VC Deals Only: PanTheryx Lands $50M to Use “First Milk” to Target...

VC Deals Only: PanTheryx Lands $50M to Use “First Milk” to Target...: There’s a reason why mothers are instructed to breastfeed their babies soon after they’re born. The milk they produce in the days after gi...

PanTheryx Lands $50M to Use “First Milk” to Target Gut Microbiome

There’s a reason why mothers are instructed to breastfeed their babies soon after they’re born. The milk they produce in the days after giving birth is rich in nutrients, immune cells, and antibodies. While this “first milk,” also known as colostrum, is crucial in getting newborns off to a healthy start, PanTheryx CEO Mark Braman says the fluid’s components can also help resolve gastrointestinal disorders rooted in the gut microbiome. Now, the company has $50 million in new capital to ramp up its research.

The fresh cash comes from Perceptive Advisors, a firm that invests in life science companies. Boulder, CO-based PanTheryx has already commercialized a product developed to relieve diarrhea in children and adults. Braman says his company’s approach can also apply to clostridium difficile infection, a type of gut infection. Other GI diseases that the company is researching include two types of inflammatory bowel disease: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

The PanTheryx expansion plans come as a growing number of biotech startups take aim at the gut microbiome, with some of them encountering setbacks. Much about the microbiome and its role in disease remains a mystery, but Braman, a former Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) executive, contends that nourishing gut bacteria is an untapped solution.

“The gut influences so many different diseases,” Braman says. “It only stands to reason that nutrition will play an important role in that.”

Founded in 2007, Braman says PanTheryx’s initial focus was acute infectious diarrhea, a type of diarrhea typically caused by viruses. The disease is common, and it kills an estimated 1.5 million to 2.5 million children worldwide each year. Studying the data, PanTheryx found that incidence of diarrhea was quite low in babies, particularly in the first six months of life. That research led the company’s scientists to colostrum. Obtaining colostrum from new mothers isn’t practical, so PanTheryx turned to bovine colostrum, the first milk produced by dairy cows.

PanTheryx’s anti-diarrhea product, called DiaResQ, is a powder meant to be mixed with water and then swallowed. In addition to colostrum, the product contain antibodies from chicken eggs. Braman says this combination addresses viral, bacterial, and parasitic causes of infectious diarrhea. The product was developed to pass through the stomach and into the small intestine where it binds to pathogens and flushes them out, Braman says. The components of the product also reduces inflammation and promotes repair of tissue in the gut.

Data from a clinical trial enrolling 325 children were mixed, however. According to results published last year in BMJ Global Health, the PanTheryx product was no better than a placebo at reducing the duration of diarrhea, the main goal of the study. But the stool of children who were given the PanTheryx product showed a “significant reduction” in pathogens that cause diarrhea. PanTheryx went ahead and launched DiaResQ last year, and the product is now available over-the-counter online and through retailers such as Walmart (NYSE: WMT), CVS Health (NYSE: CVS), and Walgreens.

Beating a placebo in a clinical trial is essential to support FDA approval of a drug. But the PanTheryx diarrhea product isn’t a drug. It’s a “food for special dietary use.” Products in this category address a particular dietary need and don’t require a prescription or a physician’s supervision. The slightly narrower “medical foods” category encompasses products intended for dietary management of a specific disease. Medical foods are intended to be taken under medical supervision.

Foods for special dietary use and medical foods face limitations on the claims that they can make, and those restrictions have gotten PanTheryx into hot water. In 2017, the FDA sent a warning letter to PanTheryx subsidiary APS Biogroup saying that therapeutic claims on labels characterized the products as drugs, which they were not. Braman says the products belonged to a PanTheryx customer. In addition to its own colostrum production, PanTheryx is also a contract manufacturer for companies that incorporate the fluid in products such as baby formula. He says the labeling language was changed to address FDA concerns. [Paragraph corrected to state that APS received one, not two, warning letters.]

