VC Deals Only: VC Deals Only. Weekend Edition. Yamaha Motor Ventu...

VC Deals Only: VC Deals Only. Weekend Edition. Yamaha Motor Ventu...: VC Deals SpotHero,  the Chicago-based company that has developed an on-demand parking app, has raised $50 million in a Series D round l...

VC Deals Only. Weekend Edition. Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley Leads Series A Funding Round for Advanced Farm Technologies

VC Deals

SpotHero, the Chicago-based company that has developed an on-demand parking app, has raised $50 million in a Series D round led by Macquarie Capital. SpotHero has raised $118 million to date. The new capital will be used to expand its reach in the 300 U.S. and Canadian cities where it is already operating, build out its digital platform and strengthen partnerships with mobility companies. More 

Digital Medical Tech, an Annapolis, MD-based solution provider for hospital management and asset tracking, raised $1.5m in seed funding. The company intends to use the funds to launch a nationwide engagement program for targeting healthcare providers and potential partnerships. Founded in 2016 by CEO Matthew Nicholson, Digital Medical Tech  enables health systems to proactively track medical equipment and devices via a Bluetooth platform. The company’s real-time location system monitors and manages medical assets while requiring less infrastructure and shorter installation time compared to other tracking solutions. More 

Boll & Branch, which sells sustainably sourced sheets, pillows, mattresses and towels, is announcing that it has raised $100 million in a strategic investment from L Catterton’s Flagship Buyout Fund. This looks like a big change from the company’s previous approach to funding. It was self-funded for its first two years (resulting in what CEO Scott Tannen described as “a lot of maxed out credit cards and five mortgages on my house”), and even when it started looking at venture capital, it only raised a total of $12 million from a single institutional backer, Silas Capital. More

Funding Circle, a San Francisco, CA-based small business loans platform, closed its first $198m asset-backed securitization (ABS) of US small business loans originated through its system. The deal marks the debut of Funding Circle’s US securitization sponsorship capability, and is the fifth securitization of Funding Circle business loans globally. The transaction is rated by two ratings agencies, with its senior tranche earning an A- (sf) rating from Kroll Bond Rating Agency and an A3 (sf) rating from Moody’s Investors Service. More

Ethos, the company making simple, ethical life insurance, today announced it raised a $60 million Series C financing led by GV (formerly Google Ventures). This financing follows major revenue and customer growth, and supports Ethos’ mission to make life insurance coverage accessible for millions of families in the U.S. In addition to GV, Goldman Sachs is a new participant alongside existing investors Sequoia Capital and Accel, bringing the total funding to-date to more than $100 million. More

A British energy firm lighting up homes in Africa with pay-as-you-go solar power has secured £40m to extend its reach to Asia with the help of Japan’s Mitsubishi. The conglomerate has taken a stake in off-grid solar company BBOXX through the start-up’s latest funding round, which will power the Africa-focused company deeper into Asia. The funds will also help BBOXX, which operates in Rwanda, Kenya, Togo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to break into new African markets, where an estimated one in three people live without reliable access to electricity. More

Luma Health, a San Francisco startup developing a patient engagement platform for health systems, today announced that it’s raised $16 million in series B funding led by PeakSpan Capital, with participation from U.S. Venture Partners and strategic investors Cisco and the Texas Medical Center. The capital infusion brings Luma Health’s total raised to $25.7 million, which cofounder and CEO Adnan Iqbal said will be used to “scale and meet the demands” of its customers.  More

Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley (“YMVSV”), the strategic business development and investment arm of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (“YMC”) (Tokyo: 7272), today announced it led the Series A funding round for Advanced Farm Technologies (AFT), a developer of robotic farming equipment that includes the T-6 robotic strawberry harvester. Leveraging the $100 million Yamaha Motor Exploratory Fund (the “Fund”), the AFT investment reflects YMVSV’s focus on disruptive technological solutions that meet the challenges of the global food supply chain. More

Homee, a Tampa, Florida-based startup developing an on-demand home services platform for homeowners and property managers, today announced that it’s raised $15 million in series B funding led by Forte Ventures, with participation from Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Active Capital Partners, Florida Funders, Deepwork Capital, and Engage. The capital infusion, which also saw contributions from strategic investors The Hartford, State Farm Ventures, and Ferguson Ventures, brings Homee’s total raised to nearly $30 million. More 

Sponsor 

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics. 

