The startup announced this week that it has raised an $8.8 million in expanded seed financing, a boost the retailer will use to open its second location in New York City.

“Since we announced Neighborhood Goods last spring, we’ve been fortunate, probably undeservedly so, to be subject to a significant amount of excitement about—and interest in—our concept,” co-founder and CEO Matt Alexander said in a statement. “As a reflection of that, in the fall, ahead of our launch, our investors saw an opportunity to capitalize on that excitement and to accelerate our expansion plans for 2019 by driving additional seed funding.”

The expanded seed funding brings Neighborhood Goods’ cumulative total in the new round to $14.5 million.

The round was led by previous investor Global Founders Capital with participation from prior lead investor Forerunner Ventures, as well as Maveron, NextGen Venture Partners, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Ground Up Ventures, Capital Factory, Michael Dubin (CEO of Dollar Shave Club), and others. 

Two funding rounds in 2018 netted Neighborhood Goods $13.75 million.

Shop Simply raising up to $5M in new funding round

Shop Simply Inc., a Dallas-based startup that developed software that allows online shoppers to buy merchandise at multiple retailers via a single checkout, is raising up to $5 million in a new round of funding, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In February 2018, we reported that Shop Simply raised about $400,000. Shop Simply was co-founded by Steve Nadon, Dr. Alistair Black, and Eric Peus, and uses virtual robot technology that automates and enables the entire shopping and checkout process.


READ NEXT Follow the Money: ReCode Nets $1M, Monarc Gets $700K, PanOptis Makes Exit


Banner Oak Capital raises $200M for multifamily deals

Citing a filing, the Dallas Business Journal reported that Dallas real estate investor Banner Oak Capital has raised $200 million for deals related to multifamily properties.

The DBJ reported that an arm of Banner Oak invests in new apartment building developments that are sourced by a related operating company, Trinsic Residential Group. 

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Kibo to acquire real-time omnichannel solutions provider Certona Corp.

Kibo, a Dallas-based cloud commerce solutions provider, said it will acquire Certona Corp., a San Diego, California-based real-time omnichannel personalization solution provider and a pioneer of AI-driven experience individualization.

No financial details of the deal were released. Kibo said in a statement the acquisition merges Kibo’s cloud commerce platform made up of both e-commerce and order-management solutions, and Certona’s personalization platform.

Kibo said the combined company represents a milestone for the future of digital commerce by “putting personalization of the customer journey front and center for retailers while also providing flexible, innovative cloud-based commerce solutions.” 

Addison’s Hyphen Solutions to acquire Canadian software provider

Hyphen Solutions, Addison’s cloud-based construction management software provider, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Canada-based HomeFront Software, an ERP platform focused on residential builders, as well as Zybertech Construction Software Services, Canada’s largest distributor of Sage 100 and Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate Software.

No financial terms were released about the deal, which is expected to close this month.

According to a release, HomeFront’s open platform integrates directly with six accounting systems so that builders can pick their system of choice while still using HomeFront’s builder-centric platform.

GN Audio acquires Naya Ventures portfolio company

A portfolio company of Irving-based Naya Ventures has been acquired for $125 million.

Cupertino, California-based Altia Systems, a developer of premium video communications solutions using digital multicamera array technology, has been acquired by GN Audio.

“Altia Systems was one of the first investments we had in our first fund,”said Dayakar Puskoor, managing partner at Naya Ventures, in a statement.

“ParkHub closes $13M round” was updated with additional funding details on Feb. 22, 8:50 p.m.


Funding and Exit Successes

What companies are finding funding or having a big exit? We’re tracking the deals in the Dallas-Fort Worth Innovation Guide. 
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