Friday Fund Day: Startup News From The Southeast For The Week Of August 4-8, 2025

We've got a quick roundup of the top innovation and entrepreneurial headlines across the Southeast:

Funding News

• ketteQ, an Atlanta-based software team with a focus on supply chain planning, raised a $20 million Series B from lead investor Vocap Partners.
• Raleigh-based 10 Federal, a company that builds self-storage sites that are fully automated, raised a $28 million venture round, according to Crunchbase.
• Atlanta-based Wattch, which provides monitoring and control services for commercial and distribution-scale solar and battery storage industries, raised a $6 million seed round from lead investor Spero Ventures.
• Tennessee-based Tabsy AI, an AI platform that lets you find anything on your computer by just asking for it, raised a $150k pre-seed, per Crunchbase.
• Alabama-based CO Armory Technologies, which provides highly customized protective gear for use in sports and beyond, raised a $2.7 million venture round, per Crunchbase.
• Tampa-based SkyTL, which Hypepotamus wrote about in 2022, and Certus Core both received $900k for NASA wildfire tech contracts, according to the Tampa Bay Business Chronicle.

Accelerator News

RIoT announce the launch of the twenty-first cohort of the RIoT Accelerator Program (RAP XXI) up in North Carolina. Selected companies include:

Bingo Bard (North Carolina) – Bingo Bard is redefining social gameplay with a proprietary, AI-powered platform that instantly generates personalized bingo cards based on user-inputted themes.

Carolina Instruments (North Carolina) – Carolina Instruments is developing wearable eye-tracking technology delivering real-time cognitive and physiological insights to support clinical research and diagnostic applications in psychiatry, neurology, and cognitive health. Secondary markets include VR/AR, defense, and automotive sectors, where real-time biometric and gaze data support safety and performance monitoring.

Crown Biome (North Carolina) – Crown Biome is developing SubOral, a dental diagnostic algorithm that integrates AI and bioinformatics via API to deliver early detection and monitoring of systemic diseases by analyzing dental plaque, effectively bridging dentistry and medicine through value-based care.

Focus Cubes (North Carolina) – Focus Cubes is a platform that helps organizations reduce employee burnout and improve performance by using adaptive AI to detect early signs of stress through biometrics—such as voice tone, typing rhythm, and micro-expressions—and deliver real-time, personalized micro-interventions and longer-term programs that build emotional resilience.

InfraTechDC (North Carolina) – InfraTechDC is developing a two-phase liquid cold plate system for GPUs and CPUs that recycles compute heat into electricity, addressing the challenge of revolutionizing data center cooling with a net-positive energy solution for AI and high-performance computing.

Mobile Surveillance Solutions (North Carolina) – Mobile Surveillance Solutions is building AI-powered mobile surveillance trailers equipped with solar power and thermal, infrared, and pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras to provide off-grid security and monitoring for industries requiring asset protection and operational visibility in any environment.

Nearby Nearby (North Carolina) – Nearby Nearby is developing a proximity-based search and discovery platform that features location-first indexing designed to improve visibility and showcase to local businesses, services, and events in rural communities.

Resilience AI [RAISPL] (New Delhi, India) – Resilience AI is building enterprise-grade disaster lifecycle management software that uses AI and machine learning to deliver real-time, asset-level risk analysis and scenario planning. The platform helps enterprises and governments proactively manage disaster preparedness, business continuity, and regulatory compliance. Operable via desktop, the solution offers a comprehensive, technology-forward approach to risk mitigation and resilience planning.

SchedulerRX (North Carolina) – SchedulerRX is developing modern SaaS scheduling software and platform specifically designed for medical residency programs to address the inefficiencies and errors in the current system.

Verdia Diagnostics (North Carolina) – Verdia Diagnostics is developing a plant-wearable VOC biosensor patch that uses functionalized nanomaterial arrays and AI-driven disease detection to enable real-time monitoring of plant stress.

And don't forget, there are a lot of deadlines coming up for those looking to join an accelerator program this fall. They include;

• Women's Entrepreneurship Initiative (WEI) (Atlanta) - August 15
• Voltage (Birmingham) - August 17
• gBETA Gulf Coast program - August 24
• OHUB Build the Future of Energy (virtual) - August 30
• FALL 2025 IDEAinstitute (New Orleans) - August 31
• The Hatchery Incubator at Emory University (Atlanta) - September 12

Top Hypepotamus Stories

1) Get to know the CEO of OMNY Health, Mitesh Rao, MD., who moved to Atlanta to build a new type of infrastructure layer for important healthcare data. More here.

2. We caught up with the team at Player Zero to see what growth looks like after raising its Series A from a group of tech heavyweights. More here.

3. Crypto's been all over the news the past few weeks. So we asked the experts...what is really going on in the world of cryptocurrencies? Get the answers here.

In Other News

Venture Atlanta applications are due today! Want to volunteer? Apply here.

New Names & Faces

Last night we had a chance to hear the pitches from 7 new student-run startup ventures who spent the summer building with Fusen. The Fusen Fellowship Demo Day and Founders’ Meetup showcased founders who took an idea through the prototyping and MVP stage...all while connecting in Atlanta. We'll have more details about the companies soon!

People To Know

We got a chance to sit down with recent Atlanta transplant Sarah Stellwag this week. She moved down from New York after her app Lulo, an app to help those with WIC benefits, caught early traction around the State of Georgia. We'll have a full profile of her in next week's Get To Know The CEO series!