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. 

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.  

New Funds 

Kaszek Ventures, the investment firm that has been one of the primary architects of the recent boom in startup financing and growth in Latin America, has just raised $600 million across two new funds. The new commitments (raised in roughly two months) put Kaszek’s total capital under management at roughly $1 billion, making the firm the first local early-stage investor to hit that milestone. More  

Pharmaceutical Co., a Tokyo, Japan-based specialty pharma company with a focus on oncology, is to invest up to US$30m in Remiges Biopharma Fund II, LP, a biopharma venture capital fund formed by Remiges Ventures, Inc.The company had invested the same amount in the Remiges BioPharma Fund I established in 2014, using it as a platform for open innovation with academia, research institutions, and startups in the early stages of development in the US and Europe. More 

Exits  

Apparel retailer Forever 21 is considering filing for bankruptcy as efforts to restructure its debt run dry, a person familiar with the situation told CNBC. The retailer has been exploring restructuring options to shore up its liquidity as it struggles with its business, CNBC previously reported. Those efforts, though, have stalled, making a bankruptcy more likely. More

VC Deals Only: Homee raises $15 million to connect property owner...

VC Deals Only: Homee raises $15 million to connect property owner...: Homee , a Tampa, Florida-based startup developing an on-demand home services platform for homeowners and property managers, today announc...

Homee raises $15 million to connect property owners with service providers

Homee, a Tampa, Florida-based startup developing an on-demand home services platform for homeowners and property managers, today announced that it’s raised $15 million in series B funding led by Forte Ventures, with participation from Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Active Capital Partners, Florida Funders, Deepwork Capital, and Engage. The capital infusion, which also saw contributions from strategic investors The Hartford, State Farm Ventures, and Ferguson Ventures, brings Homee’s total raised to nearly $30 million.

CEO Doug Schaedler said the funding will enable Homee to launch new markets and expand its services further throughout the U.S. “We launched Homee three years ago to change the way homeowners and landlords order home services. Our revolutionary on-demand model which ensures our customers the highest quality service at the most competitive price,” he added. “We look forward to working with all our new strategic partners and servicing their home improvement needs across the country.”

Homee’s network enables background-checked and vetted electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, and handymen to accept nearby repair or maintenance job requests for offices, homes, condos, and restaurants from their smartphones. A centralized operations team continually monitors provider ratings to ensure quality doesn’t suffer, and to lock in pricing no matter the time of day or location.

Jobs come with a $1,000 quality guarantee and $2 million insurance coverage. The Homee app features a built-in timer that tracks work down to the minute and automatically pauses if a service provider leaves for materials or a lunch break. Individual workers can book most jobs in under a minute on average from within Homee’s app, while larger operations can track teams of crewmembers. Providers regardless of size receive payment within 72 hours.

In that respect, Homee offers something akin to gig-matching services like TaskRabbit, Keepe, Takl, and Fiverr, not to mention tech giant Amazon’s Home Services. But despite competition in a roughly $3 trillion gig economy made up of 57 million people in the U.S. alone, investors like Forte Venture founder and managing partner Tim Hawkins assert that Homee’s focus on the property improvement market positions it well against its rivals. Already, Homee claims, its clients include several of the “largest national single-family portfolio companies.”

“We are excited to lead the series B financing round and join the Homee team as the company continues to pursue rapid growth throughout the United States,” said Hawkins, who plans to join Homee’s board of directors. “Homee is one of the fastest-growing companies in the home services market and has achieved tremendous traction to date by successfully addressing key industry challenges.”

Source. Venture Beat, Kyle Wiiggers, August 27, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: Funding Circle Completes $198M Securitization

VC Deals Only: Funding Circle Completes $198M Securitization: Funding Circle , a San Francisco, CA-based small business loans platform, closed its first $198m asset-backed securitization (ABS) of US ...

Funding Circle Completes $198M Securitization

Funding Circle, a San Francisco, CA-based small business loans platform, closed its first $198m asset-backed securitization (ABS) of US small business loans originated through its system.

The deal marks the debut of Funding Circle’s US securitization sponsorship capability, and is the fifth securitization of Funding Circle business loans globally.

