1.
Mobile Games Company Scopely Boasts Of ‘Significantly Profitable Business’ As It Raises $340M
Mobile gaming giant Scopely said Wednesday that it has raised $340 million in a Series E funding round. The latest round is widely expected to be its last venture funding before the company—which had a post-money valuation of $1.9 billion following an extension of its Series D fundraising last year—heads to the public markets. Scopely co-CEO Walter Driver said in a statement that the company has a “significantly profitable business with a strong balance sheet.” Investors in the Los Angeles-based company’s latest round include Wellington Management, NewView Capital, TSG Consumer Partners and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, as well as funds managed by BlackRock, D1, Battery Ventures, Eldridge, Declaration Partners and Moore Strategic Ventures. Also participating in the round were Greycroft, Baillie Gifford, Sands Capital, Revolution Growth and Highland Capital Partners. [ Crunchbase ]
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2.
More chip industry action as Marvell is acquiring Inphi for $10B
It’s been quite a time for chip industry consolidation, and today Marvell joined the acquisition parade when it announced it is acquiring Inphi in a combination of stock and cash valued at approximately $10 billion, according to the
company. Marvell CEO Matt Murphy believes that by adding Inphi, a chip maker that helps connect internal servers in cloud data centers, and then between data centers, using fibre cabling, it will complement Marvell’s copper-based chip portfolio and give it an edge in developing more future-looking use cases where Inphi shines. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
Special:
A rollback or reformed Section 230 will impact venture capital activity around early stage platforms: Expert
The CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter defended their policies on Capitol Hill today. Alex Kantrowitz, founder of the Big Technology newsletter, a newsletter and podcast about Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, and Monique Woodard, Cake Ventures founding partner and managing director, join ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss their takeaways. [ CNBC ]
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3.
Colorado’s Outrider Raises $65M Series B
Golden, Colorado-based Outrider has landed $65 million in a Series B round of funding. The company focuses on making distribution yards–which face a number of issues–more efficient. Those issues include congestion of road trucks, lost trailers, and the right trailer not getting to the right loading dock at the correct time, according to Outrider CEO Andrew Smith. “Within these distribution centers, these are real pain points of the supply chain,” Smith said in an interview with Crunchbase News. Outrider is aiming to increase efficiency through its three-part system, which consists of autonomous vehicles, cloud-based management software, and site infrastructure. “We’re very focused on thinking about what the next iteration of distribution looks like,” Smith said. “Not putting a Band-Aid on the problem.” [ Crunchbase ]
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4.
Apple Buys Self-Learning AI Video Company to Improve Apps
Apple Inc. acquired a startup specializing in advanced artificial intelligence and computer vision technology that may help the iPhone maker improve its own AI across a number of apps and services. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant acquired Barcelona-based Vilynx Inc. earlier this year, according to people familiar with the deal. Vilynx developed technology that uses AI to analyze a video’s visual, audio and text content to understand what the video shows. It used that technology to create tags for the video, making it
searchable. The deal was completed for about $50 million, said the people who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak about the transaction. [ Bloomberg ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
PAYPAL INVESTS $50 MILLION IN BLACK AND LATINX-LED VENTURE CAPITAL FUNDS
Earlier this year, BLACK ENTERPRISE reported that PayPal had committed over $500 million toward advancing social change and closing the racial wealth gap within the United States. This week, as part of its commitment, the tech giant has announced that it will invest $50 million into early-stage venture capital funds for Black and Latinx businesses. The investment will be distributed between eight Black and Latinx-led venture capital funds, including Chingona Ventures, Harlem Capital, Precursor Ventures, Zeal Capital Partners, Slauson & Co., and the Fearless Fund, and another fund that was not named. [ black enterprise ]
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6.
Airbnb’s IPO Is A Big Deal For The Company. It’s Big For Y Combinator, Too.
Every batch of entrepreneurs that goes through prestigious startup accelerator Y Combinator nowadays hears founders from the same company speak: Airbnb. The co-founders of the company, which is set to go public this year, return to the accelerator
where they got their start to speak to founders going through the process they did back in 2009, often staying for as long as four hours. “They’ll answer question after question. Because if you think about it, you’re in their position in 2009 where you’re just a few founders with an idea and you look at these folks who created this epic company,” Y Combinator President Geoff Ralston said in an interview with Crunchbase News. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
Ryder Launches $50 Million Corporate Venture Capital Fund: RyderVentures
Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE: R), a leader in supply chain, dedicated transportation and commercial fleet management solutions, today announces RyderVentures, a new corporate venture capital fund to invest in and partner with start-up companies that are developing new technologies and business models that deliver advancements and automation in the logistics and transportation industries. RyderVentures is targeting $50 million in investments over the next five years. The focus is on start-up companies that are tackling disruptions in the supply chain, driven by accelerating demand for e-commerce fulfillment, asset sharing, next-generation vehicles, automation, and data analytics, among others. [ dcvelocity ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
8.
Atmos, A Startup For Custom Homes, Raises Funds At A $25 Million Valuation
Atmos, a new startup that makes it easier to build custom homes, has raised $4 million at a $25 million valuation, in a round led by Khosla Ventures. A graduate of Y Combinator, the company’s roster of investors also includes Sam Altman, Adam Nash, JLL Spark, and a group of TikTok influencers. “The only way to improve housing affordability in the US is to build more houses, and the building of new, custom homes has long been a confusing, unreliable process,” says Evan Moore, a partner at Khosla Ventures who previously helped launch Opendoor. “Atmos enables significantly more people to build the homes they want.” [ Forbes ]
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9.
Arable Cultivates $20M Series B To Digitize Agriculture
Arable aims to observe a crop’s development as it grows and help farmers determine when the crop needs the basics, such as more light, water, or nutrients. Buoyed by a $20 million Series B round of funding, the San Francisco-based company enables farmers to digitize and optimize their decisions by providing data on how weather and other factors affect yield, quality and harvest timing. It measures everything of importance to crops–weather, soil and even the plant itself–using a set of spectral and thermal sensors that
point down at the plants, Jim Ethington, CEO of Arable, told Crunchbase News. Ethington joined the company as CEO in 2018 and has worked at the intersection of agriculture and technology for the past 12 years. [ Crunchbase ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
10.
Israeli start-up makes vertical farms to grow crops in city parking lots
The demand for video has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic and it’s not just from people hunkered down over their laptops on Zoom calls. All kinds of businesses from retail stores to gyms and restaurants are embracing video as a way to monitor their environments and maintain security. And that’s been a boon to Eagle Eye Networks, a cloud-based video security company, founded in 2012 by Dean Drako, a well-known serial entrepreneur in Austin who also founded Barracuda Networks, Drako
Motors, LivingTree, and Swift Sensors. Eagle Eye Networks on Tuesday announced it has raised $40 million in Series E venture capital funding from Accel, which has backed Facebook, Spotify and DocuSign to name a few. Eagle Eye Networks has raised $95 million to date, according to Crunchbase. Its high-profile investors include Michael Dell. [ The Jerusalem Post hills news ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
11.
Supersonic aircraft startup Hermeus raises $16 million Series A
Hermeus, a company seeking to build a Mach 5 aircraft that would be capable of making the trip from New York to London in just 90 minutes has raised a $16 million Series A round, led by Canaan Partners and including contributions from existing investors Khosla Ventures,
Bling Capital, and the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. The new funding will help the startup develop and ground test its first full-scale engine, the core component that will eventually power its debut Mach 5 aircraft. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
12.
This 32-year-old’s start-up is helping thousands of Malaysians find work during the pandemic
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