Bovine colostrum is the backbone of PanTheryx’s product pipeline. The colostrum comes from 1.4 million cows at 1,000 US dairy farms, which freeze the first milk on site, Braman says. PanTheryx picks up the colostrum and trucks it to facilities in Phoenix and Ripon, CA, that PanTheryx acquired in 2017 to bolster its production capabilities. In addition to securing colostrum supply, Braman says his company also has patents on its production process, which involves pasteurizing the colostrum and drying it. But PanTheryx does not bioengineer the antibodies or proteins in the colostrum. Braman says the antibodies that end up in the product depend on the vaccines given to the animals.

“The cow and hen are the bioprocessor,” Braman says. “They’re very efficient at delivering antibodies and growth factors into the final product.”

As PanTheryx expands its research to specific GI disorders, it will need to produce more robust data that stands up to greater scrutiny. To date, PanTheryx’s research in c. diff infection and inflammatory bowel disease is preclinical. The company is also studying applications of its technology in addressing drug induced injuries, such as the gut damage caused by chemotherapy. Braman says clinical trials testing PanTheryx candidates in these applications could start by the end of this year.

Not all of the PanTheryx product candidates will be biologic drugs. Some might be medical foods, which offer a faster path to market because the FDA does not require them to go through the three phases of clinical trials required of drugs. That’s the pathway chosen by Whole Biome, a San Francisco company that plans to launch a type 2 diabetes medical food next year. Braman says that if all goes well, PanTheryx’s medical foods could reach the market in two years. The company’s biologic drugs could follow two to three years after that.

Earlier investors in PanTheryx include private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors. PanTheryx says it has raised $170 million total. The new $50 million in capital will be split between commercialization of DiaResQ and research and development of new product candidates. Depending on the progress of the research, Braman says those candidates could be developed in partnership with pharmaceutical companies or with large food or nutrition companies.

“We know the kinds of resources they can [bring to] bear, we don’t have to develop this all ourselves,” says Braman, a former vice president in Pfizer’s nutrition group. “We do believe it’s important to at least get the preclinical and Phase 1 work so you have sufficient data that would interest big players.”

Source. Xeconomy, Frank Vinluan, June 26, 2019

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Weekend Edition: TripActions, a travel booking service tailored for large enterprises, valued at $4 billion with a $250 million Series D funding

VC Deals

Startup Join wants to modernize the back office for an industry that’s everywhere, but maybe not top of mind, especially when it comes to project management software: Commercial construction. The company has raised a $4 million seed round, co-led by Signalfire and Building Ventures and including participation by existing investor Bolt. more 

Two months ago, we reported that Carbon was set to raise up to $ 300 million, bringing the 3D printing company's valuation up to a lofty $ 2.5 billion. The real numbers released this week by the company are not quite so lofty, but are impressive nonetheless. The Series E fetched $ 260 million, putting its valuation at closer to $ 2.4 billion. more 

AUrate has launched a $ 13 million in Series A funding. The company's co-founders Bouchra Ezzahraoui and Sophie Kahn said that they are worth $ 50 to $ 3,000, but they're really interested in what Ezzahraoui called "this new market sweet spot" of $ 300 to $ 500. more 

Big money continues to flow in India's growing education market. Bangalore-based Unacademy, which operates in the online learning platform to help prepare for competitive exams in India, has raised $ 50 million to further scale its reach. more 

Ocrolus, a New York startup that taps $ 24 million in a series B round led by growth growth venture firm Oak HC / FT. Ocrolus cofounder and CEO Sam Bobley said the fresh capital, which follows a $ 4 million series A in April 2018 and the company's total raised to about $ 30 million, will fuel expansion into verticals like consumer and auto lending and advance development of the company's underwriting solutions for banks. more 

Online reviews can make or break a business. According to one study, 94 percent of consumers have avoided a business review. Since it's bad for business, it's important to watch their reviews. ReviewTrackers helps businesses keep an eye on and manage their online reputations. more 

Venture capital investors Andreessen Horowitz, Zeev Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Group 11 have valued TripActions, a travel booking service tailored for large enterprises, at $4 billion with a $250 million Series D. The round, announced this morning, brings the business’s total raised to $480 million. more 