The transaction is rated by two ratings agencies, with its senior tranche earning an A- (sf) rating from Kroll Bond Rating Agency and an A3 (sf) rating from Moody’s Investors Service.

The deal saw demand from 18 institutional investors, ranging from asset managers and private credit funds to insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds.

Launched in 2010, Funding Circle is a global small business loans platform, connecting businesses who want to borrow with investors who want to lend in the UK, US, Germany, and the Netherlands.

So far, investors across Funding Circle’s geographies — including more than 90,000 retail investors, banks, asset management companies, insurance companies, government-backed entities, and funds — have lent $10.2 billion to 72,000 businesses globally.

In the USA, where the company is led by Managing Director Bernardo Martinez, Funding Circle has originated loans to more than 14,000 US businesses, with US borrowers currently averaging 11 years in business and $1.4 million in annual sales. In the country, it recently marked $2 billion of cumulative loan originations and $1 billion of loans under management.

Source. FinSMEs, August 28, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: Ethos Raises $60M Led by GV to Bring Modern Life I...

VC Deals Only: Ethos Raises $60M Led by GV to Bring Modern Life I...: SAN FRANCISCO, August 27, 2019 — Ethos, the company making simple, ethical life insurance, today announced it raised a $60 million Seri...

Ethos Raises $60M Led by GV to Bring Modern Life Insurance to Millions of Families

SAN FRANCISCO, August 27, 2019 — Ethos, the company making simple, ethical life insurance, today announced it raised a $60 million Series C financing led by GV (formerly Google Ventures). This financing follows major revenue and customer growth, and supports Ethos’ mission to make life insurance coverage accessible for millions of families in the U.S. In addition to GV, Goldman Sachs is a new participant alongside existing investors Sequoia Capital and Accel, bringing the total funding to-date to more than $100 million.

The traditional life insurance application model hasn’t meaningfully evolved in 150 years. The historical application process is long, complex, and invasive – often requiring medical exams and weeks of paperwork. The ubiquitous practice of employing commissioned insurance agents can mean agents are incentivized to make a sale, not to find the policy that is right for the individual. Incentives are fundamentally misaligned. These outdated practices are one reason a massive coverage gap exists in the U.S. Seventy percent of Americans consider life insurance a necessity, yet 41 percent have no coverage at all.

Ethos was founded on the radical idea that everyone deserves access to ethically designed, easy-to-understand term life insurance policies tailored to fit people’s lives. Ethos is a pioneer in using predictive analytics and sophisticated data technologies to eliminate the traditional barriers keeping people from getting coverage. The result is an application process that takes minutes instead of weeks, no medical exams for most applicants, no commissioned agents, and a life insurance company that prioritizes people over profit.

“Since our original investment in Ethos last year, we’ve been consistently impressed by the company’s commitment to growth, customer traction, and execution to date,” said Tyson Clark, General Partner at GV. “With the company’s product differentiation and singular approach to modern life insurance, Ethos is well-positioned to disrupt a $100+ billion industry.”

This latest round of financing comes after significant company growth. Ethos has quadrupled revenue since October 2018 and announced several integral leadership hires, including Head of Finance David Zhang and VP of Insurance Phil Murphy. The company is also driving increased customer acquisition, insuring thousands of new families. The Series C funding will fuel continued momentum, supporting product refinement, technical team hires, and ultimately, the ability to protect more families.

“Getting life insurance is one of the most selfless financial choices someone can make. You shouldn’t have to endure what’s essentially a medical and financial strip search in order to protect your family,” said Peter Colis, Ethos CEO and Co-Founder. "What makes Ethos different from other providers is our core values are aligned with the expectations of American families: life insurance should be easy and ethical. We aren't motivated by capitalizing on individuals. Instead, we make choices like right-sizing policies for customers, so they have the best coverage for their families without ever paying more than they should.”

ABOUT ETHOS

Ethos is a new kind of life insurance, designed to give millions of families access to ethical, modern coverage. Ethos uses predictive analytics and sophisticated data technology to eliminate traditional barriers to life insurance. The application process takes minutes instead of weeks, there no medical exams for most applicants, and no commissioned agents. The result is a life insurance company that prioritizes people over profit. Ethos is backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Sequoia Capital, Accel, Goldman Sachs, Stanford University and Arrive, a subsidiary of Roc Nation. The company is headquartered in San Francisco. To learn more, visit www.ethoslife.com.

