South Korea to ease corporate venturing restrictions
The South Korean government is set to lower the threshold for corporate venturing vehicles, though rules governing the practice will remain strict.
Corporate venturing deal net: 11-15 March 2019
Each Friday the Global Corporate Venturing Deal Net rounds up the week’s smaller deals and tracks the emerging companies accessing corporate funds.
Fundraising
Corporates favour Franklin for $100m Wisconn fund
Jason Franklin has been appointed managing partner of Wisconn Valley Venture Fund, which is equipped with $100m from Advocate Aurora, Foxconn, Johnson Controls and Northwestern Mutual.
Ripple and Forte form $100m gaming fund
Forte and the digital payments provider will use the fund to target game developers looking to create more profitable in-game economies through blockchain technology.
Gree’s venture capital affiliate has secured $20m from undisclosed strategic investors for a second fund, following an $18.3m vehicle last year.
JTI ignites Vapetech accelerator
Tobacco maker JTI and Plug and Play have launched an accelerator to back 20 startups each year that are developing vaping technology.
JLL picks Concrete to source proptech investments
JLL Spark’s $100m Global Venture Fund has appointed Concrete VC to source real estate technology investment opportunities in the EMEA region.
SoftBank sizes up $500m for Ventures Asia fund
The corporate is putting some $500m into its revamped early-stage fund, as its Vision Fund passes 70% of its capital allocation.
Alexa Fund sounds out third accelerator batch
Amazon’s corporate venturing unit is seeking 10 artificial intelligence technology developers startups to fill out its third accelerator cohort.
Binance forms Argentina co-investment deal
Argentina’s Ministry of Production and Labour will provide grants for blockchain technology portfolio companies of Binance Labs and the LatamEx-backed Founders Lab.
People
Hawthorne catches Cargill for new role
Peter Hawthorne, who oversaw corporate venturing deals for Cargill during a 12-year stint at the agribusiness, has joined Paine Schwartz Partners as operating director.
Sage steps up to partner at BMW i Ventures
Kasper Sage, a former BMW i Ventures principal featured on this year’s GCV Rising Stars roster, was named partner at the beginning of this year.
Parashar shoots to U First Capital
GCV Rising Star 2017 Amish Parashar, a founding partner at Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, has joined corporate VC services provider U First Capital as an adviser.
Exits
The Pivotal in-memory data technology spinoff will be bought by Tibco in a deal that will also enable General Electric subsidiary GE Digital to exit.
Verano to reap $850m in Harvest acquisition
Scythian Biosciences-backed cannabis facilities operator Verano has agreed to an $850m acquisition by Harvest Health and Recreation in an all-stock transaction.
Jumia to jump to public markets
The Africa-focused e-commerce platform, backed by MTN, Rocket Internet, Millicom, Orange, Axa and Pernod Ricard, has filed for a $100m initial public offering in the US.
DSG Consumer Partners made a four-times return on its investment in corporate-backed Oyo, exiting as part of its recent $1bn round.
F5 to integrate Nginx in $670m acquisition
Telstra Ventures will exit the application delivery software provider, which has raised $103m in funding since it was founded eight years ago.
Adden adds Figure Eight in $300m acquisition
Figure Eight, previously known as CrowdFlower, is set to be acquired by Appen for a total of up to $300m, providing exits to corporates Salesforce and Microsoft.
Shockwave makes stock market impact
Abiomed-backed Shockwave Medical has raised approximately $97m in an oversubscribed initial public offering, before its shares climbed more than 85% by the end of Friday.
Tencent invested $8m as the Chinese online brokerage floated at the top of its range in the US, at a valuation of more than $1.3bn.
The LeCloud and Qihoo 360-backed online video streaming platform will reportedly file for bankruptcy after failing to raise new financing.
Uber sets April for IPO filing
The on-demand ride service is looking to file for what will potentially be one of the largest IPOs of all time next month, with a host of corporates set to score exits.
American Express onboards LoungeBuddy
American Express will buy the airport lounge-booking service for an undisclosed sum, handing exits to Concur and Founders Fund.
IT
StellaService calls on corporates to raise $11m
The customer service feedback platform has collected $11m in a Zendesk and Comcast-backed round that boosted its overall funding to $48m.
SIG joins Workfront shareholders in $280m secondary deal
Susquehanna International Group was among the participants in a $280m secondary purchase of shares in enterprise management software producer Workfront.
Lightbits pieces together $50m series A
Dell EMC, Cisco and Micron have all backed a round that will fund the commercial launch of Lightbits Labs’ data management and transfer technology.
Tigerobo catches CreditEase in $33m series A
CreditEase’s New Financial Industrial Fund was among the investors in a round that took the financial search engine’s overall funding to $60m.
DuPont unites with U First in partnership
DowDuPont’s electronics and imaging subsidiary has picked U First to identify internet-of-things and artificial intelligence investments.
Cloudflare fires up $150m series E round
CDN technology provider Cloudflare has now raised more than $330m altogether, from investors including CapitalG, Baidu, Microsoft and Qualcomm Ventures.
Qualcomm and NGP Capital both took part in an Accel-led round which will fund a geographic expansion for the field service management software provider.
Blueground checks Jabbar in to raise $20m
The property rental platform plans to expand to 50,000 apartments across 50 cities with the proceeds from the round, which was backed by Jabbar Internet Group.