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Acquisitions 

WeWork announced today that it will acquire Waltz, a building access and security management startup, for an undisclosed amount. Waltz's smartphones and smartphones allow users to have a better understanding of the world and to make it easier for WeWork's enterprise customers, such as GE Healthcare and Microsoft, to manage their employees on-demand memberships to WeWork spaces. more 

SKC will acquire KCF Technologies (KCFT), a major manufacturer of battery copper foil for electric vehicles. SKC announced on June 13 that it has been decided to acquire a 100 percent stake in KCFT for 1.2 trillion won (US $ 1.14 trillion) and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). KCFT will start a SKC after due diligence and other required processes. more 

IPOs 

Change Healthcare, a provider of revenue cycle management and analytics products to the healthcare industry, priced its shares, one of the final steps to going public. The Nashville-based company aims to raise $ 557.7 million in an initial public offering of 42,857,142 shares of its common stock at a price of $ 13.  more 

Blockchain Technology News 

Bitcoin  and other  cryptocurrencies , along with various dimensions of the blockchain technology, have shown that they are catalysts to develop one's business. A business can completely transform the functionality and structure of its financial services using these  tools and methodologies . The technology is  booming in the financial space , and is one of the most secured and trusted technologies, in terms of data protection. more

Life Science News 

A newly launched company hopes to use its initial round of venture capital funding to develop drugs that go after molecular targets of cancers and other diseases that are considered unreachable by pharmaceutical means. more 

Artificial Intelligence News 

Tracking dozens of people in dense public squares is a job to which AI is ideally suited, if you ask scientists at the University of Maryland and University of North Carolina. A team recently proposed a novel pedestrian-tracking algorithm — DensePeds — that’s able to keep tabs on folks in claustrophobic crowds by predicting their movements, either from front-facing or elevated camera footage. more

VC Deals Only: A Boston startup developing a nuclear fusion react...

VC Deals Only: A Boston startup developing a nuclear fusion react...: After twenty five years of research, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology think that they have finally cracked the code ...

A Boston startup developing a nuclear fusion reactor just got a roughly $50 million boost

After twenty five years of research, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology think that they have finally cracked the code for the commercialization for nuclear fusion reactions.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the fruit of that research. It’s a startup building on decades of research and development that plans to harness the power of the sun to create a cleaner, stable source of energy for consumers. And the company just raised another $50 million in funding from some of the country’s deepest pocketed private investors to continue on its path to commercialization.

The company unveiled its technology and a first $64 million in financing from investors including the Italian energy company, Eni; Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the investment consortium established by the world’s richest men and women, and The Engine, MIT’s own investment vehicle for frontier technologies.

Now Future Ventures, the investment firm created by Steve Jurvetson, Khosla Ventures, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Safar Partners, Schooner Capital and Starlight Ventures.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems began as a student project in 2014 whose goal was to reduce the cost of nuclear fusion. The class, which was taught by Dennis Whyte, who is the head of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, came up with a new reactor technology they called the ARC (standing for “affordable, robust, compact”). That technology still came in with a few billion dollar price tag — something that would make most investors balk.

So the class went back to the drawing board, trying to come up with a minimum viable product that could produce a net energy gain (with more energy coming out of the reaction than was put in).

Net energy gain is the real sticking point for most nuclear fusion technologies. A few research institutions and projects have been able to achieve a fusion reaction, but maintaining it and getting more power out than was put in has been elusive.

In Europe, the ITER reactor, a $20 billion, multi-national effort, is 60% of the way toward its 2045 target for generating energy. Closer to home, startups like TAE Technologies and General Fusion are two other North American entrants looking at lower-cost ways to generate fusion power. And in the UK, First Light Fusion and Tokamak Energy are trying to put their own spin on fusion power.

For Bob Mumgaard, the chief executive of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, everything appears to be proceeding according to plan. on track. “CFS is on track to commercialize fusion and deliver an inherently safe, globally scalable, carbon-free, and limitless energy source,” he said in a statement.

