09 Jan 2026 2 min read Feature

Southeast Tech News From The Week Of January 5-9, 2026

We're back in action for 2026!

Here is a round up of the tech stories from last week:

Funding News

Biller Genie (Miami, Florida) - FinTech: $22 million Series B
Definity (Covington, Kentucky) - SaaS: $14 million venture round
Simparo Surgical (Mobile, Alabama) - Medical Device: $1 million seed
Cloud Guidant (Lawrenceville, Georgia) - cloud computing: $500k seed round
Clikyo (Atlanta, Georgia) - social media, consumer app: $1k pre-seed
Ethicos Health (Nashville, Tennessee) - analytics, healthcare: undisclosed pre-seed round

Accelerator News

Techstars Emory Founders Catalyst program announced the new cohort of companies for 2026. Explore the students and startups selected here.

Top Hypepotamus Stories

5 million people have downloaded Atlanta-based Reframe, an app that has a simple mission: Help people drink less. As January gets underway, millions are attempting Dry January, or the annual tradition of abstaining from alcohol for the first month of the year. It’s become somewhat of a collective reset button pushed by people who spent December overindulging at holiday parties and family gatherings. But while the intention is often there, the execution is notoriously difficult. Most people slip within the first two weeks, and many never make it to February 1st. As a data-driven platform tracking millions of users, Reframe knows what it takes to make it through January…and its findings might surprise you. Learn more here.

We spoke to Deliveri up in North Carolina, a startup helping small and up-and-coming ecommerce brands navigate their shipping woes in the wake of tariff changes.

Deliveri works as a global shipping platform, or a unified hub for branded tracking, insurance, customer communication, competitive shipping rates, and return services. Those things individually aren’t unique. But Deliveri’s approach of bringing all those services and tools into one platform is. The goal is also to provide smaller, up-and-coming brand-led founders with enterprise-level solutions that have been inaccessible to them previously. As a rate aggregator, for example, Deliveri can help customers find the best courier for their needs, saving up to 90% on shipping costs.

In Other News

Atlanta-based Stord is planning a $41 million expansion plan into Ohio, per the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
San Francisco-based Valerie Health plans to rapidly expand its hub in Chattanooga, creating 100 jobs by the end of 2026, per the Chattanooga Times Free Press.