Presidio Ventures has reinvested in HR software developer Hibob as part of a series A-plus round that increased its overall funding to $45m.
Health
Docquity rocks $11m series B round
The physician-based social media platform has raised $11m in a round co-led by Itochu, which supplied $6m, and existing backer Singapore Press Holdings.
InventisBio invites Eli Lilly to $70m series C
Lilly Asia Ventures has returned for a series C round that boosted the total raised by the cancer and metabolic disease drug developer to $100m.
Snipr hits funding target to raise $50m
Founding investor Lundbeckfonden Emerge returned to co-lead a series A round for the gene editing drug developer with Life Science Partners.
Oscor goes to MID for $20m series D
Medical device producer Oscor has led the heart disease treatment system developer’s $20m series D round in connection with a strategic partnership.
LaunchDarkly lights up $44m series C
The Bloomberg-backed software management tool developer has now raised more than $76m in total, after closing a Bessemer Venture Partners-led round.
Media
Vice sizes up $200m in potential financing
Media group Vice, backed by 21st Century Fox, A&E Networks, Walt Disney and WPP, is seeking $200m in a mix of equity and debt financing a week after laying off a tenth of its staff.
The film and TV studio, backed by Tencent, PCCW, Liberty Media and Madison Wells, has secured at least $100m in equity funding as part of a $700m equity and debt round.
TriNetX triumphs in $40m series D
The healthcare research platform has increased its total funding to $102m following a Merck GHI-led round that included Itochu Technology Ventures and Mitsui.
Financial
CXA extracts $25m from corporate investors
Singtel Innov8, MDI Ventures, Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia, Humanica, Fuchsia Ventures, HSBC and the IMC-managed Heritas Venture Fund all invested in the benefits software developer.
Agnihotri moves away from Maumee Ventures
Maumee Ventures president Rashmi Agnihotri left parent company The Andersons at the end of 2018, with John Kraus stepping up to take on the role.
Pagantis pages investors for $75m
Credit Suisse-backed SPF Investment Management has contributed to a $75m series B round for Pagantis, the online lender previously known as Digital Origin.
10x goes Nationwide for series B funding
Nationwide has taken a minority stake in financial services portal developer 10x Future Technologies through a $16.9m series B investment.
CapitalG agrees another Aye Finance investment
CapitalG committed $4.7m to Aye Finance’s $33.3m series D round, which closed in conjunction with a $2.2m debt investment from Karvy Capital.
FutureFuel powers through series A round
Salesforce and First Data participated in an $11.2m series A round that increased the total raised by the student debt repayment service to almost $16m.
Media
WPP-backed marketing organisation software provider Percolate has taken in $32m in a round featuring GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Capital IP.
Amazon and Intact Financial Corporation both contributed to a series C round that reportedly swelled the auto insurance provider’s valuation to about $300m.
Energy and Natural Resources
AgroStar unearths $27m in series C round
Bertelsmann has led the round that will be used by the agtech developer to accelerate its digital footprint in India and expand its leadership team.
Corporates plug into Ubitricity’s series C round
Honda and existing investors EDF and Siemens all contributed to a $22.7m round that will fund the expansion of Ubitricity’s EV charging network.
Transport
SoftBank bids to back Uber’s autonomous driving unit
A consortium featuring SoftBank Vision Fund and Toyota is reportedly set to invest in the unit at a valuation of up to $10bn as Uber prepares for its IPO.
Drivezy speeds closer to $100m
Four months after completing its $20m series B round, the Yamaha, SMC and Crowdworks-backed car rental platform is seeking $100m in fresh funding at a $400m valuation.
Lear clears investment in Maniv Mobility fund
Lear Innovation Ventures, a subsidiary of Lear Corporation, has backed the mobility-focused VC firm’s latest fund, joining Alliance Ventures as a limited partner.
Alphabet’s Waymo to weigh up external funding
Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous transport unit, is reportedly seeking funding at a hefty valuation, with Volkswagen in the frame to invest.
Brodmann17 counts up $11m in series A
UL and existing investors Samsung and Sony contributed to an $11m round that will fund the development of Brodmann17’s driver assistance technology.
Aldrich administers $41m to eHealth
The medical record retrieval software provider, which received funding from Merck & Co in 2013, has secured $41m from Aldrich Capital Partners.
Consumer
Lawson and T-Gaia corp co-led the series B round, with the Japanese fashion marketplace to use the cash to expand in Southeast Asia
Services
BlackBuck looks to carry back $150m
The freight services marketplace, which counts Flipkart as an investor, is set to raise $100m to $150m in its latest round, at an $800m valuation.
The SIG-backed hotel booking portal is set to raise up to $50m in a series B round that is being led by venture firm Qiming Venture Partners.
Byju’s takes more Tencent funding
Existing investors Tencent and General Atlantic have supplied up to $11.4m of additional funding for Byju’s, which was valued at at least $3.6bn as of December.
The Fosun-backed wedding services marketplace will use the proceeds from the series D-1 round to further develop its AI and big data technologies.
Newsela reports $50m series C investment
Online learning platform Newsela has received $50m in series C funding from TCV, six years after graduating from Kaplan’s accelerator and securing funding from the corporate.