Commonwealth Fusion expects to have its smallest possible reactor built by 2025 thanks to the research that MIT has done on proprietary magnet technology that the company uses to confine its nuclear reaction. In fact, most of the financing will go toward construction of the full scale magnet technology Commonwealth Fusion uses to contain its reactions.

The ultimate goal is to build a fusion reactor that can generate 50 megawatts of energy either as heat or to create electricity using a steam turbine.

Unlike fission reactors, which have significant environmental risks, a fusion power plant would be regulated in much the same way as any industrial facility, says Mumgaard. “The hazard profile of fusion continues to put it in [the category of] an industrial facility. The laws exist, but we haven’t gone out and built the plant yet, so no one has the precedent.”

Mumgaard envisions a 200 megawatt scale reactor that could slot into the place of a wind farm or solar power plant.

“You have to keep track of moving towards vs. going to get to,” he says. “The consensus is we do not have a solution in hand for deep decarbonization of the electricity grid. if you look at where the biggest gains even in renewables.. the biggest gains are in the utility scale were you’re talking hundreds of megawatts of power per site.”

Renewable energy alone will not be enough to meet the demand that’s coming from modern metropolises, according to Mumgaard. “There is huge demand for concentrated energy to power the modern lifestyle.

Public opinion on the issue is increasingly divided — especially among nuclear opponents who count themselves as part of the Sunrise Movement behind the Green New Deal that’s been the talk of the town in energy policy circles. But most energy analysts  argue for a blended approach and say that to get to zero carbon emissions (the ultimate goal for the scientific community), nuclear power will need to be incorporated into the mix.

“We have been looking for the right clean energy investment opportunity in fusion for the past 20 years, said Steve Jurvetson, chief executive of Future Ventures, in a statement. “We wanted a company that was ready to make a business of fusion and we have finally found it with Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The hard science from which their approach is based has been proven by this team as well as leaders in the field around the world.  With some clever engineering, CFS is ready to harness the power of the solar cycle to change the world and usher in the era of clean baseload energy generation for the betterment of all.”

Source. TechCrunch, Johnathan Bieber, June 27, 2019

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VC Deals Only: Jewelry startup AUrate raises $13M

VC Deals Only: Jewelry startup AUrate raises $13M: AUrate, a startup selling gold jewelry directly to consumers, announced today that it has raised $13 million in Series A funding. The c...

Jewelry startup AUrate raises $13M

AUrate, a startup selling gold jewelry directly to consumers, announced today that it has raised $13 million in Series A funding.

The company’s co-founders Bouchra Ezzahraoui and Sophie Kahn said that AUrate’s prices range from $50 to $3,000, but they’re really aiming for what Ezzahraoui called “this new market sweet spot” of $300 to $500. And while that’s not exactly cheap, she said customers are getting a piece of fine jewelry made from real gold, which would normally be priced at $1,200 or more.

The jewelry is produced by local partners in New York City, and the gold comes from sustainable sources. Kahn also said while fine jewelry has traditionally been created “by men for women,” she designs AUrate’s pieces, and she’s “always looking for a balance between bold and feminine, which represents our women.”

In addition to selling jewelry online, AUrate also operates two brick-and-mortar stores in New York, with a third under construction in Washington, D.C. And it introduced something called Curate, where the company will send up to five recommended pieces to customers, which they can try at home with no commitment.

Founded in 2015, AUrate says its online revenue has been growing consistently by 400 percent every year, while its brick-and-mortar retail business has been doubling. Also noteworthy: 40 percent of its customers return for additional purchases, and 90 percent of customers are women.

The new funding was led by Michael Platt’s Bluecrest Capital, with participation from Point King Capital, Arab Angel Fund and Drake Management.

Source. Techcrunch, Anthony Ha, June 25, 2019

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VC Deals Only: Join raises $4M seed round to build a better const...

VC Deals Only: Join raises $4M seed round to build a better const...: By Darrell Etherington Startup Join wants to modernize the back office for an industry that’s everywhere, but maybe not top of mind, espe...

