From Web3 and generative artificial intelligence to edtech and SaaS solutions, several Silicon Valley tech companies raised funds last week. A big-name fintech company also announced a local acquisition. Catch up on the latest with the Built In SF Weekly Refresh.
Magic pulled in $52M. Working to further the adoption of Web3, Magic helps companies bring their Web3-based offerings to more users. The round led by PayPal Ventures will continue building infrastructure to onboard users to Web3 platforms and scale its use cases. Magic said it also plans to further its growth efforts in the European Union and Asia-Pacific region. [PR Newswire]
Stripe acquired Okay. Financial terms of the acquisition were not made public. Fintech company Stripe offers payment processing platforms for businesses. San Francisco-based Okay creates low-code productivity analytics tools for engineering teams and leaders. Under the acquisition, Okay will exclusively work with Stripe and no longer partner with other businesses like Plaid and Brex. [TechCrunch]
SF Tech Quote of the Week
“We’re thrilled to have Apax Partners and Reach Capital as strategic investors. The need for substitute teachers is acute. This additional funding highlights the current strain on our schools and positions Swing to grow our impact, placing even more substitute teachers in even more classrooms.”— Mike Teng, CEO of Swing Education
Swing Education raised a $38M Series C. San Francisco-based Swing connects substitute teachers with schools. This funding, led by Apax Partners and Reach Capital, comes five years after the online marketplace’s Series B round. Founded in 2015, Swing now works with more than 2,800 schools to fill teacher shortages. [Business Wire]
Faire named a new chief people officer. Neervi Patel served as the company’s head of people for the past three years and was recently promoted to CPO. Faire is an online wholesale marketplace for independent businesses. [Faire]
These five local companies raised the most funds in May. The Bay Area companies with the largest funding rounds last month raised a total of $786 million. The capital comes from fintech company Zip, AI giant Anthropic, foodtech and greentech startup Air Protein, healthcare platform Amino Health and Auradine, which creates various web solutions. [Built In SF]
Additional VC news: Empowering developers and engineers to work faster and smarter, Cortex raised a $35 million Series B round led by Cack Wilhelm, a general partner at IVP. [Cortex]
Vectara, a generative AI research platform, secured $28 million in seed funding to launch a new tool to help developers reduce errors when generating AI search results. The company is now hiring for its engineering and sales teams. [SiliconANGLE]
With its recent $20 million Series B, business-to-business financing and sales closing tool Vartana plans to expand its product suite and hire additional staff. The company is actively hiring. [TechCrunch]
