Money Moves: HawkEye 360 lands a nine-figure Series D round

In one of the largest raises of the year, Herdon, Virginia’s HawkEye 360 raised $145 million in fresh funding through a Series D round.

The geospatial analytics firm, which measures space-based radio frequency data, announced the raise Monday. Venture Capital firm Insight Partners and Seraphim Space Investment Trust, a space tech fund, led the round with additional participation from Strategic Development Fund, Jacobs, Gula Tech Adventures, 116 Street Ventures, New North Ventures, Advance, Razor’s Edge, NightDragon, SVB Capital, Shield Capital and Adage Capital.

This Series D brings the company’s total funding to date to $302 million. In April, the company raised $55 million in a Series C round, led by NightDragon. With the funds, HawkEye said it will be expanding its satellite constellation as well as its accompanying infrastructure to boost the company’s growth.

“HawkEye 360 is pleased to be welcoming phenomenal new partners to our world-class investment family, all of whom share our vision of using revolutionary commercial RF-monitoring capabilities to produce positive impacts for humanity and the environment,” said CEO John Serafini in a statement. “As a new, well-backed space data and analytics company with a unique dual-use technology, we are ideally situated not only to create great value for the defense, intelligence and national security communities, but also to change the paradigm for organizations confronting complex challenges like illegal fishing, poaching, maritime smuggling and environmental degradation.”

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McLean, Virginia cyber firm QuickCode.ai is the winner of the fourth annual DataTribe Challenge competition for cybersecurity and data science startups. QuickCode specializes in insights in training data to improve label quality and accuracy in text data.

The competition, hosted by Fulton, Maryland-based cybersecurity investor DataTribe, is open to entrepreneurs from around the world looking to disrupt the industry. Alongside co-winner ContraForce, of Dallas, Texas, QuickCode will earn an up to $2 million investment from DataTribe as it continues on in the company’s funding process.

“We are so thrilled to be recognized for this prestigious challenge that evaluates both team and technology,” said Shannon Hynds, CEO of QuickCode.ai, in a statement. “As we move forward with DataTribe, QuickCode.ai is ready to be propelled forward as we scale out our unique approach to making the curation of high-quality training data for machine learning models substantially easier.”

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Gaithersburg, Maryland biotech firm Valted Seq completed a $10.5 million seed funding round, the company announced last week. The company focuses on genetic studies of neurodegenerative disease pathways.

The round was led by Dongkoo Bio & Pharma with additional participation from OV Principal Investments. D&D Pharmatech was previously the company’s pre-seed investor, providing $7 million.

“Today’s announcement of our seed funding reflects the interest and excitement of international investors and further validates our compelling technology and vision,” said Nina Urban, Valted’s interim CEO, in a statement. “This financing will accelerate the development of our HiF-Seq platform, generating the largest single-nuclei sequence database for Parkinson’s disease. Interrogating the transcriptomic fingerprints of this highly complex and poorly understood disease will lead to validated drug targets and biomarkers.”

Following the raise, the company plans to partner with fellow biotech companies to further leverage its platform.

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Here’s who else is moving money this week:

• Arlington, Virginia-based cybersecurity firm SCYTHE raised a $10 million Series A round led by Gula Tech Ventures and Paladin Capital Group. The funding will be used for the expansion of its engineering, sales and marketing and customer service operations for its attack prevention platform.
• Arlington media firm Axios raised an undisclosed amount, which ups its overall valuation to $430 million. According to Axios, Cox Enterprises was one of the investors.
• Herndon, Virginia IT services firm Procentrix received an undisclosed amount from Macquarie Capital.
• The Center for Innovative Technology GAP Funds invested in McLean, Virginia’s OneDigitalTrust, which offers estate planning technology. The funding will be put towards expanding its tech platform as well as business development entities.
• Reston, Virginia IT and professional services firm CACI International acquired California tech company SA Photonics for $275 million.
• Cloud networking firm GTT Communications, headquartered in McLean, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Combined with a recent infrastructure sale, the company’s debt will be reduced by $2.8 billion and business will continue as usual.
• Richmond, Virginia-based Vint, the developer of a wine and spirit investment platform, raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Fintech Ventures. Slow Ventures, Allied Venture Partners, irrvntVC, Cooley and Arrington Fund also took part.

Government Contracts

• Rockville, Maryland’s Global Management Systems was awarded a spot on the Navy’s SeaPort Next Generation contract. The $7.5 billion, multi-award contract will enable Global Management to compete for individual tasks with the Navy and Marine Corps.
• NVE, a construction security monitoring firm in Reston, Virginia, landed a seat on a contract from the State Department Office of Security Management. The one-year contract is valued up to $250 million, and NVE will be helping to secure locations overseas via an on-site rep from the company.
• Onclave Networks, an OT/IoT cybersecurity entity in McLean, was awarded a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grant. The company will be conducting research and development on securing blockchain transactions and lowering their costs and environmental impacts.
• Arlington robotics developer AeroVironment landed a $20.3 million contract from the federal Special Operations Command. Through the agreement, it will be providing tactical missile systems, set for completion in 2023.