Source. Ethos, News Release, August 27, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: Digital Medical Tech Raises $1.5M in Seed Funding

VC Deals Only: Digital Medical Tech Raises $1.5M in Seed Funding: Digital Medical Tech , an Annapolis, MD-based solution provider for hospital management and asset tracking, raised $1.5m in seed funding. ...

Digital Medical Tech Raises $1.5M in Seed Funding

Digital Medical Tech, an Annapolis, MD-based solution provider for hospital management and asset tracking, raised $1.5m in seed funding.

St. Louis, Mo.-based DMTI Capital Partners, LLC provided the funding.

The company intends to use the funds to launch a nationwide engagement program for targeting healthcare providers and potential partnerships.

Founded in 2016 by CEO Matthew Nicholson, Digital Medical Tech enables health systems to proactively track medical equipment and devices via a Bluetooth platform. The company’s real-time location system monitors and manages medical assets while requiring less infrastructure and shorter installation time compared to other tracking solutions.

Digital Medical Tech, which recently graduated from the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator business program powered by Techstars, currently has pilot programs at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif.; Keck Medicine of USC; and American Medical Concepts, an exclusive distributor for Stryker Corporation, in Portland, Ore.

The company also has offices in Los Angeles, Calif.

Source. FinSMEs, Staff, August 23, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: Bedding startup Boll & Branch raises $100M

VC Deals Only: Bedding startup Boll & Branch raises $100M: Boll & Branch , which sells sustainably sourced sheets, pillows, mattresses and towels, is announcing that it has raised $100 millio...

Bedding startup Boll & Branch raises $100M

Boll & Branch, which sells sustainably sourced sheets, pillows, mattresses and towels, is announcing that it has raised $100 million in a strategic investment from L Catterton’s Flagship Buyout Fund.

This looks like a big change from the company’s previous approach to funding. It was self-funded for its first two years (resulting in what CEO Scott Tannen described as “a lot of maxed out credit cards and five mortgages on my house”), and even when it started looking at venture capital, it only raised a total of $12 million from a single institutional backer, Silas Capital.

In fact, when Recode wrote about Boll & Branch’s Series B last year, it described the startup as one “that wants to raise as little venture capital as possible.”

Tannen said that when he founded the company with his wife Missy, they wanted to “build a sustainable business from the ground up,” and that wasn’t just about the products — they didn’t want to build a company that was “ultimately designed from day one to be sold.”

As a result, he said, Boll & Branch has been profitable for the past four years and is now bringing in “nine-figure revenue.” He compared it to other L Catterton investments like The Honest Company and Peloton, companies that “have become the winner in the startup competition” and are ready to “really become household names.”

In a statement, L Catterton’s Nik Thukral described Boll & Branch as “one of the most beloved bedding brands” and said it “capitalizes on several compelling trends including the emergence of authentic, pure, and chemical free products that can be traced back to their origin, as well as consumers’ heightened focus on healthy living.”

The company’s next steps include expanding internationally — Tannen said that while the company doesn’t currently sell outside the United States, “It’s hard to imagine a country or market in the world that doesn’t make sense for Boll & Branch.”

It will also continue expanding the product lineup. Tannen hinted at “really interesting product introductions” coming in the next few months. They might not be the most obvious additions to the lineup, but he said these decisions come from asking, “What does the home goods brand of the future look like?”

He added, “That’s what we’re trying to be, versus trying to look in the shopping mall and just creating a new version of something [that already exists].”

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: On-demand parking startup SpotHero raises $50 mill...

VC Deals Only: On-demand parking startup SpotHero raises $50 mill...: SpotHero, the Chicago-based company that has developed an on-demand parking app, has raised $50 million in a Series D round led by Mac...

On-demand parking startup SpotHero raises $50 million

SpotHero, the Chicago-based company that has developed an on-demand parking app, has raised $50 million in a Series D round led by Macquarie Capital.

Union Grove Venture Partners participated in the round, along with existing investors, including Insight Venture Partners, Global Founders Capital, OCA Ventures, AutoTech Ventures and others, according to the company. SpotHero has raised $118 million to date.

