US at the centre of investment
Global Corporate Venturing recorded 63 investments during February worth a total of $1.13bn, compared with 74 investments worth $2.5bn in January, and five exits worth $735m. See the table here.
US-based companies received the greatest number of investment flows (33 investments), followed by China (8) and India (4). The top sector was IT (25), followed by consumer (12) and media (11). In cases where investment rounds were disclosed, series B was the most common (14).
Industrial, products and manufacturing
In February, German conglomerate Siemens launched a $100m Industry of the Future Fund to support start ups that could “change the landscape of manufacturing and industrial automation”.
Also, Japan internet services company and incubator Digital Garage contributed an additional $7.5m in a $10m round to US start up investor and product launch company, betaworks; Intel invested in two companies with 3D printing potential – Lithuanian 3D computer model marketplace
CGTrader, voted the best start up pitch at ICT 2013, and US-based Makexyz, which provides localised 3D printing services for consumers; and Samsung Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in advanced materials company XG Sciences to aid progress towards the commercialisation of its large-scale graphene applications.
Wearables and gadgets
Swisscom Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the telecoms provider, invested an undisclosed amount in Swiss company Lemoptix, a 2008 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology spin-off, that has developed technology to embed microprojectors in devices such as mobile phones, automotive baking sensors and wearable displays; and Intel Capital and Alpine Technology Fund invested an undisclosed amount in Speaktoit, which is seeking to push its natural language processing technology into gadgets, cars, robots and wearable technology.
Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology
Biotechnology company Thesan Pharmaceuticals raised $49m of series B financing led by current investor Novo Ventures, and including Lundbeckfond Ventures and Novartis Venture Funds, to develop treatments for dermatological conditions such as acne; Japan Asia Investment Corporation and Nippon Venture Capital Corp led a $9.2m series D round for Regimmune, a Japanese biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development and commercialisation of immune regulatory therapeutics to treat life-threatening and debilitating conditions, including allergies, auto-immune diseases and transplantation.
Exits included Novartis’s acquisition, for an undisclosed price, of US-based CoStim Pharmaceuticals from a consortium including corporate venturing unit Johnson & Johnson Development Capital (JJDC) and the first exit for Partners Healthcare’s venture fund; and microfluidic systems maker Fluidigm Corporation’s agreement to acquire Roche and Pfizer-backed DVS Sciences for $207.5m, in a deal designed to create “a single-cell technology powerhouse”.
Healthcare – digital health
Cambia Health Solutions, a series A investor, was joined in a $10m series B round by two additional strategic investors, California’s Heritage Provider Network and Mitsui USA, to back GNS Healthcare, a provider of big-data analytics products and services for the healthcare industry; digital health company Welltok raised $22.1m series C funding with participation from Qualcomm and an inaugural investment from IBM’s Watson Group; and mobile prescription management platform raised $1m seeding funding led by Atlas Venture and including SROne.
Healthcare – medical devices
Existing investors Venrock, JJDC, Medtronic, Advanced Technology Ventures, Lexington Capital and Frazier Healthcare Ventures invested in the first tranche of a series D round for PowerVision, which is developing an accommodating intraocular lens.
Food and agriculture
Agriculture technology company Solum sold its brand and soil analysis business line to Monsanto’s Climate Corporation, changing its name to Granular, and raised $4.2m from a consortium including corporate venturing unit Google Ventures; and urban agriculture company BrightFarms raised $4.9m of series B funding from investors including Tengelmann’s Emil Capital Partners, in a push to commercialise urban agriculture.
Cyber-security
The world’s largest PC maker Lenovo Group joined a $16.5m series B round for authentication technology provider Nok Nok Labs amid “rapid expansion of mobile devices and services in the Chinese market”.
Siemens’ venturing unit invested $3m in US cyber-security company CounterTack, closing its series B fund raising at $15m, “as the threat landscape continues to grow more dangerous”.
Cyber-security company Shape Security raised $40m of series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners and including Google Ventures and TomorrowVentures, to continue building its web defences and “botwall”.
Ionic Security, which provides data security amid workforce mobility and cloud computing, raised $25.5m of series B funding co-led by Google Ventures and Jafco Ventures to “tie security to your data regardless of where it lives”.
Telefónica Ventures was reported to have invested alongside Kibo Ventures, through the Amerigo Innvierte Spain Technologies fund, and entrepreneur Roger Casals, in a €2.5m ($3.22m) funding round for Spanish cyber-security company Blueliv.
Data and analytics
3D software company Dassault Systèmes backed database technology company NuoDB to “address market needs in the new world of experiences” as it joined its $14.2m series B funding round.
Intel Capital celebrated China’s Year of the Horse with three investments in the country – Yeapoo, BlueWhale and China Cloud – as they “shape the cloud computing and big-data ecosystems in China”.
Comcast Ventures led a $4.5m series A round, backed by American Express Ventures and the New York Times, for big-data analytics company Enigma and its interface to connect public datasets and “redefine the limits of public knowledge”.
In an exit, IBM agreed to acquire Cloudant, a cloud database company backed by In-Q-Tel, Rackspace, Devonshire Investors and Samsung Ventures, to “help its clients take advantage of big data, cloud and mobile”.
Marketing and advertising technology
VivaKi, the corporate venturing unit of French communications company Publicis Groupe, invested in a $15m series C round for audience identifier PlaceIQ, in a deal led by new investors Harmony Partners and Iris Capital, fund manager for Orange and Publicis since 2012.
Time Warner Investments, with participation from Condé Nast, R&R Venture Partners – a fund formed by former Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons and Ronald Lauder – and investor Vivi Nevo, invested $5m in iSocket, a US-based company that provides online advertising tools.
