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Funds
NVP, the Wells Fargo-backed venture firm has closed its largest ever fund, having secured $1.5bn to invest from seed to late stage.
The mobile advertising platform Calldorado App Growth Fund will provide marketing funds for app developers using its software.
Exits
Pharmaceutical firm Roche agreed yesterday to acquire cancer research technology provider and portfolio company Flatiron Health, paying $1.9bn for the remainder of the company’s shares.
OpenText has paid an undisclosed sum for file sharing service provider Hightail, which had raised $83m from investors including Western Digital Capital.
Luxury fashion e-commerce platform Farfetch is seeking banks for an initial public offeringthat could take place before the end of this year at a valuation of up to $5bn. Strategic investors in line for an exit in the IPO include media group Condé Nast, a shareholder since 2013, and e-commerce firm JD.com, which invested $397m in the company eight months ago.
China-based Huami produces smart wearable devices such as watches and activity tracking bands for its strategic partner, consumer electronics maker Xiaomi, and has just raised $110m in a US initial public offering. Xiaomi, which invested in the company at series A stage, held a 19.3% stake pre-IPO, and the proceeds will be put toward R&D, sales and marketing.
Video sharing platform AcFun, which had raised at least $110m from backers including Youku Tudou and SoftBank, has shut down its operations.
University
MIT spinout Twine Health has agreed to an acquisition by Fitbit and will join the wearable device manufacturer’s Health Solutions group.
Deals
Lightmatter and Lightelligence both emerged out of MIT earlier this month and are exploiting research into photonic computer chips initially conducted jointly by the respective co-founders.
One company feeling the love is JD Logistics. China-based e-commerce firm JD.com had been running its own logistics for 10 years when it officially formed JD Logistics in April 2017, and the latter is now raising $2.5bn in funding that will help it grow on its own.
Celularity, the placenta-based regenerative therapy developer’s investors include Celgene, United Therapeutics, Sorrento Therapeutics, Human Longevity and Genting.
Kakao Games, a multi-platform game developer spun out of Kakao last year, has raised $130m in a round that included strategic backers Tencent, Netmarble Games, Actozsoft and Bluehole Studio. Tencent provided almost $47m of the funding according to Nikkei, and the proceeds will support international expansion as Kakao Games gears up for its own IPO.
Mastercard has participated in a $71m series C round for Yapstone, a provider of payment processing software for online and mobile marketplaces, which took its total financing to about $180m. Mastercard has been unafraid to invest in big rounds, but this is the largest in which it has featured since June last year, when it contributed to a $300m round for another payment processor, AvidXchange.
Rani Therapeutics has now raised $142m in total, its latest investors including GV, Ping An Ventures, GeneScience, AstraZeneca, Shire and Novartis.
“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0