Standout of the week
Blue Sky Robotics
Chapel Hill robotics company
Chose Chapel Hill over Austin for a headquarters expansion, 152 jobs.
Blue Sky Robotics is expanding its headquarters in Chapel Hill rather than Austin, a $1.55M investment adding 152 jobs, with support from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. A growing robotics company choosing the Triangle over a larger competing tech market is the clearest regional signal of the week.
Deep dives
Capital
4 rounds
Four rounds from April and early May, $54.5 million in total, weighted toward AI infrastructure and healthtech. InsightFinder and Keebler Health closed in mid-April, Truentity at the end of the month, and Sennos on May 11. Triangle Tweener Fund participated in two.
Venture
Sennos
$20M
Lead: TomEnterprise
With: Jan Stahlberg
Durham. AI-powered fermentation and fluidics platform. Total funding now over $50M; investors are EQT alumni.
Series A
Keebler Health
$16M
Lead: Flare Capital Partners
With: Sands Capital, Freestyle Capital, Triangle Tweener Fund
Durham. LLM-native HCC coding and risk adjustment. Total raised $23.8M. Duke-founded.
Series B
InsightFinder
$15M
Lead: Yu Galaxy
With: Eight Roads Ventures, IDEA Fund Partners, Triangle Tweener Fund
Durham. AI observability platform. Total funding now $35M. CEO Helen Gu is also an NC State CS professor.
Series A
Truentity Health
$3.5M
Lead: Evidenced VC
With: Cofounders Capital, K-Street Capital
Chapel Hill. Oversubscribed. Pharmacy-led chronic care management.
Infrastructure
A product update from a Durham healthtech company, and the pitch field forming for the June Grep-a-Palooza competition.