Weekly corporate venturing deal net 4 – 8 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
Telenor Myanmar gets startups on the line
Telenor Myanmar is seeking applications from local startups to take part in its accelerator program and benefit from a $50,000 seed investment.
Startupbootcamp administers digital health accelerator
A total of 10 digital health startups stand to benefit from a three-month program supported by Arvato CRM Healthcare, Sanofi in Germany, Munich Health and ApoBank.
Philips preps Indian healthcare fund
The corporate is in the early stages of setting up an India-based corporate venturing unit that will fund local healthcare technology startups.
Corporates scale Monk’s Hill to $85m
Monk’s Hill Ventures has achieved the final close of its maiden fund after attracting commitments from Cisco, Telstra and Yahoo Japan.
People
Young joins Deutsche Telekom-backed DTCP in top Valley role
The firm Young is joining, DTCP, has a fund structure like solely corporate-backed venture capital firms, GV, which has Google as its sole limited partner (LP) and Sapphire Ventures, which has Germany-based technology firm SAP as its sole investor.
Interview: Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners’ Jack Young
Jack Young talks in-depth about the strategy of Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners which will be targeting sectors such as enterprise software, cyber-security, IoT and related internet infrastructure in general with technology heavy companies.
Darwish comes true for Wells Fargo
Basil Darwish has left Citi Ventures, after five years in senior vice-president roles, for Wells Fargo where he will act as director of strategic investments.
Exits
Bats Global to fly to public markets
Shareholders of the trading exchange operator, which include several financial services providers, are set to make between $190m and $213m through share sales.
AccorHotels books $168m Onefinestay acquisition
Onefinestay, which closed a $40m series D backed by Intel and Hyatt Hotels in June 2015, also received a $73m investment from AccorHotels as part of the deal.
Ericsson absorbs portfolio company NodePrime
Ericsson has acquired NodePrime, the developer of a data centre infrastructure management system, after taking part in its $7m series A round last year.
Whistle goes to Mars in $117m deal
Mars Petcare has reportedly paid $117m for smart pet collar developer Whistle, which had raised $25m from investors including Nokia and Qualcomm.
Future Group adorns itself with FabFurnish
Rocket Internet had been in talks with Future Group to sell off homeware marketplace FabFurnish since February and has now closed the deal for up to $3m.
Aeglea comes of age with $50m IPO
Aeglea Biotherapeutics, which is developing amino acid-targeted cancer and metabolic disease treatments, had raised $53.5m in VC funding from investors including Novartis and Eli Lilly.
IT
Persado follows series C script for $30m
The corporate venturing arms of Citi and American Express reinvested in cognitive content generation platform Persado, boosting its overall funding to $85m.
Data Artisans crafts Intel-led series A
The big data analysis startup raised $6.3m in a round led by Intel Capital that also included Tengelmann Ventures.
The enterprise messaging company took its total funding to $540m, securing $200m at a $3.8bn valuation from backers including Alphabet and Comcast, showing there is still big late-stage money available for the right kind of company.
MapD pinpoints corporates to raise $10m
Verizon has joined existing investors including Alphabet and Nvidia to help the graphic-powered data technology company close its series A round.
Qihoo 360 enters Holaverse in $70m round
Holaverse’s apps have been downloaded 460 million times and the China-based company plans to use the funding to expand internationally.
Intercom reconnects with investors for $50m
The Digital Garage-backed communications platform closed an initial $35m in series C funding in August 2015, and has now added $50m in a C1 round.
Health
Human Longevity extends funding by $220m
The genomics research company took its overall funding to $300m in a series B round featuring Celgene, existing investor Illumina and corporate venturing unit GE Ventures.
Entasis structures $50m series B
Novo and existing investor AstraZeneca contributed to a round that will support Entasis Therapeutics’ anti-infectives pipeline.
Corporates get Metabomed for $18m series A
Small molecule cancer drug developer Metabomed raised the cash from investors including Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim and co-founder MS Ventures.
UCB and Roche were among the investors in a Deerfield Management-led series B round that pushed the orphan disease treatment developer’s total VC funding to $48m.
Media
Xiaomi feeds Hungama in $25m round
The smartphone maker has led entertainment content platform Hungama’s latest round, which also included existing investor Intel Capital.
The series A round, which has been backed by Yahoo Japan, follows $6.6m in seed capital secured by the video advertising platform in 2013.
Consumer
Orange makes $85m call to Africa Internet Group
The telecommunications company provided the funding a month after the closure of $326m from MTN, Rocket Internet, AXA and Goldman Sachs.
Influenster to spread after $8m Ebates investment
Ken Hirschmann, vice-president at Ebates, will join Influenster’s board as part of the deal, which includes a collaboration agreement.
Home24 gets $22.7m from visitors
The Rocket Internet-backed furniture seller, present in eight countries, has now raised more than €125m ($142m) in the past 18 months.
Corporates invest $9m to live in Material Wrld
Start Today and Nippon Life Insurance have provided a total of $9m for second-hand fashion marketplace Material Wrld.
LiveSafe treasures Smith investment
FedEx CEO Frederick Smith has invested $5.25m in LiveSafe only a few months after the mobile safety communications app raised $4m from IAC and Hearst.
Ele.me and Didi Kuaidi get nearer billion-dollar rounds
Chinese VC funding continues to go strong as Alibaba’s touted 10-figure investment in food delivery platform Ele.me appears to have been closed while Didi Kuaidi prepares to complete its own $1bn round.
Financial
Upscale lending service Borro raises $5.9m
The UK-based pawn service for the affluent, which counts Rocket Internet as an investor, added the money to the $170m it had already raised.
Tengelmann takes a risk on Scalable Capital’s series A
Scalable Capital, a digital wealth manager based on investors’ appetite for risk, has added Tengelmann to its investor base in a $7.9m round that took its overall funding past $12m.
Ant Financial raises the bar for latest round
The Alibaba-backed financial services provider is now seeking in excess of $3.1bn which will likely be raised at a valuation of $60bn.
Energy and Natural Resources
The energy monitoring company has revealed a $9m series A round closed in December 2015 that included $3.5m in convertible seed financing.
Shell experiments with Growing Energy Labs investment
Shell’s corporate venturing subsidiary has invested in energy management software company Growing Energy Labs as part of a round sized at $8.4m according to an SEC filing.
Industrial
Samsung lights up $13.5m Kyulux series A
Samsung led the OLED display technology developer’s series A round through its corporate venturing subsidiary, while LG, Japan Display and JOLED also participated.
Transport
G7 hauls in $45m in series C round
The logistics platform has expanded its series C round to $45m, following an extension that added to an initial $30m tranche led by Tencent.
Services
Times Internet provides $11m of assistance to Haptik
Personal assistant app developer Haptik has received $11.2m of series B funding from Times Internet, which will also look to help it expand in India.
Managed by Q cleans up with $25m
Managed by Q, which operates an office maintenance service, has secured $25m in series B funding from a consortium including Alphabet’s investment arm, GV.
Lianjia opens doors to corporates in $927m round
Tencent and Baidu were among the investors in a series B round that will help the real estate services company, valued at $6.2bn, beef up its online presence.
Flipkart and IDG Ventures-backed property rental platform NestAway is seeking between $30m and $50m for its next funding round as it aims for more growth.
CrownPeak tops off ActiveStandards merger with $50m
AIG-backed customer support provider CrownPeak has secured $50m in series D capital to support a relaunch after its merger with ActiveStandards.