Weekend Edition: Boehringer Ingelheim to acquire Swiss cancer vaccine developer for up to 325M euros

VC Deals

Life House, a startup hospitality company that both manages its own branded hotels and provides its technology platform as a white-label solution for independent hotel owners, has received $100 million in equity commitments from Blue Flag Partners. Boston-based Blue Flag is an investment, real estate development and branding firm that has a collection of hotels in its portfolio. More

iCrx, Inc., an automatic eyeglass prescription technology startup, received an investment from UAVenture Capital Fund (UAVC), a Tucson based venture capital fund dedicated to the University of Arizona commercialization of discovery products, technology and services. More

Salt Lake City-based biotech Recursion Pharmaceuticals, which is part of the group of companies looking to use AI technology to accelerate drug development, has raised a $121 million Series C financing round led by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust. More

Amperity, a Seattle, WA-based AI-powered Customer Data Management platform, raised a $50M Series C financing. Backers included Tiger Global Management, Goldman Sachs, Declaration Partners, Madera Technology Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and Lee Fixel. More

Originally founded in 2011 as a social networking site for Chicago’s startup scene, Built In has since transitioned into a local tech media and recruiting platform with national reach. Today, Built In announced it raised $22 million in a Series C round led by Washington, D.C.-based Updata Partners. More

Today, Finix raised $17.5 million to help companies bring payment processing in-house to lower the costs that traditionally come with the service. The Series A round was led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Insight Venture Partners, Aspect Ventures, and Visa. More

The esports boom is rolling along this summer as 100 Thieves, a popular esports team, announced that it closed a $35 million Series B today. The firm’s new capital event was led by Artist Capital Management and included funds from Aglaé Ventures and Groupe Arnault according to a release. More

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IPOs

DouYu, a China-based private technology company focused on streaming content and esports, announced that it priced its IPO at $11.50 per share. The company sold just under 45 million shares at that price in the transaction, while existing shareholders sold around 22.5 million. More

Acquisitions

A large family-owned drugmaker in Germany plans to shell out more than $350 million to buy a cancer vaccine maker in Switzerland. Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim said Monday it would spend up to 325 million euros – or $364.5 million – to acquire Geneva-based Amal Therapeutics, also a privately owned company. The deal includes an upfront payment and up to 100 million euros in milestone payments. More

Partnerships

VW Group is investing $2.6 billion in capital and assets into Argo AI, the Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle startup that burst onto the scene two years ago with $1 billion in backing from Ford. The deal, which has been rumored for months, is part of a broader alliance between VW Group and Ford that covers autonomous and electric vehicles. More

New Funds

Fifth Wall, a venture capital firm focused on real estate technology, raised $503 million from a group of 50 large U.S., European and Asian property owners who will provide a market for the start-ups and their products it invests in. More

Tech News

Cargo, an in-car commerce company that helps ride-hailing drivers earn extra cash by selling stuff to passengers, is officially launching its Cargo Store mobile app today, giving riders the chance to earn cash back on a host of goods from an expanded marketplace. More

Weekend Edition: Beyond Limits announced a $25 million strategic partnership with Xcell to build the world’s first AI-controlled power plant

VC Deals Only

A firm developing drugs that target what it calls “notorious” pathways in oncology has raised a big round of equity financing. Redwood City, California-based Revolution Medicines said Tuesday that it had closed a $100 million Series C financing that it will put toward pipeline programs including drugs that go after targets in RAS, a pathway that plays a key role in the development of cancers but has often been considered unreachable by pharmaceutical means. More

Kyndi, a startup developing what it describes as an explainable natural language processing platform, today announced that it’s secured $20 million in series B funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from UL Ventures, PivotNorth Capital, and existing investors. More

Growing D2C brands face an interesting challenge. While they’ve eliminated much of the hassle of a physical storefront, they must still deal with all the complications involved in managing inventory and manufacturing and shipping a physical product to suppliers. More

BioNTech has raised $325 million (€289 million) in a private fundraising round. The series B positions the immuno-oncology player to advance its multidrug clinical pipeline and grow its manufacturing footprint. More

