Tag: Roku

09 October 2017 – Uber’s Board Approves SoftBank Investment

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Deals

Uber’s board of directors has approved an investment by SoftBank of up to $1.25bn, in a deal that will also give the corporate two board seats, and has resolved to launch an IPO by 2019.

Indian ride hailing platform Ola has raised $400m from Tencent, reportedly as part of a round also backed by SoftBank that is set to close at $2bn.

Harmony Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company that forms part of the Paragon Biosciences group, has secured $270m in funding from investors including Novo and Nan Fung Life Sciences.

Curated holiday provider Secret Escapes has closed a $111m series D round led by Temasek that featured a combination of equity and debt financing.

Macro, which produces film, TV and online video content with a brief of creating artistic content that portrays people of colour in a realistic fashion, has raised $150m in debt and equity from investors including entertainment company MNM Creative.

KSQ Therapeutics has emerged from stealth with $76m of financing from investors including life sciences real estate trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities.

Amgen was among the investors in a $58m series E round closed by cancer immunotherapy developer Immatics that will enable it to move multiple drug candidates into clinical trials.

On-demand ride platform Grab has been revealed as an investor in the $45m series B round announced by Singapore-based bicycle sharing platform oBike in August.

Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a US-based biotech spinout from University of Utah, obtained $60m in an oversubscribed series B round featuring Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment.

Funds

Union Square Hospitality Group, which oversees a network of restaurants, cafés and bars including the Shake Shack chain of fast food outlets, has formed a $200m growth equity fund called Enlightened Hospitality Investments.

Corporate venturing unit WuXi Healthcare Ventures formed investment vehicle 6 Dimensions in May with venture firm Frontline BioVentures, and the two pledged to raise dollar and renminbi-denominated funds through the entity.

UTokyo Innovation Platform, the venture capital arm of University of Tokyo, has backed a ¥1bn ($8.9m) first close for 360ip Japan Fund 1, which will support technology spinouts from domestic universities and research institutes.

Fletcher McCusker, founder of University of Arizona’s (UA) medication management spinout SinfoníaRx, has launched a venture capital fund called UAVenture Capital to invest in university-linked companies.

Russia government-owned investment vehicle Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) will join Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) to invest $1bn in a Russia-based technology investment fund.

Multilateral development finance provider African Development Bank (AfDB), has agreed to invest in a $200m healthcare-focused fund formed by investment bank EFG Hermes.

SoftBank paid $3.3bn to acquire alternative asset manager Fortress Investment Group at the start of the year, and now news has emerged that it is considering building up a portfolio of $300bn of assets that would be managed within a dedicated unit.

Exits

Roku, the TV subscription service backed by media companies Sky, 21st Century Fox, News Corp and Viacom, went public last week, floating at the top of its range and going off like a rocket once its shares began being traded.

Medical device maker Boston Scientific has agreed to acquire catheter system developer Apama for up to $300m, providing an exit to corporate venture capital unit Ascension Ventures. Boston Scientific will pay $175m upfront, with up to $125m more available in the form of milestone payments.

Private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners has paid an undisclosed amount for a majority stake in online property marketplace Ten-X at a $1.6bn valuation.

Rhythm Pharmaceuticals raised $120m in an upsized IPO and immediately saw its share price increase by 75% on the first day of trading.

E-commerce and internet company Amazon has acquired Body Labs, a US-based body scanner developer based on research at Brown University, in a deal that is worth between $70m and $100m.

Nucana, a UK-based company working on chemotherapies for resistant tumours that is backed by Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of government-owned economic development agency Scottish Enterprise, secured nearly $100m in its flotation on Nasdaq, slightly below its target of $115m, though its shares had climbed from an opening price of $15 to $18.37 on the second day of trading.

Nightstar Therapeutics, a UK-based spinout from University of Oxford that is developing retinal gene therapies, secured slightly more than $75m in its offering – below its initial target of $86m set a month ago.

There is an in-depth look at both Nucana and Nightstar on Global University Venturing.com and Global Government Venturing.com. Do check those out.

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

02 October 2017 – Roscosmos Establishes Space Ecosystem Fund

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Deals

Chinese online services portal Meituan Dianping is reportedly nearing the close of a $3bn round featuring long-term investor Tencent that will value it at up to $30bn.

