VC Deals Only: StradVision Nets $27M For Skeleton Detection And E...

VC Deals Only: StradVision Nets $27M For Skeleton Detection And E...: VC Deals Levelset, a 13-year-old, New Orleans, La.-based platform that helps contractors get paid faster and eliminate cash stresses, has ...

StradVision Nets $27M For Skeleton Detection And Emergency Braking Software For Autonomous Vehicles

VC Deals

Levelset, a 13-year-old, New Orleans, La.-based platform that helps contractors get paid faster and eliminate cash stresses, has raised $30 million in new funding led by Horizons Ventures, with participation from S3 Ventures, Altos Ventures, Operating Venture Capital, and Brick & Mortar Ventures, among others. The company has now raised $47 million to date. More

StradVision, a Seoul, South Korea-based company at work on vision processing tech for autonomous vehicles, has raised $27 million in Series B funding. Posco Capital led the round, joined by IDG Capital, Industrial Bank of Korea, Lighthouse Combined Investment, LSS Private Equity, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Neoplux, and Timefolio Asset Management. More

Coral, is two-year-old, Bay Area-based company at work on a device that can automate manicures (it requires that customers buy nail polish made by the company, too), has raised $4.3 million in funding. Investors include CrossLink Capital, Root Ventures, Tandem Capital and Y Combinator.

Osano, a 1.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based data privacy transparency platform, has raised $5.4 million in Series A funding co-led by LiveOak Venture Partners and Next Coast Ventures. More

Ripple, a somewhat controversial, seven-year-old, San Francisco-based company that uses cryptocurrency to move money across borders, has raised $200 million in Series C funding. The investment firm Tetragon led the round, joined by SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures. More

Exits

Facebook has acquired PlayGiga, a Madrid-based company that specializes in cloud gaming, for what a Spanish business newspaper says is $78 million. Over the past few years, Facebook has been expanding its efforts in gaming. More

TiVo has scrapped plans to split itself into two separate companies and instead announced a $3 billion merger with Xperi, a publicly traded company that sells audio, imaging and computing technology products, reports Variety. The new merged entity will take the Xperi name but will continue to sell entertainment services under the TiVo brand along with Xperi’s DTS, HD Radio, and IMAX Enhanced brands. More

Care.com, the nation’s largest online marketplace for babysitters and other caregivers, just agreed to sell to IAC/InterActive Corp. for about $500 million in cash or $15 a share. Care went public five years ago. Its shares were trading as low as $9 this summer. More

New Funds

Truffle Capital, a 15-year-old, Paris-based venture firm focused on biotech and med-tech startups, has closed on $278 million for a new fund that it plans to use to fund a dozen new startups, mainly in France. More
 

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VC Deals Only: Nagi Bioscience Raises CHF 1.8M in Seed Funding

VC Deals Only: Nagi Bioscience Raises CHF 1.8M in Seed Funding: Nagi Bioscience SA , a Lausanne, Switzerland–based life-science-tech company developing technology for the in vitro testing of drugs and ch...

Nagi Bioscience Raises CHF 1.8M in Seed Funding

Nagi Bioscience SA, a Lausanne, Switzerland–based life-science-tech company developing technology for the in vitro testing of drugs and chemicals, closed a CHF1.8m seed financing round.

Backers included investiere, Zürcher Kantonalbank, NEST pension fund and private investors from Switzerland and United States.

The company intends to use the funds to complete the development of its first product and prepare its market access.

Founded in January 2019 by Dr. Matteo Cornaglia, CEO, and and Dr. Laurent Mouchiroud, CSO, as a spin-off from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Nagi Bioscience has developed “Organism-on-Chip” technology, which leverages the combined use of microfluidics and microscopic worms (the validated biological model C. elegans) to provide a new sustainable alternative to traditional animal testing to pharma, chemical, cosmetic industries and biomedical research. This solution complies with the emerging directives for the replacement, reduction and refinement of animal testing, i.e. the so-called “3Rs” principles, and allows reducing costs and delays of pharmaceutical and chemical research.

Nagi Bioscience has already prototypes under validation in collaboration with key industrial players in the chemical and biotech fields.

Furthermore, the company announced the assignment of Dr. Chris Radloff to the Board of Directors. He is a board director and angel investor in several startups and brings to the company 20+ years of expertise in the life-science-tech field.

Source. FinSMEs, December 23, 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: Evisort Closes $15m Series A Funding

VC Deals Only: Evisort Closes $15m Series A Funding: Evisort , a San Mateo, CA-based artificial intelligence-powered contract intelligence system, closed a $15m Series A funding The round wa...

