Steve Jurvetson’s Future Ventures leads new and existing investors backing Hum’s mission to connect companies with the right capital
Hum Capital, the funding platform that uses AI to make the fundraising process more efficient, transparent and data-driven, today announced a $9 million Series A investment led by Future Ventures, with participation from Webb Investment Network, Wavemaker Partners and Partech.
Hum is on a mission to modernize the $5 trillion private capital market with an AI-powered funding platform that matches private companies with the right institutional capital for their situation. Since the start of the year, Hum has helped companies such as SecurityScorecard, Evolv AI and Flaviar secure more than $400 million in capital commits from some of the 250 institutional investors on Hum’s platform.
Hum will use the additional funding to scale its go-to-market operations and onboard new institutional investors onto its Intelligent Capital Market (ICM) platform to expand access to a diverse range of non-dilutive financing products. To advance its vision of becoming the go-to destination for all fundraising needs, Hum plans to expand its platform with additional vehicles to give companies a full range of financing options to choose from.
“Building a general-purpose funding platform like the Intelligent Capital Market is complex, but the breadth of opportunities that it creates can be seen in Hum’s growth in the last year,” says Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director & Co-Founder of Future Ventures. “Hum is Future Ventures’ only fintech investment. Hum’s mission to bring the private capital markets online is a big idea that will have a transformative impact on society by removing friction and bias in capital allocation.”
Private credit has rapidly grown into a $1 trillion market and, as many technology business models have matured, has emerged as a major alternative source of financing for high-growth startups. For example, more than $20 billion was loaned to VC-backed US companies in each of the last three years, according to Pitchbook. There are over 5,000 providers of private credit and the fragmented, complex nature of the funding landscape remains difficult for many companies to navigate.
“Marketing one form of capital over another is a flawed, antiquated approach, and does a disservice to companies. Founders need to go into the fundraising process knowing what all of their options are so they can make the right decisions for their growth and ownership,” says Blair Silverberg, CEO and co-founder of Hum Capital. “With our data-driven, ‘Kayak.com-like’ approach to institutional fundraising, we are helping match companies to institutional investors interested in investing in companies like theirs.”
With the ICM, Hum is putting cloud-based company data to use bringing clarity, efficiency and personalization to the fundraising process. Hum’s machine learning models ingest, organize, label and analyze real-time company financial data from connections to over 100 SaaS systems of record like Quickbooks, Netsuite and Google Analytics. The ICM then delivers advanced analytics, simulations and competitive benchmarks that help companies understand their true value before matching them with suitable investors based on their fundraising goals and business performance.
“Hum Capital quickly understood our business, and used their platform and expertise to help us run an efficient fundraising process,” said Michael Scharff, CEO, Evolv AI. “In addition to introducing us to interested investors, Hum delivered an in-depth analysis of the terms sheets we received — helping make it clear which was the right capital for us to grow our business. The entire process was very transparent.”
“The global market for capital is the ultimate marketplace,” says Maynard Webb, founder of Webb Investment Network and former COO of eBay. “Hum’s focus on using real-time performance data available in cloud-based business systems enables a more efficient process for debt and capital financing. Entrepreneurs and investors alike will benefit from the application of Hum’s platform.”
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