Fund
CJ Investment, the corporate venturing subsidiary of Korean conglomerate CJ Corp, has teamed up with multibank-sponsored nonprofit organisation D.Camp to form an accelerator dubbed D Day x CJ Lifestyle. It will back early-stage companies working in sectors including food, biotechnology, logistics, entertainment and media.
M&A
Nasdaq-listed consumer product developer Starco Brands has acquired Soylent Nutrition, a US-based plant-derived drink developer backed by internet and technology conglomerate Alphabet, for an undisclosed amount. Alphabet subsidiary GV led Soylent’s last round, a $50m series B in 2017 valuing it at $430m that took its total funding to at least $70m.
Hal.xyz, a UK-based blockchain notification tool developer that counts NFT and metaverse group Animoca Brands as an investor, has been bought by decentralised software producer ConsenSys for an undisclosed sum.
Funding
UK-based car financing services provider Carmoola raised £104m ($125m) in a series A round that included £8.5M of equity funding from investors including carmaker Jaguar Land Rover’s InMotion Ventures unit. The equity portion of the round was led by QED Investors and also featured VentureFriends while Natwest supplied £95m in debt financing.
| Company | Company description | Sector | Country | Round | Round size($m) | Deal date | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buk | Human resources management platform | Services | Chile | N/A | 35 | 22/02/2023 | SoftBank (SoftBank Latin America Fund); Base10 Partners (lead), Greenoaks |
| Zevx | Power system developer for electric vehicles | Transport | US | N/A | 20 | 16/02/2023 | Reynolds and Reynolds (Reynolds Capital) (lead) |
| Chaos Labs | Provider of crypto protocol security software | IT | US | Seed | 20 | 21/02/2023 | PayPal (PayPal Ventures) (co-lead), Coinbase, Uniswap; Galaxy (co-lead), Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Hashkey, Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikant |
| Fortem Technologies | Airspace awareness technology developer | Industrial | US | N/A | 17.8 | 21/02/2023 | Lockheed Martin (Lockheed Martin Ventures) (lead), Hanwha Aerospace; Aim13|Crumpton Venture Partners, DCVC, Signia Venture Partners |
| Planet42 | Used car subscription service | Transport | South Africa | N/A | 15 | 22/02/2023 | Naspers (Naspers Foundry) (co-lead); ARS Holdings (co-lead); Rivonia Road Capital ($75m credit facility); unnamed private investors ($10m debt) |
| Sublime Security | Anti-email phishing secuirity platform | IT | US | N/A | 9.8 | 21/02/2023 | Cisco (Decibel) (lead); Slow Ventures, Sounil Yu, Martin Roesch, Jerry Perullo, Michael Sutton, Rishi Bhargava, Slavik Markovich, Kevin Patrick Mahaffey, Oliver Friedrichs |
| Scrut Automation | Compliance-focused SaaS technology developer | IT | India | N/A | 7.5 | 21/02/2023 | MassMutual (MassMutual Ventures) (lead); Endiya Partners, Lightspeed India Ventures |
| Datamart | Financial data processing service for businesses | Financial | Chile | Seed | 6 | 21/02/2023 | Falabella (Falabella Ventures), Santander, Grupo Bice (Bice Ventures); Moonvalley Capital (lead) |
| TipLink | Link-based digital asset distribution platform | Financial | US | Seed | 6 | 21/02/2023 | Solana (Solana Ventures), Circle (Circle Ventures); Sequoia Capital (lead), Multicoin Capital, Asymmetric, Big Brain Holdings (Big Brain Ventures), Karatage, Monke Ventures, Paxos |
| Plum | Talent assessment software provider | Services | Canada | N/A | 6 | 21/02/2023 | Pearson (Pearson Ventures) (lead); JFF Ventures, Strada Education Network |
| Stelo Labs | Web3 wallet security tool provider | IT | US | N/A | 6 | 21/02/2023 | Opensea (Opensea Ventures); Andreessen Horowitz (A16z Crypto) (lead), First Round Capital, Chainforest, BoxGroup, Pear, Mischief, Homebrew, Louis Beryl, Sabrina Hahn, Dylan Field, Dan Romero, Gokul Rajaram, Lenny Rachitsky, unnamed angel investors |
| Strider | Intellectual property management platform | IT | US | Seed | 5.5 | 21/02/2023 | Magic Eden; Makers Fund (co-lead), Fabric Ventures (co-lead), Shima Capital, Sfermion, unnamed other funds |
| BRLab | Sleep analysis device maker | Healthcare | South Korea | N/A | 5.3 | 21/02/2023 | BDC Lab; KB Financial Group (KB Securities), Daol Investment, Insight Equity Partners, Tigris Investment, Nau IB, Youkyung PSG, Aju IB, Cosine Investment |
| Teller Novel | Online literature posting platform | Media | Japan | A | 4.8 | 22/02/2023 | Globis (Globis Capital Partners), Susquehanna International Group (SIG Asia Investment) |
| Gateway.fm | Web3 infrastructure and blockchain technology provider | Financial | Norway | Seed | 4.6 | 20/02/2023 | CMT Group (CMT Digital Ventures), Fantom Foundation, Unstoppable Domains (Unstoppable Domains Ventures); Lemniscap (lead), LAO DAO, Folius Ventures, TRGC, Metaweb Ventures, Very Early Ventures, Factor Ventures |
| EV Motors Japan | Diversified electric vehicle and battery manufacturer | Transport | Japan | C | 3.9 (updated) | 22/02/2023 | Morita, Fuyo General Lease, Kansai Electric Power (K4 Ventures), Kyuden Technosystems Corporation, Hankyu Bus, Sumitomo, Hibiki, Nishi-Nippon Railroad, Daiichi Kotsu, Wistron, Iyotetsu, IT-Farm, Mizuho Leasing, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Yamanashi Chuo Bank (Yamanashi Chugin Management Consulting), Fukuoka Financial Group; Energy & Environment Investment, IMM Investment Corp (IMM Investment Group) |
| Agatsa Software | Wearable health monitoring tool distributor | Healthcare | India | N/A | 3.6 | 19/02/2023 | Sun Pharmaceutical Industries |
| Aniai | Hamburger production robot developer | Industrial | South Korea | Seed | 3 | 22/02/2023 | Lotte (Lotte Ventures); Capstone Partners |
| Strive | Children-focused coding education service | Services | Singapore | Seed | 1.3 | 21/02/2023 | Mastercard (Mastercard Asia); Y Combinator (lead), Goodwater Capital, Soma Capital |
| Nymbl Science | Fall reduction training service | Healthcare | US | N/A | N/A | 21/02/2023 | Jogan Health; Denver Angels |
| NextAge | Wasabi cultivation technology developer | Industrial | Japan | Seed | N/A | 22/02/2023 | Macnica |
| Hidden Level | Radio frequency-based airspace monitoring technology developer | IT | US | N/A | N/A | 21/02/2023 | Booz Allen Hamilton (Booz Allen Ventures) |
| Ocean Genomics | AI-equipped biopharmaceutical computational platform | Healthcare | US | N/A | N/A | 16/02/2023 | Accenture (Accenture Ventures) |
