24 September 2018 – Uber in Talks to Acquire Rival Careem

Exits

Uber is already in talks to acquire Middle Eastern rival Careem and has now reportedly in negotiations to buy food delivery service Deliveroo. The price would need to be “considerably” higher than the $2bn valuation at which Deliveroo last raised money, but the transaction would give a nice exit to NGP Capital, the venture firm spun out of Nokia, which invested in Deliveroo at a reported $1bn post-money valuation.

Rocket Internet is in line for a series of IPO exits in the next few months. In addition to Westwing and Funding Circle, African e-commerce marketplace Jumia is looking to go public in a 2019 offering that could value it at about $1bn.

Eventbrite, the developer of an online ticketing platform it supplies to event promoters,has gone public in a $230m IPO. The company floated at the top of its range, which it increased on Tuesday, signifying some serious interest in advance of the offering.

Infosys sucks up Fluido in $76m acquisition

Equillium seeks $86m IPO balance

Airware comes crashing down

Allogene calls for $100m IPO

Qutoutiao reports news of $84m IPO

GlaxoSmithKline has chalked up an exit in a $106m initial public offering for oncology and immunology developer Principia Biopharma, which has floated at the top of its range.

Connected planning software provider Anaplan has filed for its own IPO and has set an initial target of $100m.

Funds

Insurance firm Aflac announced in March last year it planned to make up to $100m of investments through a newly formed corporate venturing vehicle, and while its investments have been secretive they’ve apparently interested the company enough to increase activity.

Ajao’s Base attracts $137m for first fund

Golden Gate closes third fund with $100m

Corporates nurture $70m Raise Ventures fund

Deals

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has agreed to invest some $1bn in Lucid Motors, the developer of a luxury plug-in electric sedan.

Tuhu, a Chinese provider of automotive after-sales services, has raised $450m in a series E round featuring Tencent, which invested in connection with a strategic partnership agreement.

Yi Jiupi E-Commerce, the operator of Chinese wine retail platform E Jiupi, has reportedly secured $200m in a series D round co-led by Meituan Dianping and Tencent that valued it at $1.1bn.

Electric bus producer Proterra has raised another $155m in a round that was co-led by Daimler, which will explore the use of Proterra’s battery and electric drivetrain technology in its school buses.

Galera Therapeutics has secured $150m in financing, $70m of which came in a series C equity portion backed by Nan Fung Life Sciences and existing investors Novo Ventures and Novartis Venture Fund.

UiPath continues to bring in big money six months after closing a $153m series B round by collecting $225m in series C funding from backers including CapitalG, which co-led the round with Sequoia Capital.

GitLab programs $100m series D

India-based social networking app developer ShareChat has added $99.2m to its coffersthanks to commitments from investors including Xiaomi, which previously led an $18.2m series B round in January this year.

Enigma has become the first portfolio company both of BB&T’s fintech-focused vehicle and MetLife’s co-investment fund MetLife Digital Ventures by attracting $95m in funding.

GUV

Immune-Onc books $33m series B


“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

15 August 2016 – VR and Food Delivery Investments, GV People Moves and more

People

Friday was Bill Maris’s last day at GV, the corporate venturing unit he helped to set up for search engine Google in 2009. But it is a new start for David Krane, who is taking the CEO position at GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) and who will have a tough act to follow in Maris.

Eze Vidra, who helped GV set up its aborted European branch in 2014, has taken the chief innovation officer role at clinical trial connection platform TrialReach.

Vosik Shamsiev, a venture partner at Japan-based corporate venturing unit TEL Venture Capital since 2014, is leaving to pursue opportunities in Canada.

Citi’s strategic investment subsidiary has hired Travis Skelly from venture capital fund FinTech Collective as a senior vice-president. No announcement as yet on Debby Hopkins’ replacement.

Joydeep Bose joined Cisco from Intel Capital in 2007 and oversaw its corporate venturing activities in the Asia Pacific Japan region. D

Funds

Telstra and Telekom Indonesia form investment pact

Infosys lines up $15m Stellaris commitment

Exits

Wal-Mart has agreed to acquire Jet.com in a $3.3bn cash and share deal said to be the largest ever acquisition of an e-commerce company, and which will be marked down as a big win for investors including Alphabet and Alibaba.

CME Group looks like it’s secured a decent exit from deep learning technology provider Nervana Systems, just over a year after its corporate venturing vehicle, CME Ventures, took part in a $20.5m series B round.

In another sizeable acquisition, Myriad Genetics has agreed to buy precision medicine developer Assurex Health for up to $410m, giving exits to Mayo Clinic and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Naspers to squeeze out Citrus Pay acquisition

Protagonist Therapeutics has raised $90m in an IPO that gave exits to pharmaceutical firms Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Pharmstandard, which collectively held a 45% stake in the company.

Investments

CVRx, the producer of an implantable treatment for heart failure and resistant hypertension, has sealed $93m in equity funding.

Torax strengthens with $25m

Moderna Therapeutics closed the largest round ever by a VC-stage drug developer in January 2015, and one of the investors in that round, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, has invested another $140m to take its stake in the mRNA therapeutics company to 9%.

Turner has led a $45m round for female-focused digital media company Refinery29 as part of a strategic collaboration that will involve it developing video content for Turner’s TV channels.

The Walt Disney Company had been set to team up with Major League Baseball in a funding round for daily sports betting platform FanDuel last year but pulled out at the last minute. The two have now formed a partnership of a different kind, with Disney agreeing to pay $1bn for a 33% stake in BamTech, the online video streaming platform spun out by MLB. BamTech will also set up a paid video subscription platform for Disney subsidiary ESPN as part of the deal.

Andy Bechtolsheim (Sun cofounder and Google’s angel), and Diane Greene (VMware cofounder and Google board as head of cloud) along with corporates Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers back Xperiel, a US-based provider of a mobile app development tool that works with Internet-connected equipment in sports stadiums and other facilities, $7m round.

Deliveroo raised $100m in November and has added $275m less than a year later with a series E round featuring Nokia Growth Partners.

Healthcare concierge service Accolade has added $70m from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Madrona Venture Group to the $22.5m in series E funding it raised from McKesson Ventures and Independence Health last year, taking its overall financing to almost $150m.

Comcast targets Interactions in $56m round

Axial capitalises on Comcast backing to raise $14m

NextVR closes an $80m series B round at a pre-money valuation of $800m.

Kaltura has been at the online video game longer than NextVR and is gearing up for an IPO, raising $50m from Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing group.

Yunnex, the Chinese developer of an advanced, connected point-of-sales system, has secured $45m in a series B round backed by one of its customers, fast food chain Ajisen Ramen.

Corporates dish up another $30m for iFood


“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0