The new capital will be used to expand its reach in the 300 U.S. and Canadian cities where it is already operating, build out its digital platform and strengthen partnerships with mobility companies, CEO and co-founder Mark Lawrence told TechCrunch.

SpotHero, which has operations in San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C. and Seattle, initially set out to develop software that connects everyday drivers to parking spots in thousands of garages across North America.

Its secret sauce is its software, which can sit on top of the 40 or so different point-of-sales systems used by parking garages. This acts as a single protocol, allowing SpotHero to bring some kind of standardization to an otherwise fragmented system. From this single protocol, SpotHero can add features that will allow for automated parking services, such as license plate recognition.

“We’ve built the pipes, so to speak, and this powers our consumer app,” Lawrence said in a recent interview. Now the company focus is on building out partnerships, features in the software and services, he added.

Capital will also be used to hire talent to support these new endeavors. SpotHero has 210 employees, and is working on hiring 50 more engineers this year.

In the eight years since its founding, SpotHero has expanded beyond its core consumer-focused competency. The company has added other services as urban density has increased and on-street parking has become more jumbled and confused thanks to an increase in traffic, ride-hailing and on-demand delivery services that take up valuable curb space. It has locked in more than 900 distribution partnerships and integrations, including Google Assistant for voice-enabled parking and Waze in-app navigation to parking. Other partners include Hertz and car2go for fleet parking, WeWork for commuter parking and Moovit for multi-modal parking.

Most recently, SpotHero launched a new service dubbed “SpotHero for Fleets” that targets shared mobility and on-demand services.

The service aims to be a one-stop shop for car sharing and commercial fleets to handle all that goes into ensuring there is access and the right number of designated parking areas on any given day within SpotHero’s large network of 6,500 garages across 300 cities. That means everything from managing the relationships between garage owners and the fleet companies to proper signage so car-sharing customers can find the vehicles, as well as flexible plans that account for seasonal demands on businesses.

Under the new service, customers are able to source and secure parking inventory in high-traffic areas across multiple cities and pay per use across multiple parking facilities on one invoice to streamline payments. 

The company has signed on car-sharing companies and other commercial fleets, although it’s not naming them yet.

Source. Techcrunch News, Kirsten Korosec, August 22, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: VC Deals Only. Weekend Edition. Coworking firm Ind...

VC Deals Only: VC Deals Only. Weekend Edition. Coworking firm Ind...: VC Deals The company formerly known as Motif Ingredients today announced that it has raised $27.5 million in new funding and rebranded...

VC Deals Only. Weekend Edition. Coworking firm Industrious raises $80 million, sees profit in 2020

VC Deals

The company formerly known as Motif Ingredients today announced that it has raised $27.5 million in new funding and rebranded itself as Motif FoodWorks. Motif is carving out an interesting space for itself in the food tech world as they are in the business of helping other companies develop new alternative meat, dairy and egg products. More

Brazilian digital marketing startup RD Station has raised a $50 million Series D led by Silicon Valley-based Riverwood Capital. RD Station, which is focused on SMBs in emerging markets, claims the round marks the largest funding round raised by a Latin American company in the SaaS (software-as-a-service) space. More

After initially securing $70 million for its Series C round in January and raising another $25 million in add-on funding this past spring, online mortgage lender Better.com has officially closed off the Series C with a total of $160 million raised, Fortune has learned. The $160 million round takes the New York-based company’s total funding to $254 million to date and brings its valuation to north of $600 million, Better.com said. More

 H2O.ai‘s mission is to democratize AI by providing a set of tools that frees companies from relying on teams of data scientists. Today it got a bushel of money to help. The company announced a $72.5 million Series D round led by Goldman Sachs and Ping An Global Voyager Fund. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $147 million. More

Nearly four years ago, the FDA approved a therapy that uses a virus to infect tumor cells and break them down—the first such viral therapy for treating cancer. Oncorus is planning to begin a clinical trial next year testing its cancer-fighting virus in solid tumors. The Cambridge, MA, company now has $79.5 million in financing to support its research. The Series B round of funding announced Wednesday was co-led by Cowen Healthcare Investments and Perceptive Advisors. More

