original link: https://thegoodaipod.substack.com/p/-121420-122720-dwdg-weekly-digest

📅 [12/14/20-12/27/20] DWDG “Weekly” Digest #12

Holiday Edition 🎄

Dec 29, 2020

👋🏽 Welcome to Doing Well by Doing Good, a newsletter and podcast series highlighting the companies aiming to be profitable with a purpose.

Get the latest updates


Hi folks! Hope you had a relaxing holidays! With the Christmas holidays we decided to skip last week and combine this edition into one end-of-year bash 🎉 . Enjoy your final 2020 fix of DWDG news, funding, and jobs below!


DWDG News


DWDG Fundings

  • Arya , a seven-year-old, Noida, India-based lender to farmers in the country, has raised $21 million in Series B equity and debt funding led by Quona Capital , with participation from LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore. The company isn’t breaking out how much of the round is equity versus debt, or who its debt lenders are. [TechCrunch Report]

_ Doing Good : Arya’s services helps underserved farmers in India obtain the capital they couldn’t otherwise, and better store food for longer periods of time_

  • Joro , a 2.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based startup whose app measures your carbon footprint in real-time as you shop and suggests new habits based on your behavior, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital , Expa and Amasia , as well as from numerous angel investors. Among them: James Park , the co-founder of Fitbit, and Rich Pierson , the co-founder of Headspace. [TechCrunch Report]

_ Doing Good : Joro is an app focused on helping individuals reduce their carbon emissions and has already reduced 1200 lbs of carbon emissions, increasing that with each new user on the platform. _

  • Self Financial , a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup that helps consumers establish and build credit history, has raised $40 million in Series D funding. Meritech Capital Partners led the round, joined by earlier investors Altos Ventures , Conductive Ventures and Silverton Partners. [The Austin-American Statesman Report]

_ Doing Good : Self Financial is focused on enabling customers who traditionally struggle with maintaining good credit better build a reliable credit history_

  • Brainly , an 11-year-old, Krakow, Poland-based peer-to-peer learning platform for students, parents, and teachers to ask and answer homework questions, has raised $80 million in Series D funding. Previous backer Learn Capital led the round, joined by other earlier investors, including Prosus Ventures , Runa Capita l, MantaRay and General Catalyst. [TechCrunch Report]

_ Doing Good : Brainly’s platform is providing free homework and virtual learning services to vulnerable students for free while making money from those parents that can afford it. _

  • Better Dairy , a 1.5-year-old, London-based startup that’s using fermentation and biology to produce products that are molecularly identical to traditional dairy, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding led by Happiness Capital , with participation from CPT Capital , Stray Dog Capital and Veg Capital. [TechCrunch Report]

_ Doing Good : Better Dairy is making dairy production more sustainable by reducing the 1.7B tons of carbon emissions emitted in traditional dairy production worldwide._

  • Umba , a 2.5-year-old, Lagos, Nigeria-based digital bank for emerging markets, including in Africa, has raised $2 million in seed funding from former Stripe exec Lachy Groom , Ludlow Ventures , Frontline Ventures , and Act Venture Capital. [TechCrunch Report]

_ Doing Good : Umba enables access to free credit and basic digital banking features like P2P money transfers to those traditionally unable to access legacy African banks._

  • Creditas , an eight-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based lending business, has raised $255 million in new funding from new and earlier backers. Among its new investors is LGT Lightstone , Tarsadia Capital , Wellington Management , e.ventures and an affiliate of Advent International, Sunley House Capital. Previous investors that joined the round include SoftBank Vision Fund 1 , SoftBank Latin America Fund , VEF , Kaszek and Amadeus Capital Partners. [TechCrunch Report]

_ Doing Good : Creditas is one of many new lending startups in LatAm expanding access to credit and secured loans by lowering barriers to obtaining them. _

  • Foresight , a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based insurtech startup centered around workers with more hazardous jobs, says it quietly raised 20.5 million from investors, including Brick and Mortar Ventures and Builders VC. [TechCrunch Report]

_ Doing Good : Foresight helps vulnerable unionized blue collar construction workers get the worker’s compensation coverage they need to stay safe while earning a living. _

  • Urbeez , a two-month-old, Brussels, Belgium-based company piecing together a fleet of all-electric delivery vehicles (including bikes, vans, and scooters), has raised €2.5 million in funding from unnamed investors said to be “specializing in logistics.” [Tech.eu Report]

_ Doing Good : Urbeez is reducing carbon emissions the more vehicles they add to their fleet of all-electric delivery vehicles. _

  • Public , a three-year-old, New York-based social investing network company that invites users to buy any stock with any amount of money and to participate relatedly in social communities, has raised 15 million Series B round. [Crunchbase News Report]

_ Doing Good : Public’s mission is to expand access to the stock market by removing the financial and psychological barriers for those typically unable to access these gains. _


DWDG Jobs

Jobs: https://solofunds.zohorecruit.com/jobs/Careers

Jobs: https://www.offgridbox.com/contact

Jobs: https://lunchbox.io/our-team/#careers


Wishing you an early Happy New Year and a friendly reminder that there’s always something good out there if we take the time to look for it.

Stay tuned for the first digest of 2021! Until then,

✌🏽Anand