GCV Symposium 2017: New directions in low carbon power, energy venturing and partnering
The two-part discussion spanned yesterday and today, and featured speakers from BP, Schlumberger and Emerald Technology Ventures among others.
GCV Symposium 2017: Day 1 review
Helping entrepreneurs scale up and globalise was a key element of the first day of 2017’s GCV Symposium in London yesterday.
GCV Symposium 2017: Will we see flying cars before autonomous vehicles?
Francois Auque of Airbus Ventures went head to head with Jason Ball of Qualcomm Ventures Europe to discuss the relative prospects of each technology.
GCV Symposium 2017: The tip of the innovation spear – how do corporate VCs make decisions?
George Ugras, managing director at IBM Ventures, and Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev discussed the business models of corporate venturing units and what drives their success.
GCV Symposium 2017: Scaling up corporate venturing
A panel hosted by editor-in-chief James Mawson asked what investors can bring to the table when money is available in abundance.
GCV Symposium 2017: Sector Focus – Advanced Manufacturing
Representatives from ABB Technology Ventures and Magna International were among the speakers discussing the trends in advanced manufacturing.
Corporate venturing deal net: 22-26 May 2017
Each Friday the Global Corporate Venturing Deal Net rounds up the week’s smaller deals and tracks the emerging companies accessing corporate funds.
Fundraising
Saudi Telecom rings up $500m for new fund
STV will invest about $100m per year in areas like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, banking, logistics and digital health from the fourth quarter of this year.
Gree Ventures agrees $67m with LPs
Gree’s corporate venturing unit has closed its second fund at $67m and is expanding its focus from Japan and Southeast Asia to Japan.
RM Global rolls up $30m for FutuRx fund
Investment banking firm RM Global has raised $30m for the first close for a fund that will back startups developed by Johnson & Johnson and Takeda-backed incubator FutuRx.
WuXi Healthcare Ventures goes to FrontLine for merger
WuXi PharmaTech’s corporate venturing arm will merge with VC firm Frontline BioVentures to create an investment firm with $800m of assets under management.
AccelFoods accepts Danone cash for $35m fund
Danone’s corporate venturing arm, Danone Ventures, has contributed to the second fund for AccelFoods, which was expanded to $35m in March.
Bupa heads raft of corporate accelerator schemes
Bupa’s Blue Table accelerator is one of a range of corporate startup initiatives to be launched in the past month, including those by Rabobank, Bosch, HPE and Sunway.
Exits
Adtech developer Fringe81, whose backers include NTT Docomo, Dentsu and Itochu, is set to float on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with shares expected to be priced at around $18.60.
Delivery Hero to fly to public markets
The on-demand food ordering platform, which raised $423m from Naspers just days ago, is reportedly set to float in Germany this summer at a valuation of up to $4.5bn.
Sea secretly files for $1bn IPO
Tencent, JG Summit and Uni-President Enterprises are set to record exits as Sea, the internet services firm formerly known as Garena, files confidentially to float in the US.
Flipkart nears cut-price Snapdeal acquisition
SoftBank, already a 33% shareholder, has reportedly acquired the stakes of three other Snapdeal board members, and Flipkart has signed a term sheet to buy it for a price that could be under $1bn.
True North heads to Bioverativ in $400m acquisition
Bioverativ could end up paying $825m for rare disease drug developer True North, which had raised $142m from backers including GlaxoSmithKline, Biogen Idec, Baxter and Baxalta.
Distil beams up Are You A Human
Online identity verification platform Are You A Human has been acquired by Distil Networks, allowing corporate venturing unit MDC Dream Ventures to exit.
Addepar hedges with AltX acquisition
Wells Fargo has exited alternative investments analysis platform AltX in an acquisition by financial software producer Addepar.
IT
The Citi Ventures-backed endpoint security software provider has secured $100m in a TPG Growth-led round, is valued at $3.75bn and has now raised $407m in total.
Outreach sells Microsoft on $30m series C
Outreach boosted its overall funding to $60m as series B investor Microsoft Ventures returned for a round that will support an expansion of its product development and engineering teams.
Canbridge canters to $25m series B
WuXi AppTec took part in a round that Canbridge Life Sciences will put toward clinical trials of two cancer immunotherapies for use in its home country of China.
PandaDoc signs up corporates for $15m series B
Microsoft and HubSpot have contributed to a round that will help the contract and document management platform broaden its customer base.
Fastly mobilises investors for $50m series E
O’Reilly Media, which first backed Fastly in its 2012 series A round, has returned once again to contribute to a round that boosted its total funding to $180m.
FullStory continues with $15m series B
GV led a round that included Salesforce Ventures, increasing the total raised by the customer engagement analytics platform to more than $25m.
Cloudwise smartens up with $26m
The cloud-based performance management software developer has now raised more than $56m in total after closing an SIG-backed series C round.
Corporates chip in for DeePhi series A
Semiconductor product makers MediaTek and Xilinx were among the participants in an eight-digit round for deep learning technology developer DeePhi Tech.
Existing investor SIG returned for the mobile communication app developer’s series D round, which was led by a China Construction Bank unit.
QASymphony tunes into $40m series C
The KMS-backed software testing technology provider will spend the cash on European and North American growth as well as hiring.
Collaborative analytics technology Mode, whose clients include Lyft, Twitch and Shopify, has collected $13m from investors including RELX.
Karamba kills it with $12m series B
Automotive cybersecurity startup Karamba has collected $12m in series B capital from a consortium that included Liberty Mutual, Sumitomo and Asgent.