Alibaba has paid approximately $800m to hike its 47% stake in logistics affiliate Cainiao to 51%, as part of a $5bn investment drive to strengthen its logistics technology capabilities over the next five years.

Food ordering platform Deliveroo has secured $384m in a round co-led by Fidelity and T. Rowe Price set to be announced this week that will reportedly value it at $2bn.

Fosun-backed personal accounting platform Shenzhen Suishou Technology has secured $200m in a series C round led by private equity firm KKR’s newly formed Asian Fund III.

Ride hailing platform Didi Chuxing has invested $200m in Renrenche, the third largest second-hand car e-commerce marketplace in China by market share.

Qingting.fm, an online radio platform that reportedly counts Youku Tudou among its investors, has raised $151m in series E funding from undisclosed investors, according to AllChinaTech.

Pfizer has spun out a startup called SpringWorks Therapeutics to develop treatments for incurable conditions such as desmoid tumours and post-traumatic stress disorder based on therapies licensed from the corporate.

Letgo launched in 2015 as a mobile-focused competitor to Craigslist and eBay, and claims to be one of the fastest growing apps in the country. That growth is set to be fueled by $100m of new funding at a $1bn valuation from undisclosed existing investors.

Customer relationship management software provider ProsperWorks has received $53m in a series C round that took its overall funding to $87m, a sum CEO Jon Lee has claimed makes it the most well-funded CRM company founded in the past 10 years.

Treasury and finance management platform Kyriba has raised $45m in funding from investors including HSBC, the bank that backed its series C and D rounds, in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

We’ve already had the biggest deal on GGV – Cainiao – and on Global University Venturing, the biggest deal came from the UK. Autolus, a biopharmaceutical spinout from University College London (UCL), raised $80m in a series C round that included investment firm Woodford Investment Management. Syncona, backed by medical charities Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK, also participated in the round, as did Arix Bioscience, Cormorant Asset Management, Nextech Invest and a range of unnamed investors.

Funds

The Netherlands government-owned Dutch Investment Agency (NIA) and the EU-owned investment vehicle European Investment Fund (EIF) have committed €100m ($117.7m) to a fund targeted at growth-stage startups dubbed the Dutch Growth Co-Investment Program.

The Russian government-owned space agency Roscosmos has established a venture capital fund to commercialise inventions from the space ecosystem.

Exits

Sea, the Southeast Asian online services provider formerly known as Garena, has filed to raise up to $1bn in an initial public offering in the US.

Chinese online video streaming platform iQiyi is considering an initial public offering that will take place in the US early next year and has already started talking to banks, sources have told Bloomberg.

SAP has paid a reported $350m to acquire customer identity management software provider Gigya and will incorporate the company into its SAP Hybrid offering.

Roku has priced a $219m IPO in which Sky Ventures will sell some $9.4m of shares, and is set to float on the the Nasdaq Global Select Market tomorrow.

Nexon has paid $80m for a 65% stake in Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange Korbit, ironically at the exact point when the Korean government has banned initial coin offerings.

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

11 September 2017 – Judging Purchase Versus Investment

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Exits

Johnson & Johnson is celebrating an exit with the acquisition of its portfolio company NeoTract by Teleflex for a total consideration of $1.1bn.

Intel Capital also celebrated an exit as its portfolio company StarCash, a digital gift card service, was acquired by fintech company Blackhawk Network for $175m in cash.

Madsack hails CleverShuttle

Paytm to make Little acquisition

Juicero breaks down

It seems as though Roku is serious about an initial public offering this time. The company was rumoured to be seeking a flotation all the way back in 2014 but those plans never materialised. Fast forward to last July and reports emerged that Roku was hoping to go public this year. On Friday then, the media streaming software and device maker finally made its regulatory filing that revealed it is aiming for $100m in its IPO.

Matrimony.com, a matchmaking service aimed at the Indian market backed by Yahoo, is gearing up for an initial public offering that will launch next week and is expected to bring in $78m in proceeds (though part of that will be existing stockholders selling some of their shares).