Join raises $4M seed round to build a better construction planning platform

By Darrell Etherington

Startup Join wants to modernize the back office for an industry that’s everywhere, but maybe not top of mind, especially when it comes to project management software: Commercial construction. The company has raised a $4 million seed round, co-led by Signalfire and Building Ventures and including participation by existing investor Bolt.

The startup’s core product is a collaborative decision-making platform designed to facilitate more effective working relationships between everyone involved in the preconstruction phase of a building project, including owners, contractors, designers, tradespeople and suppliers. The platform includes visualization tool, including timeline and budget planners, along with trend predictions so that you can see how changes to the plan will affect the project overall.

It also includes permission-based account access control, so that you can ensure everyone working on the project has the visibility they need to the pieces they touch. Join’s product also provides insights based on past project performance so that future ones can benefit from the successes of the past.

Join’s foundation is based on the observation that commercial construction industry is following a path blazed by the software industry before it, from a so-called ‘waterfall’ product development mode, whereby you more or less follow rigid steps in sequence, to a more agile mode in which each phase is more fluid and the project’s scope can change in the execution. Join believes construction is following a similar path, hence the need now for a tool like this.

The founding team behind Join includes co-founder and CEO Andrew Zukoski, Drew Wolpert, Ye Wang and Jim Forester. Both Zukoski and Wolpert have experience at Flux.io, a startup borne of Google X, that focused on supporting architecture, engineering and construction industry improvement via cloud-based solutions, and Wang has a background in manufacturing design technology from past work at both Onshape and Autodesk .

Join will make use of this round, which brings its total funding to $5.2 million including a pre-seed round led by Bolt, to bring on additional product development talent to help it set up for public launch of the platform to customers.

Source. TechCrunch, Darrell Etherington, June 24, 2019

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VC Deals Only: BioEclipse Therapeutics Raises $7.7M in Series A-1...

VC Deals Only: BioEclipse Therapeutics Raises $7.7M in Series A-1...: BioEclipse Therapeutics, a South San Francisco-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, raised $7.7m in Series A-1 financing. Th...

BioEclipse Therapeutics Raises $7.7M in Series A-1 Financing

BioEclipse Therapeutics, a South San Francisco-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, raised $7.7m in Series A-1 financing.

The round, which brought total funding raised to date to $9.3m, was led by Revelis Capital Group, with participation from Tsingyuan Ventures, DEFTA Partners, TSVC (TEEC Angel Fund) and Plum Alley.

The company intends to use the funds to advance lead immunotherapy, CRX-100, into Phase 1b/2a clinical trials in therapy-refractory solid tumors.

Led by Pamela Contag, Ph.D., founder and CEO, BioEclipse Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to delivering curative immuno-oncology therapeutics to patients with cancer. The company is preparing to initiate Phase 1b/2a clinical trials with, CRX-100, a patented, first in class, intravenously delivered, targeted immunotherapy against solid tumors. CRX-100, is being developed to deliver potentially curative treatment to patients over a broad range of tumor types, including some rare pediatric cancers.

BioEclipse also announced the addition of three new board members:

– Mark Frohlich, MD, former Executive Vice President at Juno Therapeutics;

– Elona Baum, Managing Director of DEFTA Partners; and

– Oliver Hopkinson, Co-Founder and Manager of Revelis Capital Group.

Source. FinSMEs, June 24, 2019

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VC Deals Only: Snapsheet Raised $29m in Series E Funding

VC Deals Only: Snapsheet Raised $29m in Series E Funding: Snapsheet , a Chicago, IL-based provider of virtual claims solutions, raised $29m in Series E funding. The round, which brought total ...

Snapsheet Raised $29m in Series E Funding

Snapsheet, a Chicago, IL-based provider of virtual claims solutions, raised $29m in Series E funding.

The round, which brought total funding to $71m, was led by Tola Capital, with participation from new investors Nationwide, Sedgwick, and State Auto Labs and existing investors Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, F-Prime Capital, OCA Ventures and an affiliate of USAA.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the delivery of its SaaS claims platform for all lines of property and casualty, further invest in advanced analytics capabilities and expand the team to serve clients globally.

