Bitwise raises $50 million in funding for growth in Fresno area, expansion to new markets

Fresno-based Bitwise Industries, which has had a transformative impact through its downtown footprint as well as on the lives of thousands from marginalized communities getting a start in the tech industry, has raised $50 million in Series B funding for growth in the Valley and to expand into new markets across the country.

“This funding means more opportunities, more revitalization,” said Thilani Grubel, Bitwise vice president. “In the past eight years we’ve been able to take four blighted buildings in downtown Fresno and renovate them into buildings that are brimming with life and community.

“Later this year we get to open the State Center Warehouse, which is over 100,000 square feet of office space and other uses. It has been vacant for I think 30 years and it, like all of our buildings, is going to be a hub for innovation and a place people want to work and play in.”

The Series B financing is led by Kapor Capital, which also was involved in Bitwise’s initial Series A funding, as well as JP Morgan Chase, Motley Fool Ventures and ProMedica.

The Candide Group, GingerBread Capital, Hunt Capital Investments, Impact Assets, Libra Foundation, Plum Alley and Western Technology Investment also invested in this latest round of funding.

Bitwise has targeted Toledo, Ohio, for expansion, and will add physical space in Oakland, as well.

Toledo, Grubel said, fits the Bitwise blueprint and it already has secured space near downtown in a building that once housed a post office.

“We’re already working with city leaders and the community to renovate the space and make it another Bitwise building that does good in the community and offers opportunities to those in the lower third of the economy,” Grubel said. “We’re going to be able to create more opportunities for folks that are overlooked and underserved – veterans, formerly incarcerated, long-term unhoused. People who are normally not afforded these opportunities, this funding is going to allow us to continue to reach those audiences.”

Bitwise, which also has campuses in Bakersfield and Merced, has trained more than 5,000 people in California through its Geekwise Academy, providing paid apprenticeships and creating access to high-wage and high-growth jobs in the tech industry for groups that were far and farther from that world.

Success story

Miguel Hernandez is one who crossed that bridge. Hernandez ran into trouble after graduating from Gateway High in Clovis, incarcerated for residential burglary. After his release, he landed a seasonal job at Habitat for Humanity through Workforce Connection at Manchester Center. When that ended, in between jobs and teetering between motivated and unmotivated and encouraged and discouraged as the months went on, he got a call from Workforce about the Geekwise Academy and was able to enroll in classes.

“It was a really cool environment,” he said. “When I got there I was taking a class in CRM (customer relationship management) and I had met a lot of great people there. They were really supportive with the whole thing. They would help me if I needed paperwork for probation – to let them know I’m taking this class, this is my schedule. They really helped me out a lot and showed me a whole new perspective and that’s when I got the chance to get an interview in online marketing.”

Hernandez is still there, with Bitwise and working in online marketing.

“Sometimes, it doesn’t feel real,” he said. “It’s an opportunity you only think people in movies get. It was the perfect timing. I’m just really ecstatic, hopeful. I feel like I have a lot more potential than I thought I had before.”

Of the thousands to go through the accelerated training program more than 80%, like Hernandez, have secured job in some facet of the tech industry.

“I’m incredibly excited about what (Bitwise co-founders Jake Soberal and Irma Olguin Jr.) and the Bitwise team have accomplished over the past several years in Fresno and the Central Valley,” said Mitchell Kapor, partner in Kapor Capital, which invests startup money in companies that will close gaps of access, opportunity or outcome for low-income communities and/or communities of color.

“Bitwise is really in the bull’s-eye because they are about creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce across the country. They’ve just done outstanding things in training 5,000 individuals, 80% of whom have gone on to find technical employment at a much higher salary than they were making previously, and is really catalyzing a significant change in the local economy, not just through the workforce training but through the revitalization of the downtown area.”