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🌞 Good morning. Welcome to the 215th edition of the Maine Startups Insider newsletter. You are one of 2,096 subscrivers receiving this email.

I received lots of good feedback on my last edition. People seem to like the more exploratory take on what I’m hearing and seeing rather than just straight news.

I asked a few weeks ago about what we could do to create more onramps for investors in Boston (and New York for that matter) to learn about and get involved in the cool companies being built here. You can join the conversation on LinkedIn, where people are sharing ideas, including doing more to promote our successes, create engaging video ads, bussing founders (post-COVID) to networking events in Boston, do more to leverage existing relationships, etc. The more of us that are talking about it and engaging in these conversations, the greater the likelihood we can make progress on these ideas.

Keep creating, keep innovating, keep curious.

-Whit Richardson

/ News

Kelp and Carbon Sequestration: An update on Running Tide Technologies

In my last newsletter, I talked about Running Tide Technologies, a Portland-based oyster hatchery and farm which I had heard had raised a significant amount of venture capital, including from Silicon Valley investor Chris Sacca and his new VC firm, Lowercarbon Capital.

Well, now we know a whole lot more. While Running Tide and its CEO, Marty Odlin, still haven’t responded to my inquiries, they did talk to Fast Company magazine, which published an article on Sept. 15 that shed some light on what the company is doing that would attract the attention of big-money investors like Sacca.

The company used the Fast Company article to emerge from stealth mode with a big, bold plan to sequester gigatons of CO2 over the next several years by growing kelp and then sinking it to the ocean floor. The company would generate revenue by selling carbon credits, though a market doesn’t yet exist in the United States for buying and selling these credits. The company is also continuing to develop and leverage technology to make the raising and farming of oysters more efficient and scalable.

After the Fast Company article was published, Chris Sacca revealed on Twitter that his firm invested in the company’s Series A, which closed last November.

“Running Tide was the kind of company we were hoping we would find when we started [Lowercarbon Capital],” Sacca tweeted. “Bonkers scale, unreasonable ambition, massive impact on the planet. During insane times, it’s entrepreneurs like [Marty Odlin] that fire us up.”

Screenshot of Chris Sacca on Twitter revealing that he had invested in Running Tide Technologies

After doing some more digging on and off Twitter, I also discovered that Founder Collective in Boston and Shopify’s Sustainability Fund also invested. Those are in addition to the investors I mentioned in the last newsletter: Pathbreaker Ventures, Yes VC, and Soraya Darabi.

PitchBook pegs the company’s recent raise at $11.25 million, which it says would give it a post-money valuation of $50 million. Running Tide will use the funds to launch a pilot project later this year, according to the Fast Company article.

Because the company hasn’t responded to my inquiries, I don’t know more about the company’s technology or how it plans to sink these rafts. Odlin mentions in the article that the rafts will grow kelp far out in the ocean using biodegradable buoys that will eventually fail and (somehow) sink the raft to the ocean floor. I look forward to learning more.

Read more at Maine Startups Insider >>

MSI is sponsored by PretiFlaherty

EdTech app wins Top Gun pitch event, $25K prize

Screenshot of the ReMo app from Literacy Tech

An app that helps teachers and students manage their independent reading process won the top prize of $25,000 at the Top Gun Showcase event held last Wednesday evening.

Michelle DeBlois, CEO and co-founder of Literacy Tech, pitched her company’s new app currently in beta called ReMo, which she described as an online tool that helps teachers manage the independent reading process for students in an intuitive way.

DeBlois called it a “literacy CRM for books and readers.”

Read more at Maine Startups Insider >>

 

Central Maine gets $600K federal challenge grant to grow tech businesses

The Central Maine Growth Council in Waterville has received a $600,000 federal grant that will help it over the next three years retain, establish and grow technology-based companies in mid-Maine.

The Venture Challenge Grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build to Scale program was awarded for the growth council’s Dirigo Labs: Fostering Innovation and Collaboratively Supporting Maine-based Entrepreneurs program. The growth council raised another $600,000 to match the federal grant.

Read more at the Waterville Morning Sentinel >>

 

Quick intermission to thank Maine Startups Insider’s newest Sustaining Member: Matt Zito, a recent Maine transplant and managing partner of Travel Startups Incubator.

If, like Matt, you appreciate what MSI is trying to do and have the financial wherewithal to support my efforts, please consider becoming a Sustaining Member.

/ Funding Corner

Some funding news sourced from company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Some, though not all, have been confirmed by the companies.

👩🏻‍💻 Friday, a software company developing communication tools for remote teams, has raised roughy $2 million, according to a filing the company made with the SEC on Sept. 23, 2020. Founder Luke Thomas declined to comment at this time.

🥦 Forager, a Portland-based company that has developed a software platform to streamline the procurement process between grocers and local farms, has raised $271,000 in debt and/or convertible debt from 10 investors, according to a filing the company made with the SEC on Sept. 4.

