Laika (now Thoropass) provides a SaaS platform for companies to establish compliance practices to meet requirements from regulators and enterprise customers. The platform combines automated infosec workflows, audits, monitoring, and vendor diligence while subject matter experts support customers at every step of the compliance process.

I interviewed Austin Ogilvie, the Co-CEO and Founder of Laika. He also founded YHAT, a machine learning infrastructure product, and worked at OnDeck Capital. Austin is self-taught in technical skills, primarily using Python, and his latest company is aimed at B2B software companies of all sizes.

Austin shares his insights on the importance of understanding compliance requirements and implementing the right controls in a robust manner.

[00:00:22] Information security and compliance.

[00:03:31] Vendor risk in enterprise customers.

[00:07:23] Compliance in B2B SaaS.

[00:13:51] Company's funding history.

[00:14:48] SaaS fundraising lessons.

[00:18:11] New information security standards.

Austin Ogilvie’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinogilvie/

SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/laika-raises-50-million-in-series-c

Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

I have a special edition of the show today.  I recently attended a great software event co-hosted by GLC Advisors and a private equity firm. They provided the latest insights into what’s happening on the front lines of software M&A.

I want to share these insights with my SaaS community, so I invited Jim Williams with GLC Advisors onto the show for a Spring M&A Update.

We cover the following and more.

Jim Williams LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-williams-5754953/

Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

Airplane, a San Francisco, CA-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) development platform, closed a $32 million Series B funding round led by Thrive Capital with participation from Benchmark, bringing the startup’s total raised to $40.5 million.

I interviewed Ravi Parikh, Co-Founder at Airplane. He is also the former co-founder of Heap. Ravi is on a mission to automate the harder part of admin tools in applications. This is the behind-the-scenes code necessary to run your applications.

Airplane has a sales and PLG led motion. His former founder background helped with current capital raises.

Segment co-founder Calvin French-Owen, Confluent co-founder Neha Narkhede, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, Airtable co-founders Howie Liu and Andrew Ofstad, Allison Pickens from The New Normal Fund, Behance founder Scott Belsky, Jaren Glover, Gokul Rajaram, Liu Jiang, Comma Capital, and several others also participated in the round.

The funds will be put toward growing Airplane’s team while expanding its product to new markets.

Ravi Parikh’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raviparikh2/

SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/airplane-raises-32-million-in-series-b

Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

Aug X Labs, a New York-based AI video technology startup, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to use AI to democratize video creation by content creators.

I interviewed Jeremy Toeman, Founder and CEO, who has a long history of building consumer apps. He built an AI-assisted visual storytelling service that saves time and money for creators.

The company is building an AI-based visual storytelling platform that automatically transforms text or audio prompts into compelling, purpose-driven videos that convert audiences. Its platform allows users to automatically augment their video creations using open or licensed media (photos, short clips, etc.), generative media (AI Art), and owned media.

Aug X Labs' initial investors and advisers include Yohei Nakajima (Untappd.VC), Noah Gale (Co-Founder, Tribe AI), Marc Whitten (SVP & GM, Create @ Unity), Alanna Gregory (Crosscut VC), David Beck (Brightcove), Ben Parr (Octane.AI), Rahim Fazal (CEO of SV Academy/x-Oracle), Jesse Redniss (Qonsent), Avner Ronen (founder, Boxee), Kevin Conroy, Rob Hoffer, Ryan Bricklemyer, Deep Banerji, Scott Ryan, and others.

Jeremy Toeman’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtoeman/

SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/aug-x-labs-raises-1-million-in-pre-seed-round

Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

Orderlion, a Vienna, Austria-based SaaS platform for the food and beverage industry, raised €4 million in pre-Series A funding, bringing its total raised to about €7.5 million since its 2018 inception.

I interviewed Stefan Strohmer, CEO and Co-founder. The technology has not changed in fifty years to help restaurants manage the supply chain back to suppliers. Stefan founded the company in 2018 and it took two years to build the MVP.

