Funding
Consumer
Convivialité Ventures, a vehicle for alcoholic beverage producer Pernod Ricard, has backed a €9m ($9.4m) series A round for Germany-based business-to-business ordering marketplace MagaLoop. Market One Capital and FoodLabs co-led the round, which included contributions from Redalpine Capital, Bitburger Ventures, Fuse Venture Partners and Hesta Investments.
Food & Agri Innovation Fund and Japan Airlines Innovation Fund, respective vehicles for financial services firm Rabobank and airline operator Japan Airlines, backed a $5m round on Wednesday for Full Harvest, a US-based B2B marketplace imperfect produce e-commerce platform.
Computing and cybersecurity
Elevator Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of financial services firm Raiffeisen Bank International, took part in an $8m round for Elucidate, a Germany-based financial crime risk management technology developer, Finextra Research reported on Wednesday. AV8 Ventures led the round, and was joined by Apex Ventures, Frontline Ventures, Big Start Ventures, SixThirty Ventures and Tommy Nicholas.
United Arab Emirates-based, corporate-backed cloud kitchen software platform Kitopi secured an additional $300m in its series C funding from undisclosed investors late last year, bringing the round to $715m, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The company is now valued at $1.55bn post-money, up from $1bn as of a $415m series C tranche in July 2021 led by telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, which was joined by investors including diversified conglomerate Dogus Group.
Flexport Fund, the strategic investment unit of freight forwarder Flexport, took part in a $10.5m series A round yesterday for Lang.ai, a US-based conversation data insight platform operator. Nava Ventures led the round, investing together with Oceans Ventures, Forum, Mike Murchison, Joaquim Lecha and Javier Mata.
Crypto and fintech
Accounting software provider Money Forward led a $50m round today for Indonesia-based software-as-a-service technology developer Mekari. Unnamed returning backers filled out the round.
Financial services firms PostFinance, Commerzbank and SBI Holdings (the latter two through their Opera Tech Ventures and SBI Investments units) took part in a $40m round yesterday for Token.io, a UK-based account-to-account payments platform. Cota Capital and TempoCap co-led the round, which featured Element Ventures, MissionOG and Octopus Ventures.
Cryptocurrency exchange platforms Alameda Research, Nexo, Coinbase and Huobi (the last two through their Coinbase Ventures and Huobi Ventures units) took part in a $23m round for Kenya-based, Africa-focused peer MARA, and they were joined by Distributed Global, TQ Ventures, Digital, Day One Ventures, Infinite Capital and DAO Jones.
Coinbase Ventures, a subsidiary of crypto exchange Coinbase, backed an $11m seed round for Sea Ranch Labs, the US-based owner of a web3-driven fan engagement platform dubbed Highlight, Decrypt reported on Tuesday. Haun Ventures led the round, which included 1kx, SciFi VC, A_Capital, Floodgate, 35 Ventures, Polygon Studios, Mischief VC, DAO Jones and Offline Ventures.
B Capital, a VC firm sponsored by consultancy Boston Consulting Group, backed a $2.8m seed round for Indonesia-based personal finance app operator Finku, co-leading the round together with Global Founders Capital and Trihill Capital. Golden Gate Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Alto Partners and angel investors filled out the round.
ESG
E-commerce firm Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund joined Ecosystem Integrity Fund to co-lead a $31m series A round on Tuesday for Ambient Photonics, a US-based photonics energy harvesting technology developer, investing alongside Future Shape and I Squared Capital.
Mining group Anglo American contributed to a $5m seed round for Mission Zero Technologies, a UK-based carbon capture technology developer, yesterday. Breakthrough Energy Ventures led the round.
EV and lithium-based batteries
Koch Strategic Platforms, a corporate venturing vehicle for chemical and energy conglomerate Koch Industries, led a $102m series D round yesterday for 6k, a US-based engineered material developer focusing on lithium-ion batteries and additive manufacturing. Speciality chemicals manufacturer Albemarle and HG Ventures, a subsidiary of conglomerate The Heritage Group, filled out the participants in the round along with Energy Impact Partners.
