BREAKING:
Ride-Hailing Giant Gojek Raises $1.2 Billion for Clash With Grab
Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Gojek has raised $1.2 billion for expansion, defying tech-sector turbulence and the coronavirus pandemic to secure funds to take on Grab Holdings Inc. The new financing was finalized just over the past week, when the Covid-19 outbreak quickened its spread and triggered market routs across the globe. That took the total raised in its current financing round to just under $3 billion, the company said in an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. [ Bloomberg ]
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SoftBank reportedly balks at commitment to buy $3B in shares from WeWork shareholders
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Fox gets deeper into streaming with $440 million acquisition of Tubi
Fox Corp., the broadcast news and entertainment company holding what remains of the Murdoch Family’s television and cable sports and media assets after the sale of 21st Century Fox to Disney, has agreed to acquire the streaming service Tubi TV for $440
million. Tubi, once of a now-dwindling number of free ad-supported streaming services, will bring a new digitally native consumer offering to Fox with younger-skewing audience that consumes roughly 160 million hours of entertainment on the platform, according to a statement. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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CORRECTING and REPLACING Circle Pharma Raises $45 Million in Series B Financing
Circle Pharma, Inc., a macrocycle drug discovery and development company focused on intractable cancer targets, today announced that it has raised $45 million in a Series B financing. The financing was led by The Column Group, with participation by Nextech Invest. All investors from the prior round – ShangPharma, LifeForce Capital, and the Berkeley Catalyst Fund – joined the financing. In conjunction with the financing, Peter Svennilson, founder and managing partner of The Column Group, and Thilo Schroeder, Ph.D., partner at Nextech Invest were appointed to the board. John Josey, Ph.D., formerly
President and CEO of Peloton Therapeutics, was appointed to the board as Chairman. [ Yahoo ]
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E25Bio Raises $2M From Khosla Ventures To Create Rapid COVID-19 Diagnostic Test
E25Bio, a developer of rapid diagnostic tests for dangerous infectious diseases, announced this morning that it has raised a $2 million financing from storied VC firm Khosla Ventures. The 2-year-old Cambridge, Massachusetts startup is based out
of The Engine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and had been working on developing technology for rapid diagnosis of diseases such as dengue and zika. Now, of course, E25Bio is turning its attention to creating early and accessible tests to diagnose the novel and rapidly-spreading coronavirus, which has caused a global pandemic. Its goal is to be able to distribute more rapid, accurate and affordable detectors for coronavirus that can be distributed at scale across geographies. [ Crunchbase ]
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Sigilon picks up $80M to test hemophilia cell therapy in humans
The best treatment for any disease, says Sigilon Therapeutics CEO Rogerio Vivaldi, M.D., is the body’s own cells. “If we allow cells to do what they are designed to do, that is the best treatment,” Vivaldi told FierceBiotech. These could be islet cells that make insulin in the case of Type 1 diabetes or cells that make clotting factors in the case of hemophilia. Some companies are working on gene therapies to restore production of clotting factors, while others
aim to transplant working cells into patients. But previous efforts to give patients functioning cells failed because scar tissue formed around them and the immune system attacked them, he said. [ Fierce Biotech ]
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Join TC tomorrow at 9 am PT for a chat about the latest YC startup batch
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Penta Raises €18.5m in Funding
Penta, a digital marketplace for business banking, raised €18.5m in funding. The round was led by RTP Global and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures with participation from finleap, ABN AMRO Ventures and VR Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Alex Pavlov, Partner RTP Global, Barbod Namini, Partner HV, and Michael Hock, CFO finleap, joined Penta’s board of directors. [ finsmes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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Boro Raises $12 Million in Series A Funding to Grant Microloans to Credit-Crunched Students
Boro, a provider of affordable loans and financial education to students that have largely been ignored by traditional lenders, today announced a $12 million Series A fundraise, led by leading Chinese fintech company LexinFintech (NASDAQ: LX). College students today face financial hardships that go beyond student debt. Without credit histories, it's difficult for them to get approved for safe, affordable loans. But when critical expenses for things like textbooks, class
fees, and apartment deposits pile up, it creates financial pressure on students that can put their studies at risk. [ Yahoo ]
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Seattle-area cloud governance startup CoreStack raises $8.5M