GE Ventures has invested in IoT security technology provider Mocana as part of an $11m round that took the company’s overall funding to more than $93m.
Microsoft gets in Frame for $16m round
Cloud workspace software provider Frame has now raised $32m altogether, after Microsoft Ventures came on board as an investor.
Health
VitalConnect tracks Baxter for $33m
Baxter Ventures and MVM Life Science Partners have co-led a round that doubled the total equity funding raised by the patient monitoring device developer since 2011.
TP Therapeutics taps corporates in $45m round
Corporate venturing units Lilly Asia Ventures and SR One have contributed to a series C round that will support development of TP’s precision cancer drug.
ViaCyte goes for Gore in $10m round
WL Gore & Associates joined Asset Management Partners and JDRF to invest $10m in ViaCyte, a diabetes treatment company also backed by Johnson & Johnson.
Symic Bio signs on corporates for series B
Lilly Ventures and Mitsui Global Investment reinvested in a $30m round for Symic that will support a phase 3 trial for a compound intended to improve vein graft surgery.
Novartis and Hikma come to Lemonaid for $11m round
Novartis Venture Fund and Hikma Ventures have co-led a series A round for online prescription management platform Lemonaid Health, taking its total funding to near $20m.
Media
LeCloud-backed live streaming platform Panda TV had attracted $140m in series B funding eight months after closing a $54m series A round.
Huajiao hitches to Tian Ge for $14m
Huajiao Live Video, a mobile livestreaming app incubated by Qihoo 360, has received $14m from Tian Ge Interactive as part of a strategic partnership.
Verizon Ventures led a series C round that included existing backers Intel and DMGT, and which took the female-focused online media company’s total funding to $45m.
Comcast returned to back the business programming network’s latest round, which welcomed AT&T, Amazon, Altice USA, New York Stock Exchange and Broadway Video as new investors.
Online video platform YY has spun out livestreaming subsidiary Huya with a $75m series A round led by Ping An Insurance.
Readly raids corporates for series B funding
Channel 4’s Commercial Growth Fund and the Bonnier-backed Aggregate Media Fund are among the investors in the media aggregation app’s $14.6m series B round.
Consumer
Peloton, whose home fitness service combines a high-grade exercise bike with software, has closed a series E round that added Comcast NBCUniversal to its investors.
Alibaba to elevate Ele.me in $1bn round
Alibaba and Ant Financial, which invested $1.25bn in the food delivery service in April 2016, are reportedly set to lead a round that will value it at up to $6bn.
Campbell cooks up $10m for Chef’d
The corporate has provided $10m of the meal marketplace’s series B round, making the investment as part of a strategic partnership deal.
Casper to bed down with Target
Target had reportedly offered $1bn to buy Casper but will instead lead a large-sized round for the online mattress seller, which has so far raised $70m.
Comcast books another Away day
Comcast Ventures joined three more returning investors for a $20m series B round that will support the luggage e-commerce player’s expansion into media and live stores.
Financial
Intel, Ping An and Temasek have joined more than 40 financial services firms to provide series A funding for the blockchain fintech consortium.
LedgerX books in series B funding
Miami International Holdings co-led an $11.4m round for Ledger Holdings, which is awaiting regulatory approval for its bitcoin options exchange LedgerX.
Additiv finds ingredients for funding
BZ Bank has made a strategic investment to lead a $21.6m funding round for Additiv, a financial services digitalisation software provider.
Energy and Natural Resources
The electric vehicle charging network’s latest round now totals $106m, after it added $24m to the $82m it closed from backers including Daimler and BMW in March.
Transport
99 picks up SoftBank for $100m fare
SoftBank, already an investor in Didi Chuxing and Ola, has added $100m to more than $100m raised by 99 in January this year.
KeepTruckin logs $18m in funding
GV, which led the electronic distance logging app developer’s seed round in 2013, has come back to invest in its latest round, which took the company’s total funding to $28m.
Services
Transmed helps deliver series B funding to Quiqup
On-demand logistics service Quiqup has added more than $25m in series B funding to a Delivery Hero-backed series A round closed two years ago.
Sodexo joins Eat Club in $30m series C
The virtual cafeteria has now raised more than $46m altogether and will use the money to expand from its existing Californian markets into New York City.
CornerJob gathers series C resources
Randstad and media corporates such as Groupe TF1 and Les Echos have taken part in a $19m round for CornerJob, some in the form of media-for-equity deals.
Fosun Property has participated in a series A round for youth housing network LeFull, which raised an undisclosed eight-figure RMB amount.
UrWork finds space for another $58m
The co-working space provider, which counts several property developers as backers, has pulled in $58m of funding from undisclosed investors.
CreativeLive shows class to raise $25m
The video-assisted arts and entrepreneurship education platform has now raised almost $60m since 2010, securing funding in a round featuring CAA and RELX.
Capsule achieves lift off with $20m
Conglomerate Virgin Group has taken part in a $20m funding round in Capsule, which aims to simplify the delivery of medication.
Simon goes to Appear Here in $12m round
Simon Property Group has helped boost pop-up retail space marketplace Appear Here’s total funding to $21.4m by participating in a $12m series B round.
Rakuten backs From Scratch in series C round
Digital marketing technology provider From Scratch has raised $28.4m in a Rakuten Ventures-backed round that took its overall funding to more than $40m.
The online real estate services platform has raised $19.5m from Daily Mail and General Trust as well as the Savills-backed Grosvenor Ventures, which led its series A last year.