Weekly corporate venturing deal net 28 March – 1 April 2016
Each Friday the Global Corporate Venturing Deal Net rounds up the week’s smaller deals and tracks the emerging companies accessing corporate funds.
Fundraising
Sistema teams with TUS for $100m fund
The Russia-based conglomerate is partnering Tsinghua University’s business arm and putting up 30% of the capital for a fund that will be sized at up to $100m.
Standard Chartered maps out Singaporean incubator
The bank has opened an innovation lab called Exellerator in Singapore, representing its first incubator in Asia.
Cisco initialises $100m in India investments
Following similar initiatives in countries such as Canada and France, Cisco has announced an India digitisation drive that will include a $40m corporate venturing fund.
Infuse targets $150m to light up new fund
The corporate-backed firm is launching a fund called Bharat in order to expand its focus from clean energy to sectors like healthcare and agribusiness.
Shell Technology Ventures transmits cash to VC funds
The corporate venturing unit has become a limited partner in energy-focused venture capital funds GRC SinoGreen Fund III and Set Ventures.
Banca Sella to accelerate fintech startups
The financial services firm’s Sella Lab incubator is taking applications to its fintech accelerator, which will partially take place at London-based accelerator Level 39.
MIT looks to cash in with Bitcoin Developer Fund
Nasdaq, Circle, Chain, Bitfury and Bitmain have contributed capital to Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s $900,000 Bitcoin Developer Fund.
Ashley Madison schedules corporate venturing rendezvous
Infidelity and married dating service Ashley Madison has launched a strategic investment arm alongside a Silicon Valley incubator.
People
George Ugras replaces Claudia Fan Munce, who announced her retirement from IBM at the end of January during the Global Corporate Venturing and Innovation Summit.
Siemens experiences Majors exit
Mike Majors, head of Siemens Venture Capital’s Industry of the Future Fund, has left the unit after eight years to join Data Point Capital as managing partner.
Exits
Norwest ships Clarus to new owners
Trivergance, Falcon Investment Advisors and Landon Capital Partners have acquired Norwest-backed Clarus Commerce, which operates customer loyalty platform Freeshipping.
IDG Ventures India is reportedly looking to divest the rest of its stake in e-commerce company Flipkart for about $100m, following on from a $125m partial exit last year.
IT
Bromium secures $40m in series D round
The Intel-backed micro-virtualisation cybersecurity technology provider has now raised $115m in the past five years.
RevUp raises more than $5m in seed campaign
The fundraising tool developer has gained funding from backers including Salesforce and WPP and will use it to grow its engineering, data analysis and sales staff.
Cockroach survives to raise $20m
GV returned for a second investment in the database technology developer, which was founded by former Google engineers.
Jinfu finds Clearink in $7m round
Reflective display developer Clearink Displays has now raised $10m since 2012 and hopes to add another $6m in the coming months.
Health
Oncology Analytics compiles $7.5m round
Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association led the oncology management company’s funding round through its corporate venturing affiliate.
Maat Pharma balances out series A with $11m
Biocodex led the round, which will fund the start of clinical studies for Maat’s microbiome-based dysbiosis treatment this summer.
Alibaba sees Wanilyun as picture perfect investment
Alibaba’s health IT subsidiary will pay $34.5m for a 25% stake in Wanilyun Medical Information Technology, a medical imaging spinout of Wandong Medical.
Gadeta latches on to Baxalta for $7.9m series A
Baxalta’s corporate venturing vehicle co-led a round that will support the cancer immunotherapy developer as it looks to advance a leukaemia candidate into clinical testing.
Emulate copies $28m into series B
The Harvard spinout has raised a second funding round that included existing shareholder Cedars-Sinai, boosting its total equity funding to $40m.
Sanofi and Partners get Immunexcited in $8.6m series A-1 round
Immuno-oncology company Immunexcite will use the funding, provided by backers including Sanofi and Partners Healthcare, to choose a lead program for clinical studies.
Alzheimer’s drug company Chase Pharmaceuticals has added $12m to its funding total, which is likely to have included $3m from existing investor Cipla.
Gauss tracks $12.6m for series B
Providence Health & Services led a funding round for the surgical blood loss monitoring platform that also featured corporate-backed Summation Health Ventures.
Media
LeSports scores $1.2bn in massive series B round
The sports streaming platform attracted more than 30 investors including HNA, less than a year after raising more than $120m in series A capital.
Playbuzz works out $15m series C
The content publishing platform boosted its total funding to $34m in a Walt Disney-backed round that will support the expansion of its sponsored content activities.
Turner joined investors including Time Warner Investments for a round that increased the online media company’s overall funding to $46m in the past two years.
Consumer
Tengelmann shows enthusiasm for massage service Zeel
Tengelmann led the $10m first close of a $12m funding round that will help on-demand massage provider Zeel expand to additional cities.
Yiguo sees Alibaba interest bear fruit
The online food retailer has raised an amount it claims is higher than the $220m secured by rival Womai last year, in a round co-led by Alibaba.
The Yihua-backed drone manufacturer has secured $23m in series B capital as it begins mass production of its products.
Frichti cooks up $13.6m series A
Meal delivery service Frichti has added Idinvest, the private equity firm backed by corporates including Allianz, to its shareholders.
Juicero harvests $70m from series B round
The Alphabet and Campbell’s Soup-backed high-grade juicing company has taken its overall funding to $100m and is reportedly set to close its next round this month.
Financial
Betterment takes $100m series E investment
The robo-advisor, backed by Citi and Northwestern Mutual Life, has now raised $205m in total, securing its latest funding at a $700m valuation.
Services
BizReach employs Yahoo Japan for $32.8m series B
Yahoo Japan subsidiary YJ Capital invested $14m in a round that also included Salesforce, Gree, Link and Motivation, Dentsu and Rakuten.
Idinvest helps shift $14m to Planday
Corporate-backed Idinvest Partners has led a funding round for Planday, the developer of a workforce management service aimed at shift-based companies.
Invoca calls on corporates in $30m series D
Salesforce and StepStone were among the investors as the phone-based marketing technology company took its overall funding to $60m.
Airware monitors investors to raise $30m
The drone technology provider, which counts Intel Capital, GE Ventures and GV among its investors, has secured series C funding and a partnership with State Farm.