Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.

DataFleets, a US-based data access technology creator, has raised $4.5m in seed financing from Stanford University-aligned venture unit Stanford-StartX Fund, TechCrunch reported on Monday. The round was filled out by consumer electronics producer LG, AME Cloud Ventures, Morado Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Peterson Ventures and private investors including Marty Chavez, president of the board of overseers at Harvard University. DataFleets has built a data storage and management system for training machine learning models on sensitive sets of data dispersed across separate storage locations in order to avoid infringing privacy regulations in sectors like healthcare.
Understory, a US-based weather information and analytics service backed by University of Wisconsin-Madison affiliate 4490 Ventures, has received $3.5m of a targeted $4.1m from undisclosed investors, according to a regulatory filing. Founded in 2012, Understory collects weather data via solar-powered meteorology stations capable of detailed analysis tailored to a variety of specialised use-cases, including agriculture an­­­d insurance. Understory has now received a total of $24.2m in equity funding, according to securities documents. 4490 Ventures last invested as part of a $5.3m series B round closed in May 2019.
Duel, a UK-based brand advocacy software provider, has raised £1.8m ($2.3m) from investors co-led by University of Bristol Enterprise Fund, a university co-investment vehicle run by Parkwalk Advisors, UKTN reported yesterday. The round was also co-led by state-backed London Co-Investment Fund, public relations and advertising firm Publicis and Downing Ventures. Duel previously secured funding from University of Bristol Enterprise Fund II in late 2018.
CarAdvise, a US-based vehicle maintenance marketplace, has raised $200,000 from Indiana University’s Angel Network as part of a series A round of undisclosed size – further details were not disclosed. Founded in 2015, CarAdvise runs a car repair and servicing marketplace that provides real-time updates to the customer on each job in progress. The series A funding will help strengthen its operation across product delivery, marketing and business development.
Drawbridge Health, a US-based medical diagnostics carve out from industrial conglomerate General Electric, has received an undisclosed amount of follow-on funding from Kyoto University Innovation Capital (Kyoto-iCap). Kyoto-iCap invested both directly and through its first university venturing fund – Innovation Kyoto 2016. It was joined in the round by participants including healthcare products firms Toho Holdings and Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, the latter of which has entered a research collaboration with Drawbridge. Drawbridge Health publicly emerged from GE in November 2017, and the corporate was expected to invest in the company at some stage. Kyoto University researchers have been collaborating with the carve-out, which also recently entered a partnership with University of Cambridge focused around covid-19 diagnosis. Kyoto iCap’s original investment in Drawbridge was the result of a meeting at the GUV: Fusion conference in 2018.
H2Pro, an Israel-based hydrogen production technology developer founded from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, has attracted an undisclosed sum from gas supplier and grid operator Fortress Energy as part of a strategic partnership. H2Pro’s technology releases hydrogen by administering renewable energy-sourced electricity. H2Pro previously raised an undisclosed sum in August 2020 from In Venture, a corporate venturing vehicle for diversified trading group Sumitomo Corporation and its UK-based Sumitomo Corporation Europe subsidiary.