Tag: Tanium

08 October 2018 – Grab Looking To Raise Another $1bn

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Deals

Southeast Asian ride hailing platform Grab closed $2bn in funding just two months ago, but Reuters has reported that it’s looking to raise another $1bn, and that SoftBank is close to putting up half the funding.

SoftBank Vision Fund has also initiated talks to invest $500m in China-based online educational assistance platform Zuoyebang.

Traveloka, an Indonesian company that has grown into a leading holiday and travel services booking platform for Southeast Asia, is in talks with unnamed investors to raise $400m.

Elsewhere in Asia, SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest between $200m and $250m in India-based Delhivery, one of several companies that have sprung up to feed the rapidly expanding e-commerce sector.

Enterprise cybersecurity software provider Tanium has secured $200m in a round led by Wellington Management that valued it at $6.5bn pre-money. Tanium, whose investors include Citi Ventures, has now raised about $780m altogether, and has amped up its valuation by some $1.5bn in just five months, the company having raised $175m from TPG Growth in a May round that valued it at $5bn.

Tencent and KKR’s KKR Asian Fund III have agreed to lead a $175m investment in Voyager Innovations, a fintech spinoff from telecommunications firm PLDT.

Fast fashion retailer Miniso was only founded in 2013 but has been growing at a rocket-like pace, currently standing at some 3,000 branches worldwide. Now Tencent is getting in on the act, joining Hillhouse Capital to provide $146m in funding for the company.

Education app developer Byju’s is now valued at $2bn following a $100m investment by General Atlantic India. Byju’s has raised a total of $344m from investors including Times Internet and Tencent, but the round is perhaps notable for not including SoftBank, which was said to be in talks with the company a couple of months back.

Call centre software provider Talkdesk closed a $21m series A round backed by Salesforce three years ago, but has taken a bug step forward with a $100m series B round that valued it at more than $1bn.

JHL Biotech has raised an undisclosed sum from investors including Sanoft at a $750m valuation and will put the cash toward further development of its biosimilar cancer therapies.

Drawbridge Health, a US-based medical diagnostics spinout of industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE), received an undisclosed amount of funding yesterday from Kyoto University’s venturing arm Innovation Capital (Kyoto-iCap).

Funds

Biopharmaceuticals-focused venture firm Forbion Capital Partners has closed its latest fund at $415m, a 44% upgrade on its initial target. The fund’s LPs include insurers ASR Insurances, KLP, the EU-backed European Investment Fund and the German government-owned bank KfW.

Excell Partners, a VC fund affiliated to University of Rochester, is to manage a $25m vehicle intended to spur tech activity around Rochester in upstate New York. The vehicle, dubbed Finger Lakes Forward Venture Capital (FLX) Fund, will be managed by Excell’s Technology Ventures division and funded by the New York State government.

Exits

Funding Circle has gone public in London, in a $576m initial public offering that included $184m of share sales by the online lending platform’s shareholders.

Guardant Health had a health first day as a public company, floating above its range to raise almost $238m in its IPO before seeing its share price rise by 69%.

SurveyMonkey has raised less but had a more successful IPO, floating above its range last week to raise an initial $180m.

Sutro Biopharma, a US-based cancer drug developer based on research at Stanford University and backed by pharmaceutical firms Amgen, Celgene, Eli Lilly and Merck & Co, raised $85m in its initial public offering.

NGM Biopharmaceuticals has filed to raise up to $75m in an initial public offering that will give Merck & Co and Takeda the chance to exit.

On GGV, French solar firm Neoen is aiming for a market capitalisation of €1.5bn ($1.7bn) in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Paris stock exchange.

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

21 May 2018 – NewTV Raises $800m in Funding

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Deals

Last week’s Big Deal on Global Corporate Venturing looked at a reported $800m in funding raised by NewTV, a stealthy video content producer formed by entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg that has secured corporates such as 21st Century Fox and Warner Bros as investors.

Reports earlier this year suggested Chinese smart car developer Byton was looking to raise $300m to $400m for its series B round at a $1.2bn valuation.

JD Logistics, the logistics provider spun off by Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com, has invested $306m in ESR Cayman as part of a strategic partnership agreement.

Tanium, an enterprise cybersecurity software provider backed by Citi Ventures, has received $175m from TPG Growth at a valuation of about $5bn, up from the $3.75bn at which it last raised funding a year ago.

Cryptofinance company Circle has secured $110m in a series E round led by new strategic investor Bitmain, at a reported valuation near to $3bn. Bitmain invested as part of an agreement that will involve it supporting USDC, a stablecoin currency Circle is releasing.

Unisound, a Chinese company developing AI technology for use in internet-of-things products, has raised $100m in a round led by China Electronics Health Fund, a corporate venturing subsidiary of telecoms equipment maker China Electronics Corporation Data.

Carousell, the Asia Pacific-focused owner of an e-commerce app for second-hand items, has received $85m in a series C round co-led by Rakuten Ventures and EDBI, the investment arm of state-owned Singapore Economic Development Board. Rakuten has been an investor in Carousell since its 2013 seed round, and also led its $35m series B.

Ansun Biopharma has also secured $85m, in a series A round co-led by corporate venturing units Sinopharm Healthcare Fund and Lilly Asia Ventures, both of which are also taking board seats.

FogPharma, which is developing miniprotein treatments for diseases including cancer, has closed a $66m series B round that included Nan Fung Group, GV and WuXi AppTec Corporate Ventures.

Funds

SoftBank still hasn’t officially closed its first Vision Fund, but is reportedly already in discussions with potential investors for a second Vision Fund that would also be sized at about $100bn, and which would source capital from a wider range of investors.

Southeast Asia has been a notable growth area in terms of VC funding over the past year or two, but it isn’t just foreign investors taking part. Siam Commercial Bank has doubled the size of Digital Ventures, the corporate venturing fund it set up in 2016, to $100m, making it the largest VC fund in Thailand according to the bank. It will also move away from its core fund-of-funds strategy toward more direct investments in startups.

Exits

Japanese e-commerce app Mercari has had a circuitous route to the public markets, but it’s finally succeeded in filing for a $1.1bn IPO in its home country, at a projected valuation of $3.3bn.

M17 Entertainment, formed by the merger or Paktor and 17 Media almost 18 months ago, has filed for its own IPO in the US.

Home furnishings e-commerce platform Home24 has filed for an offering in Frankfurt that is set to raise up to $235m.

Enough about IPOs though – despite the recent boom, the public markets aren’t the only exit route for investors. Case in point: PayPal has agreed to acquire mobile payment technology provider iZettle for $2.2bn in cash, days after Glassdoor was also bought for a billion-dollar sum.

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