VC Deals Only. Weekend Edition. Doordash eyes $400M Debt Raise

VC Deals 

Tripalink, a Los Angeles-based real estate startup providing co-living space for students and young professionals, has raised a $10 million Series B at a $100 million valuation. Founded by University of Southern California-Los Angeles (USC) graduates in 2016, Tripalink has grown rapidly. According to CEO Donghao Li, the company has been profitable since the year it was founded and tripled its revenue in 2018. More

SmartNews, a self-described “news app” that claims 500 percent userbase growth in the United States over the past year, has raised a fresh round of capital. The new $28 million Series E values the firm at $1.1 billion, it announced. SmartNews previously raised a $38 million Series D led by the Development Bank of Japan and a $10 million Series C led by GREE. More 

New Knowledge, an Austin, Texas-based information integrity company, raised $3M in funding. The investment will support the company’s growth hiring talent in customer success, marketing, sales, and engineering and the rollout of their new enterprise platform later this year. More 

Babylon Health, a London-based company which uses AI technology to diagnose potential health issues, has raised $550 million in a funding round that values it at more than $2 billion.

The multinational cohort of investors was led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and included participation by global reinsurance company Munich Re, Swedish investment firm Kinnevik AB and Vostok New Ventures. More  

HipCamp, a San Francisco, CA-based online marketplace for campsites, raised $25m in Series B funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund with participation from return backers Benchmark Capital, August Capital and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and new investor Yes VC. More 

Remarkably, a Seattle-based startup that provides users with real estate marketing software and analytics services, announced Tuesday it has raised $4.1 million in seed funding. The company markets its software products to developers, owners, and managers of residential buildings with multiple apartments or condominiums, which are sometimes called “multi-family” dwellings. More 

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Debt Financing DoorDash is an underappreciated venture capital story. Its recent ability to attract private capital at ever-higher valuations is truly impressive. More 

Acquisitions 

Cisco plans to bring voice transcription to its Webex meeting tools with the acquisition of Voicea, part of a wider initiative to add AI capabilities to its collaboration software. Cisco today announced it would acquire the Mountain View, CA.-based company for an undisclosed amount. Voicea’s core product is its Enterprise Voice Assistant (EVA), a speech recognition tool that transcribes audio, providing highlights and action points for participants to follow up on. More 

Leading ethics and compliance software and services company NAVEX Global® announced today that it has acquired Lockpath, Inc., a recognized leader in Integrated Risk Management (IRM) software solutions. More 

Another day, another Salesforce acquisition. Just days after closing the hefty $15.7 billion Tableau deal, the company opened its wallet again, this time announcing it has bought field service software company ClickSoftware for a tidy $1.35 billion. More 

IPOs

 Lyft (LYFT) shares wavered during extended trading Wednesday after the company said it would allow company directors and officers to sell their shares at an earlier date than previously scheduled, following the company’s March initial public offering. The announcement came in a securities filing Wednesday after market close. More 

Uber News

Uber has disclosed earnings for the second time since becoming a public company, reporting revenues of $3.16 billion on losses of $5.2 billion for the second quarter of 2019. More
 

Apple News 

Last week Samsung and Fossil kicked off the week by announcing new smartwatches. On the same day. At the same time. For a brief moment, it felt like 2015 all over again, when the world of smartwatches felt exciting and new. More