Daily funding roundup - February 26th, 2021

Newness raised $3.5M; DataJoy landed $6M; Torch secured $25M

Thingtesting: Thingtesting is a social e-commerce and discovery platform that promises its users unbiased recommendations so they can better assess all the new DTC products out there. Thingtesting has raised $2 million in funding led by Forerunner Ventures. The company was founded by Jenny Gyllander, a former CMO of Slush and former VC. Read more  

Newness: Newness is a  Bay Area-based startup co-founded by former Twitch employees. Newness has raised $3.5 million in a Sequoia-led seed round for its live-streaming platform aimed at beauty creators and their fan communities. Other investors in the round include Cowboy Ventures, Upside Partnership, Dream Machine, Index Ventures, and numerous individual investors. Read more 

First Boulevard: First Boulevard is a Kansas City, Ms.-based digital bank targeting the Black community. First Boulevard has just raised $5 million in seed funding from Barclays, Anthemis, and a group of angel investors, including actress Gabrielle Union, John Buttrick of Union Square Ventures, and AutoZone CFO Jamere Jackson. Read more 

DataJoy: DataJoy is a  Bay Area-based startup that helps SaaS companies track their financial data. DataJoy has raised $6 million in seed funding. Foundation Capital led, joined by Quarry VC, Partech Partners, IGSB, Bow Capital and SVB. Read more  

Levitate: Levitate is a  Raleigh, N.C.-based marketing platform. Levitate has raised $8 million in Series B funding from earlier investors, including Tippet Venture Partners and Bull City Venture Partners. Read more 

TradeCafe: TradeCafe is a Toronto-headquartered company offering an online platform for the trade of protein commodities like meat, dairy, soybeans, and legumes. TradeCafe has raised $10 million CAD from Toronto's Round13 Capital. Read more 

HYAS: HYAS is a Victoria, British Columbia-based cyberattack interception company. HYAS has raised $16 million in funding led by S3 Ventures, with participation from Uncorrelated Ventures, Tightline Holdings, Cyber Mentor Fund, Dcode Capital and insiders M12, Startup Capital Ventures and 205 Capital. Read more 

Torch: Torch is a San Francisco-based, cloud-based leadership development platform intended to assist managers in planning and access leadership training and development courses. Torch has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Obvious Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Norwest Venture Partners and Initialized Capital.  Read more 

Stori: Stori is a Mexico-based credit card startup. Stori has raised $32.5 million in Series B funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, joined by earlier investors Vision Plus Capital, BAI Capital and Source Code Capital. Read more

If you are interested in being included in our funding roundup, submit your press release or blog post about your financing round to kristin@vator.tv. If you want a longer write-up, please do give us a couple of days heads up. If you'd like to be included in our Today's Entrepreneur column, please send me your Vator profile.

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