Amsterdam-based Dott, the European micro-mobility company has raised a €30 million Series A funding round to fund the production and market launch of its new e-bikes and e-scooters to replace cars in urban centres. The investment was co-led by existing investors EQT Ventures, and the South African multinational Naspers with participation from Axel Springer Digital Ventures, Felix Capital, FJ Labs, U-Start Club, and angel investors. More

Waresix, one of a handful of startups aiming to modernize logistics in Indonesia — the world’s fourth most populous country — has pulled in $14.5 million to grow its 18-month-old business.This new investment, Waresix’s  Series A, is led by EV Growth  — the growth-stage fund co-run by East Ventures  — with participation from SMDV — the investment arm of Indonesia corporation Sinar Mas — and Singapore’s Jungle Ventures. More

Byju’s, India’s most valuable edtech startup, has received $150 million as it races to expand the reach of its learning app in the country and some international markets. The unnamed financing round was led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, and included participation from Owl Ventures, a leading investor in education tech startups. More

OPay, an Africa-focused mobile payments startup founded by Norwegian browser company Opera, has raised $50 million in funding. Lead investors include Sequoia China, IDG Capital and Source Code Capital. Opera  also joined the round in the payments venture it created. OPay will use the capital (which wasn’t given a stage designation) primarily to grow its digital finance business in Nigeria — Africa’s most populous nation and largest economy. More

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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. 

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

New Funds

India’s growing number of startups now have one additional VC fund that will listen to their business ideas. A91 Partners, a new VC fund founded by former partners at Sequoia Capital India, has closed their maiden fund at $351 million. A91 Partners will focus on high-growth startups in consumer, technology, financial services and healthcare sectors in India. More

IPOs

Yet another tech-ish IPO is making steps towards getting out. This week Phreesia filed an updated S-1 with a pricing range, bringing the IPO of the New York-based healthcare technology provider closer 

to execution. More

M&As

Cisco said it will acquire Acacia Communications in a deal worth $2.6 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Cisco will acquire Acacia for $70 a share in cash. Acacia, which makes optical interconnect technology, is an existing supplier to Cisco. Acacia develops algorithms for digital signal processing as well as technology for ASIC design and verification, software, integration, and optics optimization. More

New Partnerships

Beyond Limits, a Glendale, California-based company developing explainable AI for a range of industries, today announced a $25 million strategic partnership with Xcell to build what it’s calling the world’s first AI-controlled power plant. Beyond Limits CEO AJ Abdallat said it’ll be designed from the ground up and from scratch, and that it’ll embed intelligence into the “entire operation” to make the plant “safer” and maximize efficiency, productivity, and environmental friendliness. More

ICT Health News

Through a new partnership between Amazon and the U.K.’s National Health Service, patients will be able to use Alexa devices to answer health-related questions. Amazon’s algorithm extracts information from the NHS website to answer basic medical questions like common treatments for migraines and symptoms of the flu. The NHS pitches the service as being especially useful to elderly patients, blind patients and those who cannot access the internet through traditional means. More

Patent News 

IBM doesn’t actually make any of the mobile computers people carry these days — smartwatches, phones, tablets, or laptops — but that isn’t stopping the legendary computing pioneer from patenting ideas that might become viable in the future. IBM has successfully patented a smartwatch that physically transforms into a wrist-mounted phone or tablet, a concept that’s implausible today but could become real with advances in display technology. More

Up Coming Events

Fintech Canada Conference, August 14, 2019. More


Beyond Limits announced a $25 million strategic partnership with Xcell to build the world’s first AI-controlled power plant

 BioNTech Raises $325 Million to grow its immuno-oncology footprint

Weekend Edition: BMW and Daimler join forces to co-develop automated driving technologies

VC Deals 

It’s anticipated that the autonomous vehicles market will reach $667.77 billion by 2026, and according to marketing firm ABI, as many as 8 million driverless cars will be added to the road in 2025. Startups like ZongMu Technology are taking full advantage of the influx of venture capital, unsurprisingly. The Shanghai-based company today revealed that it has secured a $14.5 million follow-on series C investment led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation from Lenovo Group’s Legend Capital and Chuangtu Investments. More

