6 Detroit Startups Close their Series A

May 6, 2023
detroit is for doers mural

Starting a company isn’t easy. 

For many of our members they start with an idea and continue to evolve over years of hard work and product innovation. 

We’re thrilled to share that six of our Detroit Startups from the Bamboo community have closed their Series A rounds. Many of these teams started with just an idea and a founding team in Detroit. All four startups are now scaling their services to customers all around the world. 

Kode Labs

Kode Labs has built a smart platform that handles hundreds of integrations for property owners and developers. The company bootstrapped their platform from Detroit, taking an $8 Million Series A round to fund faster growth. 

“We have billions of data points,” says Co-founder Edi Demaj. We wanted to raise this round to add to our technical capabilities and add more data scientists and engineering to drive our core thesis of bringing everything in, visualizing it, and command, control, and analysis it to drive an autonomous, efficient real estate portfolio.”

Learn more about Kode Labs or their dozens of positions open here. 

Invest Next

Invest Next started in Bamboo Detroit working on an idea to democratize real estate investing. The platform streamlines fundraising and operations. After bootstrapping, they faced tremendous customer growth and began raising venture capital. The team recently announced a $8.25 Million Series A round to fuel their global acceleration.

“The current market is a challenge for many of our customers and across the industry. Our focus is on being a good partner to sponsors on our platform and continuing to make their lives easier through best-in-class technology,” says InvestNext CEO, Kevin Heras. “We are on course to become a common platform for real estate investment, and the first step towards that goal is to build trust which happens in the most challenging times.”

Learn more about Invest Next and see their open jobs here. 

DeepHow

Deephow is using AI to power video training in manufacturing. Many manufacturers face increasing pressure to reduce costs and maintain efficiency, turning to Deephow as a solution. The startup came to Detroit for Techstars Mobility, and has continued to grow. Their latest $14 Million Series A round will fuel global expansion. Based in Silicon Valley and Royal Oak at Bamboo, the team keeps expanding. 

"Today, manufacturers are under intense pressure to improve efficiency and reduce costs while meeting growing customer demands. At the heart of this transformation is Industry 4.0, which leverages advanced technologies such as AI, IoT, and automation to achieve operational excellence," said Dr. Sam Zheng, CEO and co-founder of DeepHow. "Realizing the full potential of Industry 4.0 requires more than just technology investment, it also requires a strategic approach to capturing, sharing, and transferring knowledge across teams and departments. This oversubscribed Series A round underscores that our investors share our vision. It also demonstrates their confidence in our ability to build on our technical leadership and accelerate our go-to-market operations."

Learn more about DeepHow

AaDya

Using AI to power and protect small businesses from cybersecurity threats, AaDya continues to grow their customer base. Small businesses are a drastically underserved market. The AI tool “Judy” automatically scans and tackles any threats on any device. The Detroit based startup just announced a $5 Million dollar Series A to continue to fuel their global customer expansion.

"The entire idea and mission behind AaDya Security is serving a population that many of the major players within the cybersecurity industry have avoided due to its cumbersome nature and revenue potential," CEO Raffaele Mautone said in the release. "We see this differently. With the combination of a vast universe of SMBs who have been underserved and the rise in cybercrime against them, we saw an opportunity to not only create something innovative, but something that could truly help a segment that comprises the majority of economic activity, not just in North America, but across the globe.

Learn more about AaDya.

Revela

The leading property management solution, Revela, provides a unique way to manage accounting and financing. The startup based in Detroit closed a $9 million dollar Seires A round to continue to lead in property management solutions. Unique to this startup, is the ability to now offer lending to landlords.

"Building our platform over the past decade allowed us to deeply understand the needs of our early customers and revealed an industry-wide hunger for accessible capital," said Grant Drzyzga, Founder and CEO of Revela. "With this funding, we're poised to provide essential liquidity into a traditionally illiquid market, ensuring owners get quick access to capital when they need it most – a pledge with the power to create a monumental impact."

Learn more about Revela.

The Lip Bar

A new member to Bamboo, the Lip Bar closed a Series A round. With $6.7 Million in venture funding, the brand continues to be a household brand that is widely popular and sold in stores like Target and Walmart. The Lip Bar also launched a new sister brand, Thread Beauty, to continue to serve a fast growing community of Gen-Z make-uploving, humans of color who pride themselves as being rebels with a cause.

“We plan on growing our team and improving our ability to better service the needs of our consumers across different divisions, because we understand how experience and expertise can spur growth quickly. We also plan to continue to drive our innovation forward to create beauty solutions that allow everyone to experience easy, effortless, essentials that empower confidence," said Melissa Butler.

"Until recently, I had only raised $2M and with that $2M, drove a massive expansion in Target and Walmart, hired top tier talent and launched a second brand, thread. If I could do that with $2M, I’m excited about what I can do with $6.7M!”

Learn more about The Lip Bar.