Evisort Closes $15m Series A Funding

Evisort, a San Mateo, CA-based artificial intelligence-powered contract intelligence system, closed a $15m Series A funding

The round was led by Vertex Ventures and M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, with participation from Amity Ventures and Serra Ventures

The company intends to use the new funds to grow its team, expand product offerings, enhance the customer experience, and launch a new research and development office in Montreal, Quebec. Evisort anticipates hiring 10 technical team members for the Montreal office

Founded in 2016 by Harvard Law and MIT researchers and led by Jerry Ting, CEO and co-founder, Evisort provides a proprietary AI solution that can read and understand the meaning in legal documents like sales contracts and vendor paperwork. The solution allows businesses to automate the work of reviewing, assessing, approving, and tracking any legal documents that define a business action or relationships, such as contracts, statements of work, invoices, purchase orders, and SLA or rebate tables. It reads and visualizes 50 plus key data points, such as payment tables and contract expiration dates, and key legal clauses, allowing teams to focus on strategic decision making versus document processing. The system can also learn to read all types of unstructured documents.

Evisort has secured more than 100 enterprise customers this year, from high-growth startups to some of the largest Fortune 500 companies, including Brooks Brothers, Cox Automotive, Fujitsu, TravelZoo, and Sweetgreen.

Source. FinSMEs, December 19, 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: RareCyte Raises $22M Financing Round

VC Deals Only: RareCyte Raises $22M Financing Round: RareCyte, Inc. , a Seattle, WA-based life sciences company, completed a $22M financing round. The round was led by HealthQuest Capital, w...

RareCyte Raises $22M Financing Round

RareCyte, Inc., a Seattle, WA-based life sciences company, completed a $22M financing round.

The round was led by HealthQuest Capital, with participation from 5AM Ventures and company founder, Ron Seubert. In conjunction with the funding, David Kabakoff, PhD, Partner at HealthQuest Capital, joined the RareCyte Board of Directors. Andy Schwab, Managing Partner at 5AM Ventures also joined the RareCyte Board.

The company intends to use the funds to globally expand the sales of its instrument and consumables platform used in research and clinical markets, develop applications for its new tissue multiplexing platform, and release new liquid biopsy assays.

Led by Joe Victor, President and CEO, RareCyte offers fully integrated solutions for high resolution multiplex rare cell analysis of blood and tissue samples from preclinical through clinical and translational research enabling development of next generation precision medicines for numerous therapeutic areas including immuno-oncology.

The company’s platform which includes AccuCyte® Sample Preparation, RarePlex® Staining Kits, CyteFinder® Instruments, and the CytePicker® Retrieval Module, has been adopted by academic medical institutions and biopharma companies to gain a richer understanding of complex diseases, such as cancer.

Leveraging microscope slides as the substrate, the platform fits into clinical laboratory workflows and enables high-throughput processing of blood and tissue samples from clinical studies of all sizes. CyteFinder can analyze up to seven biomarker channels using immunofluorescent staining to facilitate deeper analysis of rare cell phenotypes.

The integrated CytePicker retrieves single cells of interest, allowing customers to build unique phenotype and genotype datasets at the single cell level to advance their research and clinical programs.

Source. FinSMEs. December 23, /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: Energy Giant Saudi Aramco Is Expected To Be Valued...

VC Deals Only: Energy Giant Saudi Aramco Is Expected To Be Valued...: VC Deals  Proteus Motion , formerly known as Boston Biomotion, a NYC-based sports and healthtech company, raised $3.8m in funding. The ...

Energy Giant Saudi Aramco Is Expected To Be Valued At $1.7 Trillion

VC Deals 

Proteus Motion, formerly known as Boston Biomotion, a NYC-based sports and healthtech company, raised $3.8m in funding. The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop and manufacture its software products, conduct research and development for Version 2 of the Proteus system, and add users for its software subscription product, which allows trainees to access training content, track trends and personalized insights, leveraging 50 million data points captured to date. More 

Accel Robotics, a San Diego-based startup focused on AI and computer vision for checkout-free stores, raised $30m in Series A funding. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its expansion worldwide by growing operations, increasing manufacturing capacity, and streamlining its expanding deployment pipeline. More 

Singapore-headquartered FinAccel has secured $90 million in one of the largest funding rounds for a fintech startup in Southeast Asia as it looks to further grow its credit lending app Kredivo and build more financial services. The financing round, dubbed Series C, for the three-and-a-half-year-old startup was jointly led by Asia Growth Fund — a joint venture between Mirae Asset and Naver — and Square Peg. More 

