Baltimore Money Moves: Brown Advisory secures $14M, Latimer Ventures leads a $10M round

In Baltimore’s funding landscape, a variety of local companies garnered significant investments over the past month. Check them out below.

Brown Advisory: $13.7M

Prominent investment fund Brown Advisory secured funding of $10.8 million, alongside an additional infusion of $2.9 million, according to SEC filings. Specific plans for the new funding, however, have not yet been confirmed.

Materic: $10M

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $750 million in funding for 52 projects aimed at lowering the cost of clean hydrogen production. Among the recipients is Materic, a Baltimore-based materials company affiliated with Early Charm Ventures, which will receive $10 million. Ken Malone, the CEO of Early Charm, celebrated the achievement on LinkedIn, highlighting Baltimore’s manufacturing success.

B.well Connected Health: $40M

B.well Connected Health, a Baltimore-based startup specializing in medical data accessibility software, has secured $40 million in funding in a Series C round led by Leavitt Equity Partners. This funding comes shortly after the company’s partnership with Samsung, wherein its software is set to be integrated into every Samsung device. B.well intends to use the investment to further its expansion initiatives.

BigBear.ai: $70M

BigBear.ai has successfully closed a $70 million deal despite facing two lawsuits aimed at halting its merger. Shortly after that close, on March 15, major shareholder Industrial Partners Fund II sold 2,461,867 BigBear.ai shares (total value: around $6.08 million, per investing.com).

Pienso: $10M

Birago Jones, Karthik Dinakar and the Pienso team have successfully closed a $10 million Series A funding round. Pienso develops tools for training AI models without the need for coding. Latimer Ventures led the round, fund managing director Luke Cooper told Technical.ly, with backing from Gideon Strategic Partners, Lydonia Technologies, Good Growth Capital, and Uncork Capital.

Cooper said this sort of investment is unprecedented. “Black people in places like Maryland don’t raise big rounds,” he noted, adding, “I’m excited to change that. The modern American enterprise is evolving rapidly and it needs tools that accommodate not some but all of its employees and stakeholders. We hope to become an exit factory for founders that want exits and for companies that understand the impact of what these founders bring to the table.”

RegenxBio: $140M

Rockville-based RegenxBio recently raised $140 million through a public offering that included over 4.5 million shares of common stock and 1.5 million pre-funded warrants. Additionally, underwriters have the option to purchase over 900,000 more shares.

This comes four months after the company implemented layoffs and program cuts to extend its cash runway, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. The funding will bolster RegenxBio’s balance sheet and support its gene therapy programs focused on retinal and neurodegenerative diseases.

Other Money Moves

• TEDCO, Maryland’s technology development corporation, revealed the results of an independent study highlighting its significant economic impact on the state. Conducted by the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute, the study shows that TEDCO generated approximately $2.7 billion in economic activity across Maryland in 2023.
• According to a release, Loyola University Maryland has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the American Association of Colleges & Universities to support the integration of career readiness skills into courses. This initiative, will collaborate with the colleges career center to enhance students’ career preparedness.
• CLLCTIVLY, a platform backing Black-led social change initiatives in Baltimore, recently raised over $54K in February with its 28 Days of Black Futures campaign. They’re now inviting women in Baltimore to participate in #BmoreHerStory, a video contest with $25,000 in prizes available.
• Troyu Fund I made a notable entrance into the scene with $400,000 in residential investment capital.
• According to The Baltimore Banner, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave $2 million each to several local nonprofits, including Wide Angle Youth Media.

Disclosure: This article mentions investments by TEDCO, a Technical.ly Ecosystem Builder client. That relationship is unrelated to this report.