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Hello and welcome to Last Week In Venture, a rundown of deals sealed by interesting companies that may have flown under your radar this week.

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This week Crunchbase News team wrapped up its reporting on the state of venture in Q4 and 2018 as a whole. We profiled VC activity in Asia and in Boston, female founders鈥� funding, and posted all the charts from the global and U.S.-Canada reports we published last week. Beyond that, though, we covered supergiant rounds (of $100M or more) raised by Vietnamese payments startup Momo and realty platform Knock. We also looked at Illinois startups鈥� fundraising pace, consolidation in the e-learning space and a couple other M&A deals of note.

The U.S. Federal government is still partially shut down, and the political news has been, how to say it, 鈥渋nteresting鈥� this week. Leading into the weekend, the Midwest and Eastern seaboard by a huge snow storm. There鈥檚 a lot to keep up with besides what鈥檚 going on in venture-land.

It鈥檚 easy to miss companies outside the unicorn spotlight, but that doesn鈥檛 mean their stories aren鈥檛 worth sharing. Let鈥檚 dive into what you might鈥檝e missed in the week that was!

ScaleFactor

Earlier this week, back office automation startup it had raised funding led by . This follows it closed in July 2018, just six months ago. Several investors from the Series A round followed-on its Series B, including , , , and other unnamed individual investors.

Based in Austin, Texas, ScaleFactor helps small and medium-sized businesses (which the company defines as having fewer than 100 employees) track finances for accounting and reporting purposes. It offers a suite of automation tools to help businesses track costs and pay bills more efficiently. A statement from the company said that ScaleFactor grew its customer base by 700% annually in 2018.

Some Other Interesting Deals

• Today, you’re the youngest that you’ll ever be. Toronto-based that it has raised to to create “an easy, affordable, non-invasive and trusted cell preservation service.” Co-founder and CEO Dr. Drew Taylor said in a statement that “in our later years, when we need our cells for regenerative therapies, our cells are the least viable.” He continued, “Entire heart, liver and kidneys are really just around the corner. The urgency around collecting, preserving and banking youthful cells for future use is real, and freezing the clock on your cells will ensure you can leverage them later when you need them.” , , , and , among others, invested in the deal.
• Every year, billions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property and countless corporate secrets are exfiltrated, unwittingly, by employees just answering emails. is an enterprise software company that’s developed a solution that helps curtail spear-phishing attacks and misaddressed messages by alerting users when they might be sending a message to the wrong person, or to an imposter. The London-based company announced it , led by .
• Imagine looking at a forest and not only being able to see the trees, but individually identify them. That’s kind of what is building, except it’s in the business of AI-powered individual face detection for large-crowd settings. These features and more are built into its rather Orwellian-sounding “Better Tomorrow” platform highlighted on . AnyVision from and as an extension of its Series A round. The first part of its Series A, , was announced in July 2018.
• , a NYC-based maker and deliverer of pre-portioned packs of human-grade food for dogs, leashed up from and . Our pooches, puppers, and doggos are eating healthier than many of us at this point. Feast on, Fido! ?

And with that, we鈥檙e done. For those of you in the U.S. that have Monday off, enjoy the long weekend. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. day!

Image Credits: Last Week In Venture graphic created by 聽Cover image by Isak Dalsfelt, via Unsplash.