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. More

SINGAPORE Life - a fintech with an insurance and wealth focus - has secured a US$90 million investment from Sumitomo Life Insurance, with the major life insurer in Japan buying about 25 per cent in Singapore Life. The latest fund injection brings Singapore Life's valuation to US$358 million. More

India’s Ola is further widening its lead over Uber in the nation — and getting the help it needs from their mutual investor. Ola Electric has raised $250 million from SoftBank as India’s largest ride-hailing firm pushes to scale its electric vehicles business in the country. More

Sweet Escape, a startup founded in Indonesia that helps connect photographers with customers, is all smiles today after it announced a $6 million Series A round. More

Versant Ventures’ Century Therapeutics has exited stealth with $250 million to take allogeneic cell therapies into the clinic. Bayer’s VC wing led the investment with the support of Versant and Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics (FCDI). Century, like other allogeneic cell therapy players, is trying to improve on autologous products that require the administration of a patient’s own cells back to them by creating off-the-shelf alternatives. More

Venture Global LNG, Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based provider of American-produced liquefied natural gas, raised $675m in additional capital from institutional investors. The capital will be used for the further development of the company’s 20 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) Plaquemines LNG export project in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. More

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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. 

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

New Funds

Insight Venture Partners (Insight), a leading global private equity and venture capital firm, announced today the close of its Fund X at $6.3 billion, the firm's largest to date. The oversubscribed fund will be used to further its leading growth equity technology investment engine. With the close of the new fund. More

The firm e.ventures, a 20-year-old, early-stage venture outfit that has historically invested out of dedicated funds in numerous geographies, including the U.S., Russia, Germany, Asia and Brazil, has raised $400 million in fresh capital across two new funds: a $225 million U.S.-focused fund that’s based in San Francisco, and a $175 million fund that’s focused on Europe and based in Berlin. More

Sony is doubling down on the world of startup investment. The Japanese tech giant announced a new fund that is aiming to raise 20 billion JPY (around $185 million) to invest in companies within “key high-growth industries.” More

Exits

SpaceLife Origin is pulling out of its plans to help people conceive and deliver babies in space. The Netherlands-based startup made headlines in October with the lofty goal of becoming the first company to "make human reproduction in space safely possible." But, according to a statement posted by CEO Kees Mulder on the company's website in June, there were "serious ethical, safety, and medical concerns" that have caused him to suspend the two missions planning to safely conceive and deliver babies in space. More

Acquisitions & Mergers

With a new acquisition, Independence-based cybersecurity firm Keyfactor is going international. Keyfactor has acquired Spain-based Redtrust, which is described as a "digital identity solutions company providing centralized certificate and digital signature management." Terms of the deal were not disclosed. More

A U.S.-based diagnostics company is expanding its presence in lung cancer with the acquisition of assets from a firm based in the U.K. Boulder, Colorado-based Biodesix said Friday that it would buy Nottingham, U.K.-based Oncimmune’s U.S. operations, including a CLIA lab in De Soto, Kansas, and its incidental pulmonary nodule malignancy test. More

Partnerships

Global automakers BMW and Daimler will join forces in a new long-term partnership to co-develop automated driving technologies, including levels of automation all the way up to SAE Level 4, which is defined as full self-driving, no human intervention required, but only under exactly defined conditions or domains – steering wheel and brakes not necessarily even present I the car.  More

AI News

The World Economic Forum today announced its list of 56 companies selected as Technology Pioneers, and this year’s class demonstrates the growing embrace of artificial intelligence and machine learning across a broad range of sectors. Of those selected, at least 20 companies say they are using AI or machine learning in some fashion to tackle challenges in fields such as advertising technology, smart cities, cleantech, supply chain, manufacturing, cybersecurity, autonomous vehicles, and drones. More

5G News

As the first half of 2019 came to a close, every major cellular carrier in the United States was officially offering 5G service to customers: Just days after blasting rivals AT&T and Verizon for lying about their limited 5G offerings, T-Mobile commenced initial service on June 28, becoming the last U.S. national carrier to launch 5G. More

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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This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the Canadian 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.  

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