Funding
Virta, a Finland-headquartered provider of electric vehicle charging technology, has closed a funding round featuring energy utility Eneos Energy at €30m ($36m). The corporate – then known as JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation – invested an undisclosed sum in May 2020 and the extra cash was supplied by Jolt Capital, Tesi, Finnish Industry Investment, Vertex Growth and all Virta’s existing backers. It had not revealed details of earlier financing.
StashAway, a United Arab Emirates-based digital wealth manager backed by media company Hubert Burda, revealed today it is raising $25m in a series D round led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India and backed by Eight Roads Ventures, a subsidiary of investment and financial services group Fidelity, as well as VC fund Square Peg Capital. It said the round will take its total funding to $61.4m, including $16m in a series C round led by Square Peg and backed by Hubert Burda subsidiary Burda Principal Investments and Eight Roads in July 2020.
Insurance firm Sompo Holdings has paid an undisclosed amount for a 21.9% stake in Japan-based retail intelligence software provider Abeja through a secondary transaction. The shares were sold by enterprise software provider Salesforce and trading group Itochu, as well as INCJ, Mizuho Capital and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital – the last two subsidiaries of financial services firms Mizuho Bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Abeja had raised a total of $53m as of 2018 when it received an undisclosed sum from internet technology provider Google.
Country Garden Venture Capital, the VC arm of real estate developer Country Garden, has co-led a series A round for China-based medical robotics technology developer Yrobot sized above $10m, DealStreetAsia has reported. The round was co-led by Chobe Capital and included Baidu Ventures, a subsidiary of internet group Baidu, as well as Hillhouse Capital and Linear Capital. It had previously received an undisclosed amount of pre-series A funding from Baidu Ventures, Hillhouse Capital vehicle GL Ventures, Linear Capital, Chobe Capital and AIBasis in October 2020.
China-based digital surgery technology startup Ronovo Surgical has completed a series A round of undisclosed size that included Lilly Asia Ventures, a strategic investment vehicle for pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly. The round was co-led by Matrix Partners China and Vivo Capital and also featured fellow VC firm GGV Capital.
Carmaker Hyundai has led a $9m funding round for Israel-based automotive teleoperation technology developer Ottopia, TechCrunch has reported. The round included IN Venture, the Israeli corporate venturing arm of conglomerate Sumitomo, as well as Maven Ventures, MizMaa Ventures and Next Gear Ventures. It came after MizMaa Ventures led a $3m seed round in 2018 that also featured Next Gear Ventures, Glory Ventures and Plug and Play.
Cylook, the Japan-based operator of esports gaming platform Reject, has raised ¥360m ($3.3m) from investors including Z Venture Capital, which invests on behalf of internet group Z Holdings, which was formed by corporates Yahoo Japan, Naver and SoftBank. The round also featured VC firm Jafco and it came after East Ventures, iFund and undisclosed angel investors supplied $470,000 in seed funding for the company in September 2020.
Warehouse operator Yasuda Logistics and real estate developer Mitsui Fudosan have combined to invest ¥300m ($2.8m) in RFLocus, a Japan-headquartered developer of a radio-frequency identification-based inventory management system called Locus Mapping. The company had secured $1.8m in a June 2019 pre-series A round featuring digital media company Gree’s Strive subsidiary, IT services firm Tecnos Japan, Mizuho Bank subsidiary Mizuho Capital, Resona Capital and AG Capital.
Introvoke, a US-based developer of embeddable digital event software, has secured $2.7m in funding from investors including mass media group Comcast, TechCrunch has reported. VC firm Struck Capital led the round, which also featured Social Leverage, Great Oaks, V1vc and angel investors Bharat Krish and Mike Montero. The company had previously been part of the September 2020 batch of Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator Powered by Techstars.
Israel-based algae cultivation technology developer Vaxa Technologies has raised an undisclosed sum from consulting firm Jakore and brewery Ever Brew. The latter company will work with Vaxa to offer algae-based health and nutrition products in the Japanese market.
Japan-based digitalisation consulting service Fabeee has received ¥110m ($1m) in a series A round that included recruitment firm MyNavi, data analytics software provider Datasection and VC firm BasePartners. The round came in the wake of an undisclosed amount from Datasection in July 2020 and the proceeds will support marketing and the expansion of Fabeee’s remote development support service.
Quant VC firm Third Round Analytics Capital has invested an undisclosed amount in Troops.ai, a US-based sales collaboration software developer backed by communications platform developer Slack. Troops completed a $12m series B round led by VC firm Aspect Ventures in mid-2019 to increase its overall funding to almost $22m, three years after a $7m series A led by Felicis Ventures and backed by Slack subsidiary Slack Fund, First Round Capital, Aspect Ventures, Susa Ventures, Flight.VC, NextView Ventures and Chicago Ventures.
Additional reporting by Liwen-Edison Fu.