💳 Wallit, a venture-backed financial technology startup in Westbrook, has raised $272,510 from seven investors out of a $500,000 equity offering, according to a filing the company made with the SEC on Aug. 31, 2020.

/ Roster Report

+ Aron Semle has joined HighByte, an industrial software startup in Portland, as Chief Technology Officer. Semle previously founded his own startup, upByte, and before that worked with HighByte’s three co-founders at Kepware Technologies.

+ Maine Venture Fund announced some turnover in its board of directors. Departing the board are Brian Whitney, president of Maine Technology Institute; Corson “Corky” Ellis, founder of Kepware Technologies and a local angel investor; Tim Agnew, principal at Masthead Venture Partners; and Christopher Pizey, who has held various management positions in several new media ventures. Joining MVF’s board are:

  • Charlotte Mace, director of the Office of Business Development at the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development
  • Helen Sterling Coburn, a corporate and securities attorney at Bernstein Shur
  • Susan Hammond, a Penobscot tribal member, founder and long-standing executive director of Four Directions Development Corp., a Native-governed Community Development Financial Institution
  • Brien Walton, CEO of Acadia Capital Management LLC

 

/ ICYMI

Here are some recent articles from Maine Startups Insider you may have missed:

/ Talent Hub

**Pushing PAUSE** on this section. I tried this section out, but need to rethink how to handle it. Honestly, I didn’t get the interest from job seekers I expected. What I did receive were plenty of requests from consultants and service providers to post a notice about their products and services. That would turn the section into more of a classifieds ad section (which maybe I should create since it seems to be in demand), but it’s not what I had in mind for this section.

If you’re a job seeker (i.e., you’re looking for full- or part-time employment with a Maine startup, tech company, or entrepreneurial venture) and want to post a notice about you and your skill set (either anonymously or not), let me know.

/ Jobs

If you apply for a job you see here, let them know you saw the opportunity in Maine Startups Insider. 

+ Friday, a Portland-based company building a communication tool for remote teams, is hiring a Senior Front-end Engineer.

+ The Roux Institute at Northeastern University is hiring a Community and Engagement Manager for its Portland campus.

+ Nearpeer, a Portland-based software company in the education space, is hiring a lead software engineer.

+ CourseStorm, an Orono-based software company, is hiring a business development rep.

+ OurShelves, a Maine-based diverse children’s book box subscription service with members in all 50 states, is hiring a part-time Operations Lead.

+ Great Works Internet, which recently became the first Internet Service Provider in the nation to become a B Corp, is hiring a Senior Software Engineer.

+ Neuright, a biotech startup in Orono that is developing a new medical device for the early diagnosis of peripheral neuropathy, is hiring a part-time R&D staff member.

+ Running Tide, a technology startup in the aquaculture space, is hiring software engineers and data scientists. If interested, email jobs@runningtide.com.

+ KinoTek, a Portland-based startup at the intersection of health and augmented reality, is looking for a software developer with experience with C++ unity integration. Those interested, email the company at contact@kinoteksoftware.com.

+ Farming robotics startup Farmhand Automation is hiring a mechanical engineer.

+ AskGMS, a Portland-based company that provides benchmarking and data analysis tools to the insurance industry, is hiring a Data Analyst and a Full-Stack Developer.

+ VETRO Inc., a SaaS company in Portland, is looking for a full-stack developer.

+ MedRhythms, a Portland-based medical-device startup, is hiring a mobile/front-end developer.

+ Defendify, a cybersecurity startup in Portland, is hiring a full-stack developer and a technology support specialist.

+ Arkatechture, a Portland-based company that provides business intelligence and data analytics services, is hiring a junior software engineer, AWS cloud engineer, data visualization specialist, among other positions.

+ Introspective Systems, in Portland, is looking for a lead software engineer and a software engineering intern.

+ Theory and Principle, a legal-tech product design and development startup in Portland, is hiring a quality assurance engineer.

Seeking a full-stack engineer? A technical co-founder? A sales or biz dev superstar? Send me your job postings to make this a great resource! 

/ Events

Life Sciences Venture Summit
Thurs., Oct. 1, 2-3:30 p.m. — Online
The Maine Center for Entrepreneurs hosts a webinar on Maine’s new tech transfer and commercialization assets. This is the first of several webinar the organization will host as part of its Life Sciences Venture Summit. Register here.

Virtual Screening of “She Started It,” an award-winning documentary about female entrepreneurs
Thurs., Oct. 1, 4-5:30 p.m. — Online
The UMaine Foster Center for Student Innovation is hosting a virtual screening of “She Started It,” an award-winning film that follows the journeys of five female entrepreneurs. Following the film will be a Q&A with the director, Nora Poggi; Susan MacKay; and a few others. Register here.

Big Gig Pitch-Off Finale
Tues., Oct. 6, 5:30-7 p.m. — Online
Big Gig, the Bangor area’s business pitch contest, will host its final pitch event. One of the four entrepreneurs pitching their businesses will win a $5,000 first-place prize. Register here.

Please send me your event or calendar item for possible inclusion.