Seattle-area cloud governance startup CoreStack today announced an $8.5 million Series A investment round. As more business moves to the cloud, companies increasingly need a way to manage the cost, compliance, consumption, and other aspects of their cloud infrastructure. That’s where CoreStack comes in, offering software that provides
“automated guardrails” that help with proactive policy enforcement, retrospective action, automated post provisioning action, and resource consistency. [ Geek Wire ]
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China Deal Monitor: Insurance platform Insgeek nets $25m and more updates
Insgeek.com, a business insurance platform for enterprises, has raised $25 million in a Series C round of financing led by global proprietary trading & broker-dealer firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and China’s leading financial institution China Renaissance’s new economy fund, according to a company statement on Wednesday. [ Dealstreet Asia ]
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RoadRunner Recycling, a startup using AI to optimize recycling routes, raises $28 million
RoadRunner Recycling — a startup in Downtown that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to help businesses, schools and factories improve their recycling operations — has raised more than $28 million to double its team and expand into new markets. [ post-gazette ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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Eureka Therapeutics Completes $45 Million Series E Financing and Enters Into Strategic Collaboration With Lyell Immunopharma
Dima Kalichkin is a second-year student at Stanford GSB. Prior to Stanford, he was the general manager of Lamoda in Belarus. He managed to secure a lucrative summer internship at a venture capital fund and continues to work there as Entrepreneur-in-Residence. [ Yahoo ]
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One, A New Digital Bank Aimed At The Middle Class, Raises $17M Series A
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Refurbished electronics startup Refurbed raises $17M round, led by Evli Growth Partners
Renewed phones, laptops and tablets can be as much as 40% cheaper than their brand new cousins, working equally as well and, because they have been saved from the scrapheap, are therefore a great deal more environmentally friendly. Players in this space include Back Market (raised €48M), Swappa (US) and Amazon Renew. Refurbed, a marketplace for exactly these types of refurbished electronics plans to take advantage of this growing market, after raising a $17 million Series A round of funding led by
Finland’s Evli Growth Partners. They have been joined in the round by Almaz Capital, Bonsai Partners, All Iron Ventures and FJ Labs as new investors. Existing investors Klaus Hofbauer and Inventure Partners also participated. [ Tech Crunch ]
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Seed Stage: Alex Rubalcava from value investor to seed venture with Tobias on The Acquirers Podcast
Latest news on the coronavirus
Coronavirus helps scuttle $3B Curium Pharma buyoutIn the latest potential deal upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, London-based private equity firm CapVest has postponed a sale of French medical supplier Curium Pharma after prospective buyers lowered their bids because of ongoing market volatility, according to Bloomberg. CapVest was reportedly seeking at least $3 billion for the company, with Nordic Capital, Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners said to be among its suitors. —Adam Lewis, 5:07 p.m. PDT German startup making COVID-19 vaccine gets EU investmentThe European Union agreed to invest up to €80 million (about $88 million) in CureVac, which is seen as a frontrunner to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, following reports that the Trump administration had sought exclusive US access to the German
biotech startup's research. CureVac's vaccine uses messenger RNA, which enables human cells to produce the necessary therapeutic proteins to fight the new coronavirus. —Leah Hodgson, 3:09 p.m. PDT [ Pitchbook ]
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SV003: Ten Capital, Startup Funding, and Trends in Tech with Hall Martin
On today’s show, we interview Hall Martin, who is the founder and CEO of TEN Capital, a company that helps startups and growth companies everywhere raise funding from angels, family offices, venture capital and high net worth individuals. Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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Trump's plan to stop Covid-19, Facebook board shakeups, and how hospitals prep for coronavirus
Hey all, due to coronavirus and the importance of social distancing, we are unable to shoot videos. But we will still post the audio version, and start back up with video when it's safe to do so. Hope you are all staying well. Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
E1037 LAUNCH Accelerator Class 16 Founders reflect on their journeys through the program
E1037: LAUNCH Accelerator Class 16 Founders of BasicBlock (payment solution for truckers), DaoCloud (lead-gen for health & wellness practitioners) & Lately (AI-powered social media writing software) reflect on their journeys through the program
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