Funding
China-headquartered service robot maker Uditech has closed a RMB200m ($31.1m) series C2 round featuring knitwear producer Guanda Group and classified listings operator 58.com’s 58 Industry Fund, Pandaily reported yesterday. Chengding Fund and Yunfeng Capital co-led the round, which included Xinshang Capital – possibly a subsidiary of online marketplace Xinshang. Water purification technology provider Runxin co-led a series B round for Uditech in the eight-digit yuan range in 2018 with Legend Capital, the venture capital firm spun off by conglomerate Legend Holdings. It added an eight-digit amount of series B-plus funding from Ropeway Investment in October 2019, $14.3m in a June 2020 series B3 round featuring Legend Capital, Snowball Wealth, China Merchants Capital and Convivialite Ventures, and a nine-figure yuan amount from Yunfeng Capital and food delivery service Ele.me in June this year.
Medical care and research provider Mayo Clinic co-led a $24m series A round yesterday for TripleBlind, the US-based creator of a cryptographically-enforced data privacy tool. The round was co-led by General Catalyst and included consulting firm Accenture’s investment arm, Accenture Ventures, as well as existing investors AVG Basecamp Fund, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Dolby Family Ventures, Flyover Capital, KCRise Fund, NextGen Venture Partners and Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health. The startup had closed an $8.2m seed round in March this year also featuring Okta Ventures, a subsidiary of identity verification software provider Okta, as well as Accenture Ventures, Operator Partners, Anorak Ventures, Quiet Capital, Parity Responsible Technology Fund and Manresa Ventures.
China-headquartered digital life insurance provider Bowtie Life Insurance has received $22.6m in a series A round led by diversified conglomerate Mitsui, South China Morning Post reported today. Insurance firm Sun Life also took part in the round, having joined Hong Kong X Technology Fund and undisclosed individuals in Bowtie’s $30m series A round in 2018.
US-based biomolecular analytics technology developer RedShift BioAnalytics completed a $20m series E round yesterday led by genomics technology producer Illumina through corporate venturing unit Illumina Ventures. The company said all its existing investors also contributed to the round, including laboratory equipment provider Waters Corporation and Technology Venture Partners. It took RedShift’s overall funding to approximately $73m, $18m coming in a January 2020 series D round featuring Waters Corporation.
QingFlow, the China-based creator of a codeless software development platform, has raised almost RMB100m ($15.6m) in series B funding from investors including internet and gaming group Tencent. The round was led by VC firm Qiming Venture Partners and also featured VC firms 01VC and Newgen Venture Partners – the latter, like Tencent, described as a returning investor. Yuanhe Capital was adviser on the transaction.
Real estate developer Mitsubishi Estate has paid ¥1.25bn ($11m) for a 36.4% stake in Osmic, the Japan-based operator of a high-sugar cherry tomato brand. The company had previously received an undisclosed amount from fresh produce provider MecAgri and NEC Capital Solutions, an equipment leasing subsidiary of IT services provider NEC, in October 2020.
Crossing Minds, a US-based business recommendation service backed by marketing technology group You & Mr Jones, secured $10m yesterday in a series A round led by Radical Ventures that included Index Ventures, Partech and Lerer Hippeau. The company, a Stanford University spinout, has not revealed details of earlier funding but named Index Ventures as an existing backer and lists You & Mr Jones, Stanford StartX, Plug and Play, Sound Ventures, Kima Ventures and Cassius as investors on its website.
ConveGenius, an India-based developer of conversational artificial intelligence software for use in education, received $5m in pre-series A funding yesterday from investors including Bace Capital, the VC firm backed by e-commerce group Alibaba’s financial services affiliate, Ant Financial. The round also featured Heritas Capital, 3Lines Venture Capital and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the last of which had supplied the company with $900,000 in 2016. ConveGenius had raised $300,000 from investment bank Enablers the previous year.
Reliance Brands, the partner retail subsidiary of diversified conglomerate Reliance Industries, has paid an undisclosed sum for a 40% stake in India-headquartered couture fashion brand MM Styles, Business Today has reported. The deal represents the first external funding for MM Styles, which was founded by designer Manish Malhotra.
Ertha, the Lithuania-headquartered creator of a massively multiplayer online game in which players can use the startup’s crypto tokens to buy land, has closed a $2m seed round that included cryptocurrency creator Terranova, blockchain technology provider Momentum 6 and Mars4, the developer of a blockchain-powered virtual reality platform. The round also featured blockchain investment firm X21 Digital.
Blue Venture Fund, the investment vehicle representing 35 Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurers, provided an undisclosed amount of funding for US-based conversational texting software developer Drips yesterday. The company said in 2018 it had raised seed capital, without giving details on the size of the round or its participants, and it added an undisclosed sum from Accel-KKR in July this year. Wells Fargo Capital Finance’s Technology Finance group supplied it with a credit facility the following month.
Nigeria-based e-commerce fulfilment service Sendbox has secured $1.8m in seed financing from investors including freight forwarder Flexport, TechCrunch reported yesterday. 4DX Ventures, Enza Capital, FJ Labs, Golden Palm Investments and Y Combinator also took part in the round, and it took the company’s total funding to about $2m according to TechCrunch, which named 4DX as an existing backer. It had raised up to $65,000 from VC fund Microtraction in March 2019.
BeatFit, the Japan-based creator of a mobile app which helps users maintain exercise routines, closed a ¥200m ($1.8m) series B round last month led by system integrator Infocom and backed by Tsukui Capital and Voyage Ventures, on behalf of elderly care service provider Tsukui and travel technology provider Voyage respectively, in addition to unnamed individuals. It came after BeatFit raised $1.8m from SIG Japan and Daiwa Corporate Investment – subsidiaries of quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group and securities brokerage Daiwa – in early 2019 to boost its total funding to $2.7m.
Gate.io, the operator of a digital platform for initial exchange offerings, has invested an undisclosed amount in ShoeFy, the US-based creator of an online platform which issues secondary non-fungible tokens. ShoeFy said it had sold out its seven launch pads when it opened its platform last week.
Japan-based chat tool developer Postalk raised ¥22.5m ($200,000) in pre-seed funding yesterday from investors including Dogan Beta, a VC vehicle for investment and consulting services firm Dogan, The Bridge reported. Investment fund FGN AbbaLab also participated in the round, which came three years after Postalk was founded.
M&A
Consulting firm Accenture has purchased Argentina-based boutique e-commerce agency Glamit in a deal of undisclosed size enabling online marketplace Mercado Libre and publisher La Nacion to exit. La Nacion invested $8m in Glamit in 2017, at which time the company identified Mercado Libre, Nazca and NXTP Labs as existing investors.
Additional reporting by Liwen-Edison Fu. Image courtesy of Uditech.
