Weekly corporate venturing deal net 21 September – 25 September 2015
Each Friday the Global Corporate Venturing Deal Net rounds up the week’s smaller deals and tracks the emerging companies accessing corporate funds.
Quirky fate brings scrutiny for venturing
Given there are more than 100 unicorns or private companies valued at more than $1bn, Quirky is an early one of many expected failures of startup darlings. Counter-intuitively, GE’s reaction to this failure of a prominent portfolio company may be the making of it in corporate venturing.
Fundraising
Legend’s investment arm Hony Capital is set to raise a new fund targeting businesses in Greater China.
Microsoft selects startups for scale-up programme
Microsoft is set to support ten companies in India as they navigate their growth phase through its scale-up programme.
Fosun co-launches $1.6bn fund of funds
Fosun and the provincial government of Zhejiang will use the fund of funds to foster an improved economic ecosystem in the province.
People
Laurence ‘Lo’ Toney has moved to Google Ventures from his partner role at Comcast Ventures.
MacTough moves to Liberty Mutual Insurance
The ex-Silicon Valley Bank director joins Liberty Mutual Insurance in its mergers and acquisitions and venture investments division.
CPAC Systems recruits Premla Krishnan
Premla Krishnan has moved from Volvo Group Venture Capital to CPAC Systems to fulfil her three-year dream of working for the system integration company.
Exits
First Data splurges on Spree Commerce
Spree Commerce has been acquired by First Data, providing an exit to shareholders including AOL.
Novartis-backed Nabriva has floated on Nasdaq, raising the amount of proceeds it expected when it filed in June 2015.
Rocket Internet explores Jabong exit
Jabong is valued at $500m to $800m for the talks, after it was previously reported to be in talks with Amazon for a deal worth $1.2bn.
Quirky has filed for bankruptcy two years after its last funding round which featured GE.
ProSiebenSat.1 and Access Industries-backed music streaming service Deezer is set to float on the Paris stock exchange by the end of the year.
Pure Storage prices IPO at $450m
The flash storage company, backed by Samsung, has priced its initial public offering at $16 to $18 per share, expecting to raise up to $450m.
IT
SJ Semiconductor secures $280m
Qualcomm and Semiconductor Manufacturing International have signed a letter of intent to invest in the semiconductor technology services provider.
Corporate-backed Iris recommends $16m to iAdvize
The company’s technology automatically identifies website visitors who require assistance and enables customer support staff to contact the users.
Investors distribute $110m series D to Cloudflare
Fidelity led a consortium of investors including Google, Microsoft, Baidu and Qualcomm, among others, for the content distribution network’s series D round.
Arrayent secures $11m series C
Intel Capital has returned for the internet of things platform’s series C round.
Atigeo ascends to $18.4m series B
The big data analytics platform has obtained cash from Ascension, alongside other unnamed new and existing investors.
Norwest Venture Partners has returned for the video communications platform’s series E round, after also having contributed funds to all the preceding rounds.
Zscaler adjusts $110m series B
Google has provided a $25m extension for Zscaler’s series B round, after a first close last month at $85m featuring EMC.
Premise tells of $50m series C
The Google-backed data technology company has secured funding in a round led by Valor Equity Partners.
Health
Merck and Eli Lilly simply back Just Biotherapeutics
On top of securing $15m in series A funding, Just has also entered into a collaboration agreement with Merck.
Investors get into Headspace for $34m
Meditation app developer Headspace has attracted $34m in a round that included William Morris Endeavor.
Portea accesses $37.5m series B
Qualcomm has returned for Portea’s second funding round, which will support an expansion across India.
Modernizing Medicine upgrades to $38m series E
Brand management firm Pentland returned to back Modernizing Medicine’s $38m series E round, boosting the healthcare IT developer’s total funding to $87m.
GuaHao stays healthy with $300m
Tencent previously invested $106.5m in the health information portal in October 2014.
The health information portal was reported earlier this week to have secured $300m from unnamed investors, which has now also been revealed to feature Tencent and Fosun.
LifeImage pictures $5m investment
Zaffre’s commitment follows a $17.5m round led by Cambia Health Solutions in May 2015.
Metabiota predicts series A extension
Google Ventures has added $1m to Metabiota’s series A round first closed in May at $30m.
Media
Disney co-leads $65 funding Jaunt
Walt Disney, corporate-backed Evolution Media Partners and China Media Capital have co-led a series C that also featured a range of other corporate investors.
Lead Eastern Group is set to acquire a 10% stake as part of a collaboration agreement.
Hearst’s $21m investment is Complex
Hearst has purchased a stake in digital media company Complex, boosting Complex’s total funding to date to more than $60m.
ScribbleLive notes $26.3m investment
The round for digital content marketing firm ScribbleLive was led by OpenText Enterprise Fund and included Rogers, among others.
The e-sports platform has added Kraft to its shareholders and increased its total capital to approximately $28m.
Consumer
Teambition reaches $12m series B
IDG Capital Partners and Microsoft Ventures have both backed the cloud collaboration tool’s latest funding round.
CoverHound pursues $33.3m series C
Ace Group has led a series C round for CoverHound, boosting the insurance price comparison portal’s total funding to $53m.
Apacig has backed a first funding round for the e-commerce portal focused on Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan.
Zhubaijia checks into $78m series C
HNA Tourism has injected cash into the holiday home rental platform only a month after Neway participated in a $31m series B round.
New China Life Insurance has committed funds to the consumer drone manufacturer at a $10bn valuation.
The round was led by Start Today, while existing investors including Opt Sea also returned.
Financial
Softbank co-leads G-Banker’s $17m series B
The company enables users to buy, sell and store gold.
Velocity acquires O’Reilly-backed Cover
Restaurant payment app Cover raised $7m in funding from O’Reilly’s corporate venturing arm, Spark, Lerer and angel investors.
Transport
In November 2014, IDG Capital Partners co-led a $60m series B for the peer-to-peer car lending platform.
Uber China drives up latest round to $2.5bn
The subsidiary closed a $1bn round earlier this month backed by Baidu, but is now seeking another $1.5bn.
Services
IDG helps inject up to $700m in SouFun
Publicly-listed SouFun was initially reported to have attracted a $1bn commitment from IDG Capital Partners and Carlyle Group.
Telecoms
DST helps declare MyRepublic’s $16m round
MyRepublic is set to become Singapore’s fourth telecommunications service, and has secured funding from peer DST Communications.