Three months after Goldman Sachs lent $100 million to Mexican fintech Konfio, SoftBank has invested another $100 million into the financial services company. The investment confirms Reuters’ August report that SoftBank was in advanced talks with the startup — now one of the most heavily funded fintechs in Mexico. More 

KOHO, a FinTech startup that is changing the way Canadians bank, has raised $25 million led by U.S.-based venture capital firm Drive Capital, whose portfolio boasts Duolingo, Udacity, and Root Insurance. National Bank of Canada, through its venture capital arm NAventures, also participated in the round. More 

Uncapped, a London-headquartered and Warsaw-based startup that wants to provide “revenue-based” finance to growing European businesses, is officially launching today and disclosing that it has raised £10 million in funding. More

IPOs 

The energy giant Saudi Aramco is expected to be valued at $1.7 trillion in its public offering, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The state-owned oil company is expected to raise $25.6 billion from the IPO, The Journal reported. At that valuation, the IPO would be the world's largest, beating out Alibaba Group, which raised $25 billion in 2014. More 

New Funds 

 Revelstoke Capital Partners, a Denver, CO-based private equity firm focused on investing in healthcare services companies, completed fundraising for Revelstoke Capital Partners Fund II, L.P. and Revelstoke Single Asset Fund I, L.P., totalling $1.4 billion. More 

MiddleGame Ventures, a 1.5-year-old, Luxembourg-based fintech-focused investment firm, has held a first close on a fund that's targeting €150m altogether and aim to fund post-seed, Series A, and Series B stage investments in Europe and North America. The outfit's limited partners include the Luxembourg Future Fund and the European Investment Fund. More 

Exits

Enterprise AI company Dataiku has announced some changes in its capitalization table. CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), Alphabet’s growth equity investment fund, is investing in the startup by buying out some of Serena Capital’s shares. More 

Carousell, a seven-year-old, Singapore-based online classifieds business, has agreed to merge with a subsidiary of the Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor Group, in a deal that values the combined company at more than $850 million. Carousell will merge with Telenor’s 701Search, which owns online marketplaces Mudah in Malaysia, Cho Tot in Vietnam, and OneKyat in Myanmar, as part of the equity and cash agreement, it said in a statement last year. Telenor will become the single-largest minority shareholder in Carousell with a 32 percent stake in the combined company. More

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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.

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VC Deals Only: Ockam raises $4.9 million in seed funding to make ...

VC Deals Only: Ockam raises $4.9 million in seed funding to make ...: Ockam, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based company that’s selling tools to developers so they can establish an “architecture for trust” within t...

Ockam raises $4.9 million in seed funding to make it easier for developers to secure and scale their IoT apps

Ockam, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based company that’s selling tools to developers so they can establish an “architecture for trust” within their connected device applications, has raised $4.9 million in seed funding, including from Core Ventures, Okta Ventures, SGH Capital, and Future Ventures.

This serverless platform for IoT development is being led by CEO Matthew Gregory and CTO Mrinal Wadhwa, two cofounders with noteworthy backgrounds.

Before launching Ockam in the fall of 2017, Gregory was an “intrapreneur” at Microsoft, where he says he helped lead Azure’s pivot into open source software and container services. He also spent a couple of years at Salesforce as a product manager and, interestingly, spent a few years years ago as a system engineer working for Stars & Stripes, a syndicate of the yacht-racing competition America’s Cup where he tells us he led an engineering effort to build custom systems of sensors, analytics software and wireless communications tools needed to help the racing team make better decisions.

Wadhwa was meanwhile the CTO of another privately held IoT company, Fybr, that promises real-time data analytics capable of decision making at the edge (versus in the cloud).

Some of what the startup is promising is that, using its technology, IoT systems developers will be able to build more scalable connected systems — as well, crucially, as more secure ones How? Partly through crytpographic keys and partly by assigning credentials to different entities, from devices to people to assets to services.

The company is one of a growing spate of companies hoping developers will increasingly turn to them instead of building out their own software infrastructure.

For example, Particle, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based platform for Internet of Things devices that has ambitions similar to those of Ockam, recently closed on $40 million in funding in a round that brought its total funding to $81 million).

Ockam raised its seed funding over two tranches, including a $3.2 million round that closed in May and an additional $1.7 million injection from Future Ventures  in more recent weeks.

Source. Techcrunch,  Connie Loizos, November 30, 2019

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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.

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