Led by Jamie Yoder, president, and Brad Weisberg, CEO and founder, Snapsheet delivers a customer-first claims process with an intelligent, proprietary platform combining technology, data and people.

The company, which proactively leverages internal and external data to make every interaction in the claims journey efficient, currently serves more than 75 clients around the world.

Source. FinSMEs, May 20, 2019

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VC Deals Only: Nowports raises $5.3 million to become Latin Ameri...

VC Deals Only: Nowports raises $5.3 million to become Latin Ameri...: Nowports, a developer of software and services to track freight shipments from ports to destinations across Latin America, has aims to beco...

Nowports raises $5.3 million to become Latin America’s digital shipping answer to Flexport

Nowports, a developer of software and services to track freight shipments from ports to destinations across Latin America, has aims to become the regional answer to Flexport’s billion-dollar digital shipping business.

Almost 54 million containers are imported and exported from Latin America each year, and nearly half of them are either delayed or lost due to mismanagement.

Nowports is pitching shippers on its digital management software to keep track of each container, and has signed on a number of leading venture capital firms to fulfill its mission.

The Monterrey, Mexico-based company raised $5.3 million in its seed round of financing. The round was led by Base10 and Monashees, with participation from Y Combinator and additional investors like Broadhaven, Soma Capital, Partech, Tekton and Paul Buchheit.

“In Nowports we saw a very strong combination: well prepared and ambitious team using technology to help thousands of customers to improve their importing and exporting processes. By adding efficiency, reliability, and transparency to change a multi-billion dollar industry, Nowports has been able to attract many clients that saw significant improvements in their daily routines by using the solution” said Caio Bolognesi, general partner from Monashees, in a statement.

The company said it would use the money to expand into new markets, grow its team and integrate with more companies involved in the (very fragmented) Latin American logistics industry. It’s a market that needs a range of better logistics technologies.

“Even though over 90% of the world’s trade is carried by sea, the most cost-effective way to move goods en masse, there has yet to be a solution that’s able to connect suppliers, customs brokers, carriers and transportation companies to provide an efficient and reliable service,” said Maximiliano Casal, founder and chief executive of Nowports, in a statement. “This is why we launched Nowports, combining our 10 years of industry expertise to fill this void and are currently working with over 40 customers in the region and growing.”

The company now has offices in Chile and Uruguay, and is planning to expand to Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

“With platforms, algorithms with AI and integrations, our platform allows companies to take control of their shipments and plan and predict the best timing to move the freight based on the needs of their own company,” said Alfonso De Los Rios, founder and CTO of Nowports.

As the company looks to expand, it has a strategic road map it can follow in the growth of Flexport, the Silicon Valley startup that has become a billion-dollar business by applying technology to the outdated shipping industry.

The two co-founders of Nowports met at a program at Stanford University, with De Los Rios hailing from a family with deep ties to the shipping industry. He and Casal linked up and the two began plotting a way to make the deeply inefficient industry more modern and transparent. To familiarize himself with the market for which he’d be developing a technology, Casal worked in a freight forwarder in Kansas City that had been operating for more than 30 years.

In all, freight providers are getting paid nearly $40 billion per year to move freight into Latin America.

“Alfonso and Max are the ideal founders we look to invest in as they are industry experts and passionate about evolving the industry using technology and automation,” said Adeyemi Ajao, general partner from Base10. “We are proud to be investors in Nowports alongside our friends at Monashees and look forward to watching the company’s continued growth.”

Source. Techcrunch, Jonathan Schreiber,  June 20, 2019

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Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.

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VC Deals Only: Special Weekend Edition: Great North Labs Raises $...

VC Deals Only: Special Weekend Edition: Great North Labs Raises $...: VC Deals Great North Labs  — headed by a couple of  seasoned entrepreneurs  — has raised its first fund with $23.7 million in capital ...