Orderlion is now re-planning to step up expansion plans, making B2B food supply chains more scalable. A European restaurant technology investment firm led the new investment round.

Additional investors include VC firms Rockstart, seed + speed Ventures, tecnet, and Gateway Ventures, among others.

The funding will be utilized for international expansion, growing the team, and extending the company's product line-up.

Stefan Strohmer’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanstrohmer/

SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/orderlion-raises-4-million-in-pre-series-a

Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

From a basement project in 2015 to $33M raised to date, Unito is integrating disparate SaaS applications and improving workflows. I interviewed Mark Boscher, founder and CEO at Unito. Mark’s team uses a product-led growth (PLG) motion to acquire users. He’s at 50,000+ users and climbing.

Unito, a Montreal, Canada-based workflow management software, completed $20 million in Series B funding. CDPQ led the round, with participation from new investors Rainfall Ventures and Investissement Québec, as well as existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Tom Williams, and Mistral Ventures.

The fund will allow Unito to solidify its growing market traction—customers include Atlassian, Corpay, Teamwork, the Cincinnati Reds, and Wrike—and expand its connectors across the entire suite of digital productivity solutions.

Marc Bosher’s Linked Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcboscher/

SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/unito-raises-20-million-in-series-b

Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

This is a special edition of the podcast covering the US R&D tax credit.  I invited Tyler Kem, President of Strike Tax Advisory, to discuss the latest on this tax credit.

There were big changes to section 174 of the tax law affecting small businesses that claimed this credit in the past.  No repeal of these changes is in sight, so we must understand where we stand today.

To understand your tax situation, reach out to your CPA, tax accountant, and/or R&D tax specialist.

Tyler Kem's LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerkem/

Tyler's email:  [email protected]

I interviewed Philippe Humeau, CEO and co-founder at CrowdSec. He is creating the Waze for cybersecurity. If one firewall is having issues, the product can see the machines having the same issues and then block the IP.

The product is free, but CrowdSec will monetize the product by selling the signals to end users.

CrowdSec, a Paris, France-based Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) solution, announced raised €14 million in Series A funding round led by Supernova Invest, with participation from Breega.

CrowdSec intends to use this fresh capital to increase its staff from 20 to 45 individuals, strengthen its technical stack, ramp up revenues, extend its U.S. operations, and expand its global network of protected, collaborating devices from several hundred thousand to millions.

Philippe Humeau’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippehumeau/

SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/crowdsec-raises-14-million-in-series-a

I interviewed Kathy Zhu, co-founder and CEO at Streamline AI. Kathy has 10+ years of experience as a commercial lawyer and has built legal teams from the ground up. She was bitten by the startup bug and turned her own pain point into a SaaS solution.

Streamline AI, a San Francisco, CA-based intelligent intake platform for in-house legal teams, officially launched with $3 million in seed funding to supercharge how business teams work, starting with legal.

The round was led by Oceans Ventures, with participation from Scribble Ventures, Ridge Ventures, and other firms.

Streamline AI delivers visibility and metrics across G&A business units, starting with the costliest problem: legal teams.

Kathy Zhu’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathymzhu88/

SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/streamline-ai-raises-3-million-in-seed-round

I spoke with Dave Saunders, CTO of Galen Robotics. His company is creating the “Uber” of surgical robots. Galen Robotics will place robots at hospitals and charge per use. This helps increase access to the latest surgical robots. It’s a fascinating hardware and software play, but Dave states that 80-90% of the technology in surgical robots is software.

Galen Robotics, a Baltimore, Maryland-based Digital-Surgery-as-a-Service pioneer, completed a $15 million 1st close for an oversubscribed Series A funding round led by Ambix Healthcare Partners. This funding helped complete the final robot prototype and its submission to the FDA.

Funds will also be used to develop a clinical sales team, expand engineering, grow product development, and develop surgeon training programs.

Dave Saunders LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nemock/

Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/galen-robotics-raises-15-million-in-series-a/