, an employee experience platform powered by (you guessed it) AI, announced on Tuesday it raised $70 million in Series D funding. It really wants you to use theirs.

The recent round was led by with participation from existing venture investor and newcomers and . This brings total funding to $131 million.

We shouldn鈥檛 be surprised that an intranet platform has been gaining steam. The appetite for platforms like Simpplr has remained resilient during the pandemic. In 2022, startups in the space raised over $2.4 billion, just $500 million less than it did the previous year when funding in tech was plentiful. You rarely see that kind of consistency in venture dollars between 2021 and 2022.

Keeping remote workers connected

Simpplr operates as a company intranet where employees can create profiles, access the employee handbook and find company resources. Employers can use it to update their travel expense policy, build social hubs for specific teams or deploy surveys.聽

The company uses its platform, which looks like a more aesthetic intranet met with the social collaboration of , to develop a constant stream of AI-powered insights that 鈥渞eads between the lines of employee responses,鈥� according to the website. Through user habits and company sentiment surveys, the platform helps employers understand if employees are paying attention to new updates and how they feel about them.

This, perhaps, is a necessary tool for employers in a remote work environment. With employees scattered across the country (or sometimes the globe), companies are looking for ways to engage workers in order to retain them and keep them productive.聽

鈥淭he employee experience continues to be a major focus for employees and employers alike,鈥� , a partner at Sapphire Ventures and Simpplr board member, said in a statement. 鈥淎 key pillar of a positive employee experience is engagement.鈥�

Simpplr鈥檚 $70 million fundraising round is the third largest in this space so far. , a human resource management platform, raised $500 million in Series E funding back in March. , an employee benefits management startup, raised $100 million back in April.

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Rounds were not that big this week, as only a handful were $100 million or more. Much like last week, investment was all over the board, as storage, grocery and energy startups led the way in what was a pretty down week.

1. , $125M, storage: The cloud services sector is dominated by the big tech names we all know. Boston-based Wasabi would like to change that, and just this week became a unicorn as it travels down that road. The 鈥渉ot鈥� cloud storage company raised $125 million in Series D equity led by at a valuation of $1.1 billion. The company also expanded its existing debt facility to $125 million. The startup claims it can offer its hot cloud storage鈥攚hich refers to data that is readily available鈥攁t a fifth of the price of the big guys and now has 40,000 customers in over 100 countries. The cloud data market is big, but dominated by incumbents not likely to let new players in. We鈥檒l see if Wasabi can heat things up. Founded in 2015, the company has raised more than $535 million, according to 附近上门.

2. , $120M, grocery: It was this week that San Francisco-based GrubMarket raised $120 million from new investors including 鈥� venture arm. The company develops software and has an e-commerce platform that connects farmers and wholesalers with customers. It鈥檚 been quite busy in the last few years, making 60 acquisitions in the last four years and just last year raised $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. Per the story, GrubMarket now has an annual run rate of about $1.5 billion. Founded in 2014, the company has raised approximately $500 million, according to 附近上门.

3. , $100M, energy: Sustainable and cleaner alternatives for power has been a big theme this year for investors. So far this year, the cleantech industry has seen 17 funding rounds worth $100 million or more, . This week included one of those rounds, as Richmond, California-based locked up a $100 million Series B led by . Moxion manufactures mobile batteries and energy storage to enable last-mile electrification in sectors that include construction, transportation, events and entertainment, film production and telecommunications. Although venture capital in general has slowed this year, cleantech is on pace to see a slight uptick from last year, according to 附近上门. Last year, VC-backed cleantech startups saw $7 billion of investmentment, while already this year investors have poured more than $6.6 billion into the sector. Founded in 2020, the company has now raised just more than $113 million, according to 附近上门.

4. , $80M, payments: While digital payments can be convenient, they can also be slow and cluttered with fees. Chicago-based Strike, built on Bitcoin鈥檚 Lightning Network, is looking to allow customers to avoid those hassles. The Lightning Network is known for fast transactions and could be a solution to Bitcoin鈥檚 scalability issues. Strike is looking to leverage that and make cheaper, faster, global payments a real thing for everyone. To that end, the company raised an $80 million funding round led by Ten31, its first funding round, according to 附近上门. The company will look to use that new cash to attract large merchants, marketplaces and financial institutions to its payments platform.

5. , $70M, biotech: Waltham, Massachusetts-based Ventus Therapeutics announced an exclusive license agreement with and received an upfront payment of $70 million in cash as part of the deal. Under terms of the agreement, Novo will help develop and commercialize therapies from Ventus鈥� portfolio. Ventus has developed a platform to identify and develop small molecule therapeutics for a broad range of diseases. Ventus will be eligible to receive up to an additional $633 million in potential milestone payments as well under the agreement. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $370 million, according to 附近上门.

6. , $66M, SaaS: Montclair, New Jersey-based Sitetracker, a developer of deployment operations software servicing critical infrastructure, closed a new round of equity and debt financing totaling $96 million.The round includes $66 million in equity and was led by . Sitetracker has raised nearly $200 million since 2013, per the company.

7. , $60M, human resources: San Francisco-based Workstream extended its Series B funding round with an additional $60 million, bringing the total Series B to $108 million. The extension was led by . The company had developed a mobile-first hiring and onboarding platform for the deskless workforce. Founded in 2017, Workstream has raised $118 million to date, according to 附近上门 data.

8. (tied) , $50M, cloud data services: Denver-based Flatfile, a AI-assisted data exchange platform, locked up a $50 million Series B funding led by . Founded in 2018, Flatfile has raised $100 million, per the company.

8. (tied) , $50M, big data: Palo Alto, California-based observability platform startup Unravel Data closed a $50 million Series D led by . Founded in 2013, the company has raised $107 million, according to the company.

10. , $48M, blockchain: Santa Barbara, California-based blockchain technology platform Candle Labs raised a $48 million funding round. Lead investors in that round were not disclosed. The startup develops software for decentralized services in sectors like finance.

Big global deals

Rounds were on the small side this week for U.S.-based startups. However, there was a large global deal.

• Saudi Arabia-based , a flight booking firm, raised a $1 billion venture round.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the 附近上门 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Sept. 24 to 30. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

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