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The Big Ones
Chinese social commerce platform Xiaohongshu was valued at more than $3bn when it last raised money a year ago, and has reportedly now entered talks with prospective investors including SoftBank’s Vision Fund for a series E round with a $500m target.
E.ventures has been one of Germany’s most successful venture capital investors of late, celebrating a series of high-profile exits in the past year. It has also received backing from a slate of corporates for two new funds: a $225m US fund and a $175m entity that will focus on Europe.
The We Company’s funding may have reached stratospheric heights but that doesn’t mean it’s having things all its way internationally. Ucommune is probably its biggest competitor in the shared workplace sector in China, and it is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering in the US in which it would look to raise $200m.
Deals
Indian renewable power producer ReNew Power was said last year to be exploring an initial public offering, and though it is yet to float it has no trouble raising money.
Indian ride hailing platform Ola established a spinoff called Ola Electric Mobility around Easter this year, with $56m of series A funding from external investors. Ola Electric, which was launched to promote electric vehicle infrastructure, isn’t sitting on its laurels either.
Century Therapeutics has also raised $250m, in a series A round announced as it emerged from stealth yesterday. Bayer’s open innovation arm, Leaps by Bayer, invested $215m to lead the round, which also featured FujiFilm subsidiary and Century strategic partner Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics, and founding investor Versant Ventures.
Vision Fund also led a $200m series C round for data centre technology provider Fungible that included Norwest Venture Partners. The round took Fungible’s overall funding to $300m, its earlier investors including Juniper Networks and Samsung Catalyst Fund, and the proceeds will go to product development, sales and marketing.
Times Internet paid $140m for a majority stake in mobile video player MX Player before converting it into an online media streaming platform. It now looks like other corporate investors are primed to come on board, with news that Tencent and Paytm are in talks to provide between $100m and $125m for the company, which has more than 30 million registered users.
Japan-based Tier IV, a developer of open-source autonomous driving software, has raised one of the year’s biggest series A rounds, taking $105m in a round led by Sompo Japan Nipponkoa.
The solar energy technology sector may be a fair distance off its heights near the turn of the decade, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead. Oxford PV, which is developing perovskite-equipped solar cells based on research at University of Oxford, has closed its series D round at $81.8m, adding a second tranche that included the investment made by Meyer Burger in March that gave it an 18% stake.
Tencent has led a $36.3m series C round for Synyi, a Chinese company that utilises technologies like natural language processing, machine learning and data mining to extract raw data from medical texts.
Electric scooter rental platform Dott has sealed a $33.9m series A round that was co-led by Naspers Ventures, and which included Axel Springer Digital Ventures.
Funds
Ahren Innovation Capital, a UK-based investment firm co-founded by eight scientists from the Cambridge, UK ecosystem, has closed its inaugural vehicle at more than £200m ($250m) with LPs including Unilever, Sky, Aviva as well as the eight co-founders.
UK-based charity Cancer Research UK has announced a $250m commercialisation fund in partnership with venture capital firm SV Health Investors to accelerate the translation of cancer research.
Sony has joined a subsidiary of brokerage Daiwa Securities to launch an investment fund with a $185m target for its final close. Innovation Growth Ventures, which will function as an extension of Sony’s existing Innovation Fund, has already reached the first close of the fund, and its LPs include Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Company, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Osaka Shoko Shinkin Bank.
Exits
Health Catalyst has filed to raise up to $100m in an initial public offering that would provide exits for UPMC Enterprises, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, MultiCare Health System, OSF Healthcare, Partners HealthCare and CHV Capital.
US-based integrin drug developer Morphic Holding, which emerged out of research at Harvard University’s Medical School, has closed its initial public offering at approximately $104m.
Codiak Biosciences, a US-based exosome therapeutics developer backed by life science real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, meanwhile withdrew its plans for an $86.3m initial public offering.
“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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