Friday Fund Day: Startup News From The Southeast For The Week Of June 2, 2025
These are the top headlines you need to know if you follow startups in Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Orlando.
With summer in full swing, these are the big tech headlines from this week that you need to know from across the Southeast region:
Friday “Fund” Day News
- Atlanta-based Sema4.ai, an AI platform that empowers organizations to build, deploy, and manage agents designed to transform knowledge work, raised a $25 million Series A, according to Axios.
- Orlando-based Zero Networks, the cybersecurity company reclaiming microsegmentation to finally deliver on its promise, announced it raised $55 million in Series C funding.
- Martin Ventures, LRVHealth, and Texas Health Resources joined a $6.7 million seed round for ArcheHealth, a Birmingham, Alabama-based HealthTech software startup.
- Capwave AI, a Charlotte-based fundraising co-pilot, has joined Primordial Ventures, a firm focused on North Carolina startups.
Acquisition News
- Atlanta-based Goodie Nation, a nonprofit that empowers underestimated innovators, announced the acquisition of The A Pledge, an organization dedicated to increasing equity in marketing and advertising by supporting the growth and sustainability of Black-owned agencies. The move signals a strategic expansion of Goodie Nation’s innovation platform to include not just tech, but creative problem-solving and agency development.
In Other News
- Ryan Rutledge has stepped into the role of Executive Director of North Carolina's Joules Accelerator. Rutledge previously served as VP of Strategy and Innovation for the Charlotte-based CleanTech accelerator program.
- The husband-and-wife co-founders behind Atlanta-based EnviroSpark Aaron and Stephanie Luque announced they were stepping down from their roles in the company. More details can be found on their LinkedIn post.
- The City of Raleigh, North Carolina is launching iAccess and its online survey tool, a first-of-its-kind program to improve on-street parking accessibility in the downtown area. iAccess was founded in Atlanta. More about the work here.
- Westside Atlanta-based nonprofit City of Refuge announced that it is offering a new cybersecurity course through its Tech Transformation Academy (T2 Academy) program, which provides fully-funded scholarships to individuals seeking to break into the tech industry. Applications can be found here.
