Tourmaline Labs Closes $2M Funding Round

Tech Coast Angels (TCA) along with ClearVision Equity Partners (ClearVision) closed a $2 million financing round for Tourmaline Labs in September. ClearVision led the transaction providing $500K, with the additional $1.5 million coming from TCA and TCA's ACE Fund.

San Diego-based Tourmaline Labs analyzes mobility data, such as speed and other sensor data, to provide smartphone-based solutions for large enterprise fleets via a pure SaaS model, which allows integration and management of third-party vehicles and operators.

Tourmaline Labs plans on using the capital raise to build a robust sales and account management team, as well as ensuring its proprietary technology scales up.

"Our greatest limitation to growth is our sales and support efforts," said Marc Brungger, CEO of Tourmaline Labs. "The funding will be used to build sales functions and account management teams to manage the opportunities and insights our technology offers to enterprise customers and prospects."

This deal marks one of the largest initial raises from TCA directly in recent history. Dean Rosenberg and Nickolas Phillips led the financing for TCA and said that they were impressed with the strength of the management team, and the until-now unmet need for using AI technology to integrate third party vehicles into large enterprise fleets.

"The AI technology is proven and the company already had a strong recurring revenue model in place," said Rosenberg. "In addition to the technology, we were impressed with the management team and the results that they have already achieved. And it is always exciting to see how our investments in exciting local companies continue to enhance the entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout Southern California."

"Another attractive aspect was the steady growth and traction that Tourmaline Labs was able to show us in the enterprise space," said Phillips. "They already have an excellent customer base and I was also attracted to this deal because the executive team has a core strength in providing technology solutions in the automotive/telematics space."

"Automobile technology will change more in the next five years than it has in the past 50 years," concluded Brungger. "With TCA's advocacy and support, we now have the capital to help our customers adapt to these changes. And I am particularly excited that we were able to raise this funding locally, completely within Southern California."

About Tech Coast Angels:
Tech Coast Angels (TCA) is one of the largest and most active angel investor networks in the nation, and a leading source of funding for seed-stage and early-stage companies across all innovation industries in Southern California. TCA members are accredited investors who individually invest in startup companies, and as a group, TCA has invested up to $6M in a single company. Companies in which TCA invest go through well-structured, transparent, and time efficient screening and due diligence. TCA members are themselves founders and executive-level business leaders who have extensive knowledge in the investment process and world-class business practices. TCA members thus provide companies with more than just capital; they also contribute counsel, mentoring and access to an extensive network of investors, customers, strategic partners and management.

TCA is a catalyst in the growth of the thriving Southern California entrepreneurial ecosystem of innovation, funding mostly emerging technologies and life science companies. A recent Halo Report rated TCA as #2 nationally in a number of funded deals, and a recent analysis by CB Insights ranked TCA #1 out of 370 angel groups on "Network Centrality" and #5 overall in "Investor Mosaic." Since its founding in 1997, TCA has invested over $200 million in more than 350 companies and has helped attract more than $1.6 billion in additional capital/follow-on rounds, mostly from venture capital firms. For more information, please visit http://www.techcoastangels.com.

About Tourmaline Labs:
Tourmaline Labs is an Artificial Intelligence Technology Company that revolutionized efficient and deeper mobility and driver data collection by applying their patented AI methods to collecting, aggregating, and analyzing mobility events and insights on a global scale, then developing scalable business workflow and driver scoring/safety solutions which are enabling the company to create efficient and optimized breakthroughs and possibilities for people, organizations, cities, and society. Our growing team of multi-cultural and multi-language, scientists, engineers, and business specialists is centered in the mobility hot-bed of San Diego, California. For more information, please visit http://www.tourmalinelabs.com.