SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveils grandiose plan to colonize Mars
In a long-awaited presentation Tuesday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk unveiled a grandiose, long-range plan for building reusable super boosters and huge spaceships to eventually carry tens of thousands of people to Mars and elsewhere in the solar system with the eventual goal of building self-sustaining colonies.Mars is, of course, the near-term target, with SpaceX launching an upgraded Dragon spacecraft to the red planet in 2018, an unpiloted mission to gain flight experience while designing, building and testing the more advanced boosters, spacecraft and subsystems needed for his Interplanetary Transport System. [ CBS ]
Zenefits Who? Gusto Launches HR Platform To 40,000 Customers
When most people think of cloud human resources, they think of Zenefits, the startup that raised $500 million and then spent the last year dealing with regulatory scandals, replacing their CEO, and slashing their valuation from $4.5 billion to $2 billion. But there are other companies competing–and perhaps winning–while Zenefits struggles. Gusto, formerly known as ZenPayroll, announced on Tuesday that it serves 40,000 small businesses, double Zenefits’ last publicized customer count. Gusto also unveiled its own new human resources features for employee records, onboarding, and employee savings–adding to existing payroll and benefits functions. [ Forbes ]
Y Combinator chief’s nonprofit VotePlz launches $1 million voter registration sweepstakes
We’re hours away from the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, an event that could influence a third of voters. During this polarizing election season, there’s been an uptick in drives to get people registered to vote. For Sam Altman’s nonprofit VotePlz, registration has become the primary focus of the campaign season. With that in mind, Y Combinator’s president and cohorts Erika Reinhardt, Fouad Matin, and Ari Weinstein have launched a sweepstakes aimed at encouraging everyone to participate in the democratic process. [ Venture Beat ]
LATEST FUNDING
MicuRx Pharmaceuticals Closes $55M Series C Financing
MicuRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Hayward, Calif. and Shangai, China-based developer of next-generation antibiotic, closed a $55m Series C financing. The round was led by GP Healthcare Capital with participation from new investors GP TMT Capital, 3E Bioventures Capital, and Delian Capital. In conjunction with the funding, Mr. Yu Miao of GP Healthcare Capital will join the board of directors. The company intends to use the funds to continue development of MRX-I in both the United States and China, in particular to complete its Phase 3 trial using oral MRX-1 to treat complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSI) in China, complete one pivotal US Phase 3 trial with oral and intravenous formulations of the drug for the indication of acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) as well as file a Chinese NDA for cSSSI. [ Finsmes ]
Color Genomics Raises $45 Million to Expand Genetic Testing
Color Genomics Inc., the three-year-old startup aiming to democratize genetic testing, sealed $45 million in funding as it seeks to make its tests for cancer more affordable and accessible, the company announced Tuesday. General Catalyst Partners, a backer of Snap Inc. and Stripe Inc., led the round of capital that Color will use to further develop its tests and expand its software capabilities. For $249, Color analyzes 30 genes to help people understand their risk for hereditary cancers, such as breast, colon and pancreatic cancer. The company said it will begin offering the test for $50 to first-degree relatives of those identified with a hereditary cancer mutation.
[ Bloomberg ]
NS1 Receives $20 Million Series B Investment to Continue Rapid Growth and Innovation to Build a Smarter Internet
NS1®, the leading intelligent DNS and traffic management provider, announced today that it has raised more than $20 million in a Series B round led by Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, with participation from Two Sigma Ventures and existing investors including Flybridge Capital Partners and Sigma Prime Ventures. As part of the funding, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners' Jack Young will join NS1's board. Today's applications are increasingly dynamic and are deployed on distributed, automated infrastructure that shifts constantly to meet new workloads. These trends are driven by the demands of a global audience of users who have come to expect lightning-fast performance and rock-solid reliability in every interaction. NS1's technology empowers developers and enterprises to take advantage of these tectonic shifts in modern application architectures. [ PR Newswire ]
Expel grabs $7.5 mln Series A
Cyber security startup Expel Inc has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. Paladin Capital Group led the round with participation from other investors that included New Enterprise Associates, Battery Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Lightbank.
PRESS RELEASE:
McLean, Virginia – September 26th, 2016 – Expel, Inc., a new cyber security company founded by prominent industry veterans, announced it closed $7.5 million in Series A funding from experienced security investors. The financing was led by Paladin Capital Group, with participation from New Enterprise Associates, Battery Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Lightbank, and other strategic and individual investors. Expel is founded by senior executives previously at FireEye and Mandiant.
[ PE Hub ]
ProsperWorks raises $24M for its Google-centric CRM solution
ProsperWorks, a cross-platform customer relationship management (CRM) service that plugs into the Google for Work platform, today announced that it has raised a $24 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Next World Capital, an early revenue stage VC firm that specializes in helping its portfolio companies expand into European markets. Other investors include Storm Ventures, True Ventures, Industry Ventures, Devoteam, and a consortium of strategic angels. ProsperWorks CEO Jon Lee tells me that the company plans to use the new capital to invest into its technology and to grow its sales and marketing team. “There’s no denying the 800-lb gorilla in the room, Salesforce, and its new AI offering, Einstein,” Lee said. “While it’ll surely be a robust platform, we’re looking to make the same kind of insights easily accessible to all businesses — not only large enterprises who can afford custom configurations and complex integrations just to get it to work properly.” Specifically, ProsperWorks plans to introduce its own machine learning-based features that will help sales teams with actionable recommendations to push their sales efforts forward. [ Tech Crunch ]
LATEST EXITS
Rice Energy to Buy Vantage for $2.7 Billion Including Debt
Rice Energy Inc. has to agreed to buy shale driller Vantage Energy for about $2.7 billion, including debt, a deal it called “the largest core dry gas Marcellus acquisition to date.”Vantage’s holdings include about 85,000 acres in Greene County, Pa., in the Marcellus Shale, and it also has a large position in the Barnett Shale. Vantage, whose investors include Quantum Energy Partners, Riverstone Holdings LLC and Lime Rock Partners, in September 2014 postponed a planned initial public offering. Rice Energy will sell Vantage’s midstream assets to Rice Midstream Partners LP for $600 million. [ WSJ ]
FUND RAISE
Razor’s Edge Ventures Launches $250M Second Fund
Razor’s Edge Ventures, a Reston, Virginia-based venture capital firm, has launched the raise of its second fund.According to a regulatory form filed with the SEC, Razor’s Edge Fund II, LP, targets to raise $250m. Led by Managing Partners Peggy Styer, Steve Pann and Richard Moxley and Managing Directors Mark Spoto, Jack Kerrigan, Rob Painter and Neusha Sayadian, Razor’s Edge invests in technology companies that solve challenges in national security and high-growth commercial markets.
The firm’s investment focus is on global enterprise technology sectors such as cyber security, data science and data infrastructure, emerging device and sensor technologies, new space technologies including earth observation, and critical resources and services. [ Finsmes ]
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