Enable My Child, a NYC-based pediatric therapy provider offering real-time therapy services through its digital platform, raised $1.2m in seed financing. Led by Syed Mohammed, founder and CEO, Enable My Child provides a pediatric therapy platform, which provides therapy servicesfor schools and early intervention centers across the country. More

Industrious, one of the largest U.S. coworking rivals of We Company’s WeWork, said on Thursday it raised $80 million from investors and expects to turn a profit next year. The announcement came a day after Knotel, another large flex-space operator, announced the completion of $400 million in financing. More

The CareVoice, a Shanghai-based health insurance software startup with ambitions to expand throughout Asia, announced today that it has raised about $10 million in Series A funding. The funding will be used on research and development and to grow The CareVoice’s business in Hong Kong, which it entered last year. After that, the company plans to expand into other markets in Asia. More

Sponsor

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

New Funds

​Southeast Asian venture capital firm East Ventures announced today the close of its sixth fund at $75 million, exceeding more than double the firm’s initial $30 million target. This oversubscribed fund is supported by a diverse set of strong backers of high net worth individuals (HNWI), Asian family offices, fund of funds, and several sovereign wealth funds. More

 Exits

Amazon, which has invested more than $6 billion in India’s growing internet market, just invested a little more as it moves to expand its presence in the country’s brick and mortar space that drives much of the sales in the nation. The U.S. e-commerce giant is acquiring a 49% stake in Future Coupons, a group entity owned by India’s second largest retail chain, Future Retail, the latter said in a regulatory filing Thursday evening (local time). More

 IPOs

China’s biggest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has delayed its up to $15 billion listing in Hong Kong amid growing political unrest in the Asian financial hub, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. More
 

VC Deals Only: Enable My Child Raises $1.2M in Seed Funding

VC Deals Only: Enable My Child Raises $1.2M in Seed Funding: Enable My Child , a NYC-based pediatric therapy provider offering real-time therapy services through its digital platform, raised $1.2m i...

Enable My Child Raises $1.2M in Seed Funding

Enable My Child, a NYC-based pediatric therapy provider offering real-time therapy services through its digital platform, raised $1.2m in seed financing.

The round was led by CMI Ventures based out of Dallas, Texas.

The company intends to use the funds to expand its platform.

Led by Syed Mohammed, founder and CEO, Enable My Child provides a pediatric therapy platform, which provides therapy services for schools and early intervention centers across the country.

With a network of more than 100 pediatric therapists and AI-powered technology, the system provides schools and early intervention centers with solutions through virtual, in-person, and hybrid therapy. Students are diagnosed and matched with licensed, fully-vetted therapists, ensuring they receive the proper treatment for their specific needs.

In addition to access to therapists, each school receives a dedicated Care Coordinator who handles questions regarding scheduling, billing, and any other concerns.

Source. FinSMEs, August 22, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: Oncorus Adds $79.5M to Steer Cancer-Fighting Virus...

VC Deals Only: Oncorus Adds $79.5M to Steer Cancer-Fighting Virus...: Nearly four years ago, the FDA approved a therapy that uses a virus to infect tumor cells and break them down—the first such viral therapy...

Oncorus Adds $79.5M to Steer Cancer-Fighting Virus to Human Testing

Nearly four years ago, the FDA approved a therapy that uses a virus to infect tumor cells and break them down—the first such viral therapy for treating cancer. Oncorus CEO Ted Ashburn says there’s room to improve on these oncolytic viruses and their role in immunotherapy, and his biotech startup is getting ready to show how.

Oncorus is planning to begin a clinical trial next year testing its cancer-fighting virus in solid tumors. The Cambridge, MA, company now has $79.5 million in financing to support its research. The Series B round of funding announced Wednesday was co-led by Cowen Healthcare Investments and Perceptive Advisors.

Research on oncolytic viruses dates to the 1960s. The concept involves using a virus, one that occurs naturally or is engineered, to infect a tumor cell. Once inside the tumor, the virus replicates until it causes the cell to explode, killing it. These cells deaths lead to the immunotherapy step of the treatment. Tumor antigens are released that trigger the immune system to recognize and fight the cancer.

The first FDA-approved oncolytic virus, talimogene laherparepvec (Imlygic), is based on a modified herpes simplex virus. The Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) therapy is injected into the tumor, where the virus replicates and produces a protein intended to stimulate an immune system response. The FDA’s 2015 approval of the Amgen therapy covered melanoma that cannot be treated with surgery.

