Impossible Objects, a next-gen 3D print company, raises $2.8 million

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Some companies 3D-print cars as experiments or publicity stunts. Northbrook-based Impossible Objects wants to 3D-print parts that can go straight from machine to vehicle.

The company announced Tuesday it has raised $2.8 million in seed funding in a round led by Chicago-based OCA Ventures. That funding will go toward developing a commercial 3D printing machine as well as sales and marketing, said CEO Larry Kaplan.

Robert Swartz, an entrepreneur and IP consultant for the MIT Media Lab, founded the company and now is its chairman. He hired Kaplan, former CEO and president of Navteq who led that company through its IPO and sale to Nokia, as chief executive in June.

“OCA invested in Impossible Objects because it’s being led by an all-star team of Larry and Bob, who have a lot of experience building companies from early stage startups to IPO,” said Imran Ahmad, principal at OCA Ventures.

WedPics, A Photo-Sharing App for Weddings, Raises $4.25M Series B

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Can a mobile, social application bloom outside the Valley or other traditional tech hotspots? Raleigh, North Carolina-based WedPics has proven it can. The company, which makes a photo and video-sharing app for wedding couples and their guests, has now closed on $4.25 million in Series B funding led by Bullpen Capital, and is working on a second close that will see TV’s “Shark Tank” investor Barbara Corcoran participating via her new AngelList syndicate.

Participating in the round so far were OCA Ventures, Venture51, IDEA Fund Partners, Great Oaks, and angels including Adam Draper, Semil Shah, Jocelyn Goldfein, and others. Corcoran’s AngelList syndicate, launching on Monday, has asked for a $250,000 hold. relevant domains .

First Capital Provides $7M Asset-Based Credit Facility to Ed Map

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First Capital, a national commercial finance company, announced it has provided a $7,000,000 revolving line of credit to ED MAP, Inc. The senior credit facility consists of a $7 million working capital revolver collateralized by accounts receivable and inventory. relevant domains .

The algorithm that can make fantasy football even more fun

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Yahoo Sports has found a way to make our beloved fantasy teams seem even more important. It’s turned to a tech company in North Carolina to auto-generate personalized articles about the thousands of fantasy football teams in its leagues. how to value domain name . For the third year Yahoo has had weekly recaps for each of the thousands of matchups in its leagues. It’s the kind of effort that would be impossible if Yahoo relied on human writers.

In 2013 the Durham-based start-up with about 30 employees published 300 million articles via its content-generating platform, Wordsmith. This year Automated Insights expects to auto-generate more than 1 billion articles for clients ranging from Yahoo Sports to Edmunds.com and the Associated Press.

Pangea, The Netflix of the cash transfer business?

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Rahier Rahman wants to change the world — a few hundred dollars at a time — by making it cheaper for the working poor to send cash back home. And he’s doing it with little more than a dozen people, most of them working out of a small office in River North.

His secret weapons? Gift cards and smartphones. relevant domains .

Automated Insights Secure $5.5M in Oversubscribed Series B

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Automated Insights (Ai), the world leader in producing personalized narrative content from Big Data, today announced that it closed a $5.5 million Series B round led by Osage Venture Partners. The round included participation from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, The Associated Press, AOL co-founder Steve Case, former SevOne CEO Mike Phelan, Court Square Ventures, OCA Ventures, IDEA Fund Partners and other existing investors. domain check relevant domains .

How Snapsheet’s Last Ditch Pivot Pulled Them Back From The Brink

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BodyShopBids, a mobile app that helped people shop around virtually for car repairs was days from closing when an experiment with a last minute pivot repositioned the company within the $100 billion insurance claims market.

Brad Weisberg had a great idea to start a business. bid ask . After a fender bender in L.A. how to value domain name . he’d schlepped to three different bodyshops only to be given three wildly different quotes. At all three bodyshops mechanics had just glanced perfunctorily at the car before scribbling down estimates.

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