Government

RedOwl reaches Forcepoint

Compositence puts acquisition deal together

Investments

Via, the operator of a shuttle-based carpooling service, has collected a reported $250m in funding from a consortium led by Daimler.

LeddarTech, which was spun out of Canada’s National Optics Institute in 2007, has raised $101m in fresh funding.

Innoviz appears on corporates’ radar

23andMe is seeking to top up its capital resources with another $200m – which would nearly double the amount of equity and debt it has raised so far to approximately $445m.

Gritstone Oncology, which is working on personalised cancer immunotherapies, has collected $92.7m in a series B round led by Lilly Asia Ventures with participation from investors including GV.

Entasis restructures $81.9m series B

If you are one of those people who dream about owning a flying car, you may be excited to hear that Lilium Aviation, a company that is working on precisely such technology, today secured $90m in series B funding from a consortium of investors that included Tencent.

Lendingkart shops around for $80m series C

MapR outlines $56m funding round

University

Amal develops $9.6m series B

Minnesota embraces CoreBiome

Prowler.io sneaks into $13m series A

Funds

Investors have long taken note and Fidelity International, which already has dozens of portfolio companies in the area, hopes that a $250m fund set up by its investment arm Eight Roads Ventures will help it grab a bigger piece of the pie.

Qingsong attracts $130m for third fund

Government

Corporate venturing news from Poland are a rarity, but that could be about to change withthe government’s launch of a $225m fund of funds that is expected to back both domestic and international companies hoping to establish investment subsidiaries that support Polish startups.

Ireland sows $24m agtech fund

University

Melbourne gains $64m incubator

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

17 July 2017 – A Look at Unicorns

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Editorial: A Look at Unicorns

Funds

Toyota’s research division, Toyota Research Institute, has launched a dedicated corporate venturing fund called Toyota AI Ventures that will invest in artificial intelligence as well as robotics, autonomous mobility, data and cloud technology.

Partech Ventures, a US-headquartered venture firm with a significant presence in Europe,has closed its seventh VC-stage fund, Partech International Ventures VII, at $455m.

Global Brain heads for $180m close

Ground transport-focused venture firm Autotech Ventures, which had already revealed commitments from BorgWarner and Autoliv to its first fund, has now closed it at $120m.

Government

Hong Kong to launch matched venture fund

Singapore springs to action with new fund

University

Adelaide realises ThincLab

Exits

Set-top box producer Roku has hired underwriters for an IPO that could value it at up to $1bn, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The merger agreed by DraftKings and FanDuel in November was supposed to help them combat long-running regulatory issues, but those seem to have struck again.

Symantec finds Skycure in $250m acquisition

Fireglass to melt into Symantec

Baidu catches Kitt.AI

Samsung Next embarks on European trip

Government

SBI Life prepares $1bn IPO

Investments

Uber’s on-demand ride and food ordering operations in 21 cities across four countries in Eastern Europe will be merged with Yandex Taxi, a subsidiary of Russian internet company Yandex, in a deal that will create a $3.7bn company, of which Uber will own 36%.

Co-working space provider WeWork has raised $760m in a series G round that reportedly increased its valuation to $20bn.

Artificial intelligence technology provider SenseTime has completed a $410m series B round featuring Dalian Wanda that reportedly valued it at more than $1.5bn.

Shouqi Limousine and Chauffeur, a ride hailing offshoot of services Shouqi Group and Xianglong Taxi, has raised $88m in series B funding from an undisclosed investor at a valuation of about $750m.

Darktrace, the developer of a cybersecurity platform that looks to mimic the human immune system, has received $75m in a series D round led by Insight Venture Partners that valued it at $825m.

E-Scape Bio has reached the final close of a $63m series A round featuring Novo as well as CVC units Lilly Asia Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC and Novartis Venture Fund which E-Scape will use to advance its pipeline of neurodegenerative disease treatments.

Growth equity firm Spectrum Equity has acquired a majority stake in link management platform Bitly in return for a $63m investment.

CompareAsiaGroup, the operator of a comparison platform for financial products in Southeast Asia, has closed a $50m series B round that included Alibaba and SBI Group.

Government

Floadia flows towards $14.5m series B

University

NYGC spins out Gencove

Phytelligence harvests series B

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