BREAKING:
Ninja Van raises $395m in new funding from investors
E-commerce delivery firm Ninja Van said it raised US$279 million (S$395 million) in new funding from investors including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin's B Capital and ride-hailing firm Grab, as the Covid-19 pandemic has led more people to shop online. The Singapore-based company has raised a total of US$400 million since it was launched in 2014. The round was led by existing investor Europe's GeoPost alongside two sovereign wealth funds, it said in a statement yesterday. Other investors include Monk's Hill Ventures and Golden Gate Ventures Growth Fund. [ straits times ]
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1.
Intel acquires urban mobility startup Moovit for $900 million
Intel has confirmed that it’s buying Israeli urban mobility startup Moovit, in a deal worth $900 million. Reports of the impending acquisition were first published by local Israeli publication Calcalist on Sunday, and in a press
release today, Intel noted that it was buying Ness Ziona-based Moovit to help make Mobileye a “complete mobility provider,” which will eventually include driverless taxi services. [ Venture Beat ]
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2.
Months after closing $617M life sciences fund, Frazier Healthcare nabs biopharma vets
Venture capital firm Frazier Healthcare Partners has grabbed Scott Byrd, Ian Mills, M.D., and Gordon McMurray, Ph.D., as its new entrepreneur-in-residence consultants. They previously formed the team over at Frazier portfolio company Outpost Medicine, a joint venture with Japanese pharma Takeda with a focus on urologic and gynecologic diseases and disorders. Now, they have formed Pioneer Therapeutics, a Frazier-founded search company focused on identifying, in-licensing and developing new meds
(although more details on the biotech were not shared). [ fiercebiotech ]
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3.
Robinhood raises $280 million in push for global expansion
ApplyBoard, a SaaS-enabled recruitment platform aimed at helping international students gain greater access to higher education, has raised $75 million in funding at a $1.4 billion valuation. The round propels ApplyBoard into unicorn status, according to CEO and co-founder Martin Basiri. Columbus, Ohio-based Drive
Capital led the round along with Fidelity Investments Canada ULC and Business Development Bank of Canada, and was joined by existing backers such as Anthos Capital, Artiman Ventures, Garage Capital and Plug and Play Tech Center. The
latest financing comes just less than one year after ApplyBoard raised a $40 million Series B, and brings its total raised to $122.5 million, according to Crunchbase data. The company is based in Kitchener, Ontario, where many of the country’s fastest-growing startups also have headquarters. [ Crunchbase ]
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4.
PE's $1.1B battle for the .org domain may not be over
Ethos Capital's bid to buy control of the .org domain was blocked by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit that oversees internet domain registries, but the possibility of a private equity purchase could remain.
The firm agreed to acquire .org owner Public Interest Registry (PIR) from its nonprofit parent the Internet Society for $1.1 billion in November. When the deal was announced, Andrew Sullivan, CEO of the Internet Society, said the deal offered an "endowment of sustainable funding," and Ethos would provide the necessary capital to expand PIR's services. In February, Ethos announced it would further support the .org community through a $10 million community enablement fund. [ Pitchbook ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
LetsGetChecked Raises $71M
At-home testing startup LetsGetChecked raised $71 million for its Series C, the company announced Wednesday. The new round, which was co-led by Illumina Ventures and HLM Venture Partners, will be used to increase its supply, manufacturing and testing capabilities for COVID-19, the company said in a statement. The funding will also be used to expand the company’s supply and business operations across the United States and Europe and strengthen partnerships with insurers and employers, according to the company. [ Crunchbase ]
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6.
Social app maker offering a 'safe space' for women raises Series A
London-based Peanut, which operates a women-only social network, has raised $12 million in new funding. The round was led by EQT Ventures, with support from Index Ventures and Female Founders Fund.
Peanut was launched in 2016 and has attracted 1.6 million users. Michelle Kennedy, a former board member for dating app developer Bumble, started the business after finding it hard to connect with other mothers after giving birth to her first son. Peanut began as a friendship app where users could swipe for potential matches, but it has since evolved to offer community pages where women can discuss various issues from fertility and motherhood to menstruation and illness. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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Russian-born Runa Capital announces new fund for deep tech startups, topping $150 million
Runa Capital, a California-based VC firm founded by four Russian entrepreneurs, has closed its third fund at $157 million, backed by existing LPs as well as founders of some of the firm’s portfolio companies, such as Nginx, Brainly, Ecwid, Final and Rocketbank. Runa Capital Fund III surpassed its goal of $135 million, the same target of the firm’s second fund which closed four years ago. [ Tech.eu ]
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Stockholm’s Sinch to acquire SAP Digital Interconnect for €225 million
Stockholm-based Sinch is set to buy part of Germany’s SAP, a communications unit called SAP Digital Interconnect (SDI), for €225 million on a cash and debt-free basis. SDI provides cloud-communication products to enterprise
clients, and the Swedish company will acquire all assets and intellectual property as part of the deal.
