San Francisco-based employee benefits company Gusto has secured $200 million in Series D funding, according to company database Crunchbase, topping the city’s recent funding headlines. The cash infusion was announced July 24 and led by Generation Investment Management.
According to its Crunchbase profile, "Gusto develops web-based payroll solution for small- and medium-sized businesses. It operates an online platform that provides payroll, benefits, human resource and integration services for employers and employees in the United States. Gusto offers health benefits and workers’ compensation benefits that include medical insurance, commuter benefits and 401(k) contributions, as well as workers’ compensation insurance plans, time tracking and integration services, and access to employees for processing payroll from web-enabled devices such as smartphones and tablets."
The eight-year-old company has raised eight previous funding rounds, including a Series C round in 2018.
The round brings total funding raised by San Francisco companies in financial services over the past month to $519 million, an increase of $91 million from the month before. The local financial services industry has seen 236 funding rounds over the past year, raking in a total of $6.4 billion in venture funding.
In other local funding news, training and gamification company MindTickle announced a $40 million Series C funding round on July 29, led by Norwest Venture Partners.
According to Crunchbase, "MindTickle offers the industry's most comprehensive readiness solution for closing the knowledge and skill gaps found in customer-facing teams. Sales teams across a wide range of industries use MindTickle's award-winning platform to train, coach and align their sales teams to make reps and their managers more effective."
Founded in 2011, the company has raised three previous rounds, including a $27 million Series B round in 2017.
Meanwhile, venture capital company Aura raised $28 million in debt financing funding, announced on July 24. The round was financed by Angel Island Capital.
From the company's Crunchbase profile: "Aura is a technology-powered, Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that provides small, affordable loans to working families in America. Our mission is to build financially healthy low-income communities by providing empowering financial services to America’s 66 million under-banked and un-banked. Aura has pioneered a cloud-based lending technology that enables trusted local businesses to submit credit applications for centralized review and approval by its proprietary scoring algorithms."
Aura last raised $10 million in a corporate round earlier this year.
Also of note, virtual currency company Solana raised $20 million in Series A funding, announced on July 30 and led by Multicoin Capital.
From Crunchbase: "Solana is a high-performance blockchain that can scale over 700,000 transactions per second on stock hardware to deliver on the promise of blockchain."
The company previously raised seed funding in 2018.
Rounding out the city's recent top local funding events, finance company Branch International raised $5 million in debt financing funding, announced on July 29 and financed by Barium Capital.
From Crunchbase: "Branch delivers world-class financial services to the mobile generation. With offices in San Francisco, Lagos, Mexico City, Mumbai and Nairobi, Branch is a for-profit, socially conscious company that uses the power of data science to reduce the cost of delivering financial services in emerging markets. We believe that everyone, everywhere deserves fair financial access."
The company previously raised $170 million in Series C funding earlier this year.
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