Like Amgen’s oncolytic virus, lead Oncorus drug candidate ONCR-177 is based on a modified version of the herpes virus. But Ashburn says that Oncorus has made advances in the way it engineers the virus to enable it to carry a bigger therapeutic payload. Onboard ONCR-177 are five anti-cancer proteins that stimulate different parts of the immune system.

“In effect what you’re doing is causing a robust, therapeutic, personalized vaccination for the patient,” says Ashburn.

The Oncorus virus also comes with additional safety measures. Ashburn says ONCR-177 is engineered to replicate only in tumor cells, not in healthy tissue. At the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in April, Oncorus presented preclinical data showing that treatment with ONCR-177 partially or completely shrunk tumors, and the viral therapy led to protective immunity. Ashburn adds that the safety measures appeared to work: No signs of the virus or its therapeutic payload were detected outside of the tumor.

Ashburn says he envisions ONCR-177 being used in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy that blocks proteins that stop the immune system from recognizing and fighting cancer cells. But in some instances, the oncolytic virus could find use as a standalone treatment, he says.

The company has a second therapeutic candidate in its pipeline based on a synthetic oncolytic virus. Ashburn says this virus is meant to be given intravenously, and that it would circulate throughout the body. Using this approach would allow the virus to potentially treat a wider range of tumors, including lung cancer, where direct injection of a therapy is not practical because it risks puncturing the organ, he says.

Oncorus plans to use the new capital to finance Phase 1 tests of ONCR-177. The company will also continue development of its synthetic oncolytic virus. Ashburn says he expects the company will identify a candidate from that platform early next year.

The research that underpins Oncorus was conducted within venture capital firm MPM Capital until the company spun out in 2016 with $57 million in financing. MPM also participated in the latest Oncorus financing, which included participation from other earlier investors UBS Oncology Impact Fund, Deerfield Management, Arkin Bioventures, Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG), and Astellas Venture Management. New investors in the Series B round include Surveyor Capital, Sphera Funds, IMM Investment, QUAD Investment Management, UTC Investment, SV Investment Corp., and Shinhan Investment-Private Equity.

Source. Frank Vinluan, Xconomy, August 21, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: H2O.ai announces $72.5M Series D led by Goldman Sa...

VC Deals Only: H2O.ai announces $72.5M Series D led by Goldman Sa...: H2O.ai ‘s mission is to democratize AI by providing a set of tools that frees companies from relying on teams of data scientists. Today ...

H2O.ai announces $72.5M Series D led by Goldman Sachs

H2O.ai‘s mission is to democratize AI by providing a set of tools that frees companies from relying on teams of data scientists. Today it got a bushel of money to help. The company announced a $72.5 million Series D round led by Goldman Sachs and Ping An Global Voyager Fund.

Previous investors Wells Fargo, Nvidia and Nexus Venture Partners also participated. Under the terms of the deal, Jade Mandel from Goldman Sachs will be joining the H2O.ai board. 

Today’s investment brings the total raised to $147 million.

It’s worth noting that Goldman Sachs isn’t just an investor. It’s also a customer. Company CEO and co-founder Sri Ambati says the fact that customers Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have led the last two rounds is a validation for him and his company. 

“Customers have risen up from the ranks for two consecutive rounds for us. Last time the Series C was led by Wells Fargo where we were their platform of choice. Today’s round was led by Goldman Sachs, which has been a strong customer for us and strong supporters of our technology,” Ambati told TechCrunch.

The company’s main product, H2O Driverless AI, introduced in 2017, gets its name from the fact it provides a way for people who aren’t AI experts to still take advantage of AI without a team of data scientists. “Driverless AI is automatic machine learning, which brings the power of a world-class data scientists in the hands of everyone. lt builds models automatically using machine learning algorithms of every kind,” Ambati explained.

They introduced a new recipe concept today, which provides all of the AI ingredients and instructions for building models for different business requirements. H2O.ai’s team of data scientists has created and open-sourced 100 recipes for things like credit risk scoring, anomaly detection and property valuation.

The company has been growing since its Series C round in 2017, when it had 70 employees. Today it has 175 and has tripled the number of customers since the prior round, although Ambati didn’t discuss an exact number. The company has its roots in open source and has 20,000 users of its open-source products, according to Ambati.