In-app video advertising technology company Vungle raised $17m of series B funding led by Thomvest Ventures, “even though the business did not need the money to sustain itself”.
American Express Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in Qualcomm-backed marketing technology company Capillary Technologies, provider of personalised recommendations to shoppers.
E-commerce and retail technology
Retail cloud software company eCommera raised $41m of series C funding from investors including WPP to expand into the North American market “as bricks and mortar retailers aggressively rise to the challenge from pure online players”.
Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, the corporate venturing unit of the communications provider, invested an undisclosed amount in US-based shopper merchandise planning company Revionics.
Through its PCH Accelerator and Highway1 fund, PCH International acquired Canadian e-commerce platform ShopLocket.
Consumer
US artisan coffee-roasting café chain and coffee brand Blue Bottle raised $25.75m in its second round of funding led by Morgan Stanley Investment Management with the participation of Google Ventures, Index Ventures and True Ventures.
Marketplaces and e-commerce ventures
Online marketplace eBay led $133.8m in series D funding for Indian peer Snapdeal.com.
Bukalapak.com, a peer-to-peer e-commerce marketplace in Indonesia that enables sellers and buyers to conduct secure online transactions, attracted an undisclosed amount of capital from Japan price data aggregator Aucfan, angel investor and corporate venturing outfit 500 Start ups and existing investor Gree Ventures.
Project A Ventures participated in a reported seven-figure series A round for 42matters, a Switzerland-based mobile app discovery business.
Hair colouring products and home delivery company Madison Reed raised $12m of series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners and including Maveron.
In a strategic restructuring, South African media and e-commerce company Naspers closed five niche e-commerce businesses, with plans to build its Kalahari online shopping platform.
Media content and technology
A Disney Accelerator, “powered by TechStars”, was established to encourage creativity and innovation “that dates directly to the entrepreneurial spirit of Walt Disney himself”
Curated sports blogging site GiveMeSport raised an undisclosed amount of series B funding from IMG Media.
Video
Kaltura, a US-based open-source video platform, raised $47m in a series E round led by SAP Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the software company, Nokia Growth Partners, Commonfund Capital and Gera Ventures. Others taking part in the latest round included 406 Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Mitsui Global Investment and Silicon Valley Bank.
Social networks
Medium, a social media publishing website where people share their life stories, raised $25m in a series A round of funding, with Greylock Partners reportedly contributing the lion’s share of the funding and corporate venturing firms, such as Google Ventures, also coming on board.
Communication
Semiconductor designer Newlans raised $15m of series B funding led by Intel Capital and including Lockheed Martin Corporation.
TigerText, a secure mobile messaging service for co-workers, closed a series B funding round led by Shasta Ventures, with the corporate venturing units of Reed Elsevier and Telus also taking part.
Enterprise Tools
Business management platform Domo raised $125m of series C funding from investors including Salesforce.com.
ClearSlide raised $50m of series C funding led by Social & Capital Partnership and including Comcast Ventures, to expand its platform in “working to redefine the modern sales team”.
ZenPayroll, backed by Google Ventures and Salesforce, raised $20m of series A financing from General Catalyst Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as it “continues to reimagine payroll for the modern business”.
Invoicing network platform Tradeshift, backed by Intuit and PayPal, raised $75m from Singapore’s Scentan Ventures to support growth in Asia and pursue its “ambition to connect every business on the planet on one shared platform”.
CA Technologies, a US-based IT management software maker, made a strategic investment in venture fund IDG Ventures India to gain access to Indian startups building innovative enterprise software as potential targets for acquisition.
Travel
China-based online travel agency 17u – also known as TongCheng – raised $82.5m in expansion capital from investors including the corporate venturing unit of Tencent.
Transport
STC Ventures, a venture capital fund independently managed by Iris Capital and whose anchor investor is STC Group, led a $1.7m investment in United Arab Emirates-based Careem, an online chauffeur-driven car hiring service. The capital will be allocated to enhancing Careem’s technology platform and expand its car booking service across the Middle East.
Education and learning
Chinese software development training company Uniquedu raised RMB100m ($16m) from Fosun Venture Capital Investment, the Chinese industrial and insurance group’s corporate venturing unit.
The corporate venturing unit of Chinese e-trader Alibaba Group, Temasek and Qiming Venture Partners invested in a $100m series B round for China-based tutoring company TutorGroup.
Smart Education, a Japanese company developing education apps for children, raised $5.4m from Cyber-Agent and Infinity Ventures.
Bessemer Venture Partners led a $9.5m financing round, backed by Penguin Random House Holdings and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, for Flat World Education to expand its platform in partnership with Brandman University and offer degree courses on mobile devices.
Gaming
Fosun Venture Capital Investment led a $21.5m series B round for game portal operator, Joyme.com. Fosun has already invested in gaming sites Perfect World and LineKong.
Energy, natural resources and utilities
Energy efficiency technology company Transphorm, already backed by investors including Nihon Inter Electronics and Google Ventures, filed for a $15m fundraising. Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital reinvested in Canadian wastewater treatment company Axine Water Technologies in a series A deal worth $5.6m, making it the largest water and wastewater series A financing in North America in the past year and one of the largest internationally in the past two years
Energy storage company Primus Power made a “beach-head on the African continent” as it raised $20m of series C financing led by Anglo American Platinum.
Ziebel, a Norwegian provider of specialist well intervention services for the oil and gas industry, closed a round of growth capital, raising $10m from lead investor ConocoPhillips Technology Ventures, along with Chevron Technology Ventures and Energy Technology Ventures.
3M invested an undisclosed amount in Chile-based metallurgic civil engineer Lixivia, to test and implement its technology for recovering copper sulphate, with “the potential to significantly increase miners’ diminished productivity”. In addition, energy efficiency motivator Opower was reported to have filed for an initial public offering.