Electronics manufacturer Wistron Corporation led a $7m seed round in the fourth quarter of 2021 for US-based lithium-ion battery material regeneration technology developer Princeton NuEnergy, the company announced on Wednesday. Oil and gas supplier Shell (through its Shell Ventures unit), electric industrial vehicles manufacturer Greenland Technologies filled out the round together with CleanTech Open, AIBasis Fund, WorldQuant Ventures and investors from its angel round.
Industrial
RTX Ventures, a corporate VC arm of defence systems producer Raytheon, has taken part in a $100m series B round for US-based hypersonic aircraft developer Hermeus, the unit said yesterday. Sam Altman led the round, which was first disclosed in March this year, and was joined by Founders Fund, In-Q-Tel, Khosla Ventures, Canaan Partners, Bling Capital and Rise of the Rest.
Energy group NextEra took part in an $80m series D round yesterday for SkySpecs, a US-based AI and drone-equipped wind energy equipment failure detection technology provider. Investment banking firm Goldman Sachs led the round, which included Statkraft Ventures and Huron River Ventures.
Citi Ventures, a vehicle for financial services firm Citi, was among the investors in an $18m series A round yesterday for Altro, the US-based subscription-fuelled credit service formerly known as Perch. Pendulum led the round, investing alongside Marcy Ventures, Black Capital Fund, Concrete Rose Fund and angel investors including Dick Parsons and Deborah Quazzo.
NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of energy group NextEra, led a $10m series B round yesterday for LandGate Corp, a US-based commercial land energy data provider, investing together with Kimmeridge.
Motorcycle and scooter manufacturer Hero MotoCorp participated in a $128m round for Ather Energy, an India-based electric scooter producer, VCCircle reported yesterday. National Infrastructure Investment Fund led the round, and the company’s valuation is still below the $1bn mark, according to VCCircle.
Body404, a China-based fashion e-commerce platform, told TechCrunch on Monday its valuation stood at $50m as of a pre-series A round closed in March this year that was led by BAI Capital (Bertelsmann Asia Investments), a VC vehicle for media group Bertelsmann. Kuanzhai Venture Capital and One Capital also took part in the round.
Autonomous robotics technology developer Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory (ACSL) has paid ¥50m ($387,000) for a 40% stake in Institute of Engineering Agriculture Technology, the Japan-based agricultural distribution technology provider also known as I-Eat that spun out of Utsunomiya University. ACSL acquired the stake from shareholders Aoki Symtech and Glocalink.
Leasing services firm Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Company invested an undisclosed amount in Japan-based construction machinery information aggregator Kenkey today.
IoT
Digital media group Gree’s Strive fund was part of India-based internet-of-things platform Bytebeam’s $3m seed round announced yesterday. Together Fund, Accel, AdvantEdge VC backed by Motherson Group as well as angel investors including Phanindra Sama, Tanmai Gopal, Vimal Kumar Mekin Maheshwari, Deepak Anchala and Aakrit Vaish.
Marketing
Apparel producer Cross Plus provided an undisclosed amount on April 28 for Japan-based mobile-driven marketing service Axel Enter Media, the corporate said today.
Funds
Brazil-based retail chain operator Lojas Americanas formed a CVC fund in April to invest in some 20 startups per year in areas like technology, cyber, fintech, logistics and advertising.
Sinar Mas Land, a property development subsidiary of conglomerate Sinar Mas, has joined forces with construction firm GS E&C as well as East Ventures, Redbadge Pacific and Prasetia Dwidharma to form Urban Gateway Fund to back entrepreneurs working on smart city technologies and services.
Japan-based management consulting group Innovation has teamed up with Hayate Investment to form a corporate venturing arm dubbed Innovation Hayate V Capital. The fund has already made its first investment in asset management industry-focused customer relationship management tool provider Mono Investment.
People
Marcela Bretas joined big data platform Semantix yesterday as chief strategy officer, after nearly five years at B3, the Brazilian stock exchange, focusing on investor relations (IR) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), among other areas. She will be in charge of the company’s CVC efforts, M&A tactics and IR.
