NEW YORK - Aug. 4, 2019 - Historically, workplace collaboration tools have been clunky and restricting. Teams had to waste a ton of time updating projects, determining their role in the bigger picture, and drowning in spreadsheets.

In this episode of "StartUp Scoop", monday.com works even harder to solve the fundamental challenges people face when working together, and toy maker Superplastic decides to skip the studios and go directly to the fans.

In our lead story, monday.com has raised $150M in Series D funding.

The concept for the company came from trying to "solve our own challenges" of connecting the marketing team to the development team, the design team to the product team, and the operations team to the management team.

But the company does admit it didn't fully understand the depth of the problem they were working to solve, which is the fundamental challenges that all people face when working together.

"What we didn't know" says the company "was that this adaptable structure to communicate and collaborate, one that is simple and clear, could help so many people across so many industries."

Teams can now connect unlimited cloud apps to its tool. In other words, what was once only attainable by trained developers, can now be achieved with a few simple clicks.

Check out "Startup Scoop" on YouTube (https://youtu.be/gXHKli0vA4c)

In other news, Vermont-based toy brand Superplastic, a creator of animated synthetic celebrities, designer toys, and apparel, has raised $10M in Series A funding.

"The old studio model for animated entertainment is dead," says CEO Paul Budnitz. "Big studios kill innovation, and nothing gets made. We decided to skip the studios and go directly to our fans, by giving our characters lives on social media."

Appropriating social media as an entertainment platform required completely rethinking the traditionally slow animation process, says the company.

"Superplastic is disrupting the way we think about celebrity and media," says lead investor Bill Lee, co-founder at Craft Ventures. "It's a totally unique integrated vision."

Here are the week's other funding deals for U.S.-based startups that hit the $10M mark (courtesy of finsmes.com):
• Compass raised $370M
• Techstars received a $42M round
• MindTickle secured $40M in Series C
• Sierra Energy closed $33M
• Armory raised $28M in Series B
• Recogni raised $25M
• Trinity Cyber closed a $23M round
• Ordermark raised $18M in Series B
• Vymo raised $18M in Series B
• Catalyst raised $15M
• Harver raised $15M in Series B
• Fuel50 raised $14M in Series B
• Truework raised $12M
• Jobble raised $11M
• Sense raised $10M in Series B
• Prevailion raised $10M

"Startup Scoop" is produced by TVP in NYC, and sponsored by RestonLogic