Fluree, a North Carolina-headquartered data-first technology startup that recently announced a strategic blockchain deployment with the United States Air Force is getting further backing from Engage in a seed extension round of funding with participation from Engage.
“Organizations have been striving to secure a data-first approach for nearly a decade, and Fluree finally brings that vision to life,” said Brian Platz, co-CEO and co-founder of Fluree. “As the semantic web continues to dissolve data silos and build a new framework for harnessing the value of information, Fluree is becoming the back-end to power that change. In Engage, we have the ideal partners to continue our strategic enterprise expansion and further catalyze the next phase of the web.”
The investment follows a June 2019 $4.7M seed funding round.
The new funds will enable Fluree to expand the market penetration of its enterprise data management platform. Tech startups, government agencies and Fortune 500 enterprises use Fluree as the engine to share, secure and build services upon high-quality, trusted data.
Fluree PBC (Fluree) is a Public Benefit Corporation co-founded by serial IT entrepreneurs and executives Brian Platz and Flip Filipowski in 2016. Built for versatility, the Fluree platform is an enterprise database that acts as the foundation for emerging online architectures that include AI, microservices, machine learning, the semantic web and consortium blockchains.
Founded two years ago, Engage has invested in over 40 companies from across the country. Engage portfolio companies have created over 1,000 jobs and gone on to raise almost $400 million in additional venture financing.
“Fluree is providing a transformative solution to a large problem we see in the enterprise space, rethinking data storage and management,” said Thiago Olson, managing director at Engage. “We are thrilled to welcome Fluree into the Engage family and begin connecting them with our corporate partners.”
Managed by Tech Square Ventures, Atlanta-based Engage is backed by 11 corporations — AT&T, Chick-fil-A, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, Georgia- Pacific, Georgia Power, Goldman Sachs, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Invesco, The Home Depot and UPS — along with leading research institution Georgia Institute of Technology and Invest Georgia. The Engage platform is a first-of-its-kind venture fund and program designed to provide companies access to what they need most: customers and new markets.