In a press release, Sinch said the deal strengthens its customer facing, operations and product and engineering resources in the US, securing the company a larger presence in the Bay Area where SDI is headquartered. It also grows the company’s business in Europe, Asia Pacific and India. [ Tech.eu ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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Japan's Sumitomo Corp Announces $100m Israel Focused Fund
Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. has launched a new $100 million investment fund geared to investments in Israel, named IN Venture. Sumitomo, which is celebrating 100 years of activity, employs around 67,000 people in 135 countries around the world. The Nasdaq traded conglomerate has close to 1,000 subsidiaries. Sumitomo is a Fortune 500 company with an annual profit of $2.9 billion. The corporation is active in numerous industries, including steel, air travel, transport, energy, telecommunication, minerals, and chemicals. [ calcalistech ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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Don’t handcuff private capital in this crisis
This article is a part of a series in which the Financial Times asks leading commentators and policymakers what to expect from a post-Covid-19 future The writer is president and chief operating officer of Blackstone It’s easy to get discouraged by the headlines. The effects of the coronavirus outbreak and an unprecedented shutdown of the global economy are being felt by markets, businesses, and individuals alike. A record 26m Americans have filed for unemployment in the last month alone. The IMF now predicts a possible loss of $9tn in global gross domestic product, more than the economies of Japan and Germany combined. Vix, the index which measures market volatility, surged to a record high in March, breaking a mark set in November 2008. And of
course, equity markets fell sharply, more than 30 per cent, although they have begun to recover. [ Financial Times ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
11.
Property Tech Startup Cadre Plans Fund to Buy in Economic Slump
Real estate technology startup Cadre is planning to launch a new fund to seize on property-market opportunities that arise from the economic downturn in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The New York-based company has begun discussing the vehicle, which will make commercial real estate bets, with key potential investors including family offices, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. A Cadre representative
declined to comment. Cadre was co-founded by Chief Executive Officer Ryan Williams, Jared Kushner and Josh Kushner. Jared Kushner -- a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, who’s also his father-in-law -- sold his Cadre stake in February over concerns of potential future conflicts. His brother, venture capitalist Josh Kushner, maintains a stake in Cadre through his firm Thrive Capital. [ Bloomberg ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
12.
A Neuroscience Startup Uses Helmets to Measure Brain Activity
If you want your mind read, there are two options. You can visit a psychic or head to a lab and get strapped into a room-size, expensive machine that’ll examine the electrical impulses and blood moving through the brain. Either way, true insights are hard to come by, and for now, the quest to know thyself remains as elusive as ever. Kernel, a startup based in Culver City, Calif., says it aims
to transform brain science from an esoteric art to a big business. It’s found a way to shrink the machines used by researchers and make them cheaper. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Kernel unveiled for the first time a pair of devices—basically helmets—that can see and record brain activity, enabling scientists to more easily analyze neurons as they fire and reveal more about how the mind works. “This triggers a new era of access to the mind and the ability to ask all sorts of new questions about ourselves,” says Bryan Johnson, the company’s founder and chief executive officer. (Kernel will not reveal the helmets to the public until later this year.) [ Bloomberg ]
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The fallacy of ‘normal’: How the coronavirus will reboot venture capital
The measures most of the world has put in place to mitigate the spread of the pandemic has shut down the global economy in a more abrupt fashion than we’ve ever seen. Despite what many are saying, the idea of a V-shaped recovery is woefully
optimistic. While parallels are consistently being drawn to past financial crises, these are simply not relevant to our current situation. Never before have we experienced the demand for goods and services completely come to a halt the way they did in March. We should anticipate the economic impact in the United States to better align with the unprecedented situation at hand — which will be severe to say the least. [ Venture Beat ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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FreshDirect co-founder Jason Ackerman said surge in online grocery shopping has led to more venture capital deals
FreshDirect co-founder and former CEO Jason Ackerman said customers’ growing interest in online grocery shopping during the coronavirus pandemic has whet venture capital firms’ appetites. In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Alley,” he said the surge of online grocery shopping has inspired more investors to look closely at the sector. “I’m seeing more deals in online grocery ... than I’ve ever seen before,” he said. In the U.S., customers have been slow to adopt online grocery shopping. Only 3% or 4% of grocery spending in the U.S. was online before the coronavirus outbreak. [ CNBC ]
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How is the pandemic impacting venture capital?
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