Special Weekend Edition: Great North Labs Raises $23.7M To Invest In Early Stage Tech Startups

VC Deals

Great North Labs — headed by a couple of seasoned entrepreneurs — has raised its first fund with $23.7 million in capital to invest in early-stage tech startups across the Upper Midwest in the U.S. The fund is based in St. Cloud and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a partner located in Silicon Valley. More

India has a new unicorn after BigBasket, a startup that delivers groceries and perishables across the country, raised $150 million for its fight against rivals Walmart’s Flipkart, Amazon and hyperlocal startups Swiggy and Dunzo.  More

Health coaching app developer Noom announced today that it has raised $58 million led by Sequoia Capital. Headquartered in New York City with offices in Seoul and Tokyo, Noom is best known for its direct-to-consumer weight loss app, but it also develops enterprise products, including an app focused on diabetes and hypertension.  More

Vancouver-based Traction Guest, a cloud-based visitor management system, has raised $17 million CAD Series A funding round. The round was led by Silicon Valley-based Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Salesforce Ventures and other private investors. Traction Guest said the funding will be used to expand its team, drive enterprise standardization, and capitalize on market demand for its product. More

Diagram Ventures has announced the close of its second fund, raising $55 million CAD as the firm also brings on Smooch.io co-founder Hamnett Hill as a Partner. The fund marks Diagram’s second since it launched in January 2017 with $25 million from Portag3 and more than 50 angel investors.  More

San Francisco-based virtual health coaching company Vida Health has raised a $30 million Series C financing round from investors GuideWell Mutual Holding Corporation, Teladoc Health and Workday Ventures.  More

Axial Biotherapeutics, a Waltham, MA-based biotechnology company dedicated to building gut-targeted therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders, raised $10m in Series B extension funding. More

Druva, which provides software-as-a-service-based data protection, backup and management solutions, has raised $130 million in a round of funding that CEO and founder Jaspreet Singh says takes the company “well past the $1 billion mark” in terms of its valuation. More

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Acquisitions

Purpose Financial has announced the acquisition of Toronto-based CreditGenie, a startup aiming to disrupt the point-of-sale financing experience for merchants and consumers. The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.  More

In a bid to expand its educational offerings, iRobot has acquired local Massachusetts-based startup, Root Robotics. The company is the creator of the eponymous coding robot, a two-wheeled device designed to draw on whiteboards and other surfaces, scanning colors, playing music and otherwise playing out coding instructions More

The old guard of advertising networks continues to swap hands. In the latest development, marketing company Fluent has announced that it is buying AdParlor, a company that built early inroads into advertising and advertising strategy on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. According to an 8-K filing, the deal is valued at $10 million: $7.5 million in cash when the acquisition closes, and a further $2.5 million over the next two years. More

New Funds

Dawn Capital has made a name for itself over the last several years for having a sharp eye when it comes to spotting interesting B2B startups in Europe before they become big, with companies like iZettle (acquired by PayPal last year for $2.2 billion), Mimecast (IPO’d and now worth $2.8 billion), Collibra and Showpad among its stable. Today, it’s announcing the close of a new fund that will help it capitalise on those growing bets more directly itself  More

IPOs

Slack’s  public debut is happening Thursday on the NYSE and the company has set a reference price of $26 per share for its direct listing, according to WSJ, which would value the company at around $15.7 billion.  More

Life Science News

Tech giant Google and French pharmaceutical company Sanofi are teaming up to establish an innovation lab that will combine their capabilities. More specifically, the lab will apply technology and analytics to Sanofi’s real-world database. The aim is to better understand diseases and which treatments work for patients, resulting in Sanofi being able to offer more personalized approaches to treatment.  More

Legal News

UnitedHealth Group’s $4.3 billion acquisition of Denver-based Davita Medical Group has received provisional clearance by the Federal Trade Commission after being held up in regulatory red tape for more than a year. The effort by the nation’s largest insurer to become the nation’s largest employer of clinicians received FTC approval with an agreement to divest some of the company’s holdings in the Las Vegas area to address antitrust issues. More