He didn’t want to discuss valuation and wouldn’t say when the company might go public, saying it’s early days for AI and they are working hard to build a company for the long haul.

Source. Techcrunch, Ron Miller, August 20, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.

VC Deals Only: Mortgage Lender Better.com Grows Series C Funding ...

VC Deals Only: Mortgage Lender Better.com Grows Series C Funding ...: After initially securing $70 million for its Series C round in January and raising another $25 million in add-on funding this past spring...

Mortgage Lender Better.com Grows Series C Funding Round to $160M

After initially securing $70 million for its Series C round in January and raising another $25 million in add-on funding this past spring, online mortgage lender Better.com has officially closed off the Series C with a total of $160 million raised, Fortune has learned.

Activant Capital led the latest influx in funding and was joined by Ping An Insurance, Ally Financial, Citigroup, AGNC, American Express Ventures, and Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), as well as existing investors Goldman Sachs, Kleiner Perkins, and Pine Brook. The $160 million round takes the New York-based company’s total funding to $254 million to date and brings its valuation to north of $600 million, Better.com said.

The capital will be used to further scale the mortgage lender’s operations and grow its product offerings, founder and CEO Vishal Garg told Fortune. Garg noted that Better.com has tripled its growth year-on-year since launching in 2016; while the company is at $5 billion in originations to date, Better.com financed $1 billion worth of mortgages in the second quarter of 2019—more than in all of 2016 and 2017 combined—and is on track to lend more than $4 billion in 2019.

“The way things are going, we’re going to be at $10 [billion] to $15 billion of originations next year, which would make us the largest fintech in America,” according to Garg. “We had a lot of strategic investors who weren’t able to make the first close and were really interested in the company. To accommodate them, and considering the growth rate we’ve had this year and our need for further investment capital, we decided to extend the round... We just needed to be way more capitalized.”

The startup is also growing its headcount at a prolific rate; it has expanded from around 200 employees last year to more than 700 people currently, and plans to hit 1,100 employees by the end of the year, Garg said. The company also recently opened its fourth U.S. outpost in Charlotte, N.C.—home to a fervently expanding fintech scene—to go with its offices in New York, Oakland, Irvine, Calif., and Gurgaon, India.

Better.com is part of a wave of fintech startups targeting the home-buying market via tech-oriented platforms that appeal to millennials, who now account for most new mortgages in the U.S. As Fortune has reported, home-buying tech startup recently Flyhomes sealed $141 million in new financing last week, while the mortgage and consumer lending fintech firm Blend raised $130 million in new venture funding earlier this summer.

Garg founded Better.com after experiencing a “terrible” mortgage application process of his own several years ago, which led to he and his wife losing their desired home to an all-cash buyer. The startup’s platform aims to digitize and streamline that process to allow buyers to close a typical mortgage in half the time it usually takes (21 days, versus an industry average of 42 days).

It also deploys a commission-free, fee-less business model that it claims saves borrowers thousands of dollars in costs—with the company generating revenue from originators who “pay us a premium because of the quality of the loans and the loan performance,” Garg said.

“We’re not a balance-sheet lender,” he noted, adding that Better.com has more than 30 investors—including major mortgage originators and financial institutions—who have committed more than $700 billion in financing capacity to the company. The startup is presently active in 40 states, with active applications that would see it expand to all 50 states in the U.S., Garg said.

Activant founder and partner Steve Sarracino, who is now on Better.com’s board, told Fortune that the startup’s “tech-enabled, end-to-end mortgage manufacturing process” allows it to save costs and pass those savings down to consumers. In turn, Better.com has been able to carve out a ever-larger niche for itself in the U.S.’s $15 trillion mortgage market.

“The [mortgage] process is so unbelievably broken, and it all costs the consumer more in terms of APR,” Sarracino said. “Better is the first company that’s looking to fix it end-to-end. It’s not cheap to manufacture a mortgage, and by driving down that cost, it gets passed on to the consumer.”

Better.com also found a place on Fortune and Great Place to Work’s list of the 60 best companies to work for in New York this year—ranking 11th among small and medium-sized companies.

Source. Fortune, Rey Mashayekhi, August 19, 2019

***

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

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.

Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.