Daily funding roundup - December 22, 2015

Axonics completed $38.5M; Shuttl raised $20M; NextInput Inc., received $8M funding

• Motorola Solutions has made a strategic investment in BlueLine Grid, an emerging technology company that previously received an investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the U.S. Intelligence Community, BlueLine Grid has announced. BlueLine Grid joins Motorola Solutions’ growing network of investments in new technologies that are contributing to smart public safety solutions that create the safer cities of the future. Terms of the investments by Motorola Solutions Venture Capital were not disclosed.
  
  
• Medi Assist has made an investment of $1 million in MobieFit, a mobile fitness venture based in Goa. This strategic partnership will further strengthen Medi Assist’s presence in the corporate segment and also allow the company to make deeper inroads into the Indian consumer health and fitness market, said the company.
  
  
• PetMe, a Milan, Italy-based pet sitting and pet housing platform, raised €1 million (approximately $1.09 million) in Series A funding. Backers included Buongiorno (via b-ventures) and Capital B!, Merifin Capital, Shark Bites, as well as Gruppo Ebano’s C.E.F. – Centro Europeo di Formazione. The company, which has raised €1.5 million to date, intends to use the funds to accelerate the development of the business in Italy.
  
  
• Feedvisor, an Algo-Commerce company, announced that it has closed a $5 million venture funding round led by Square Peg Capital. This latest investment follows the $6M Series A funding in August 2014 and brings Feedvisor's total raised capital to date to $13 million. The round also included participation from existing investors, JAL Ventures and Titanium Investments. The company will use this capital to continue accelerating growth and global business expansion, including opening offices in the US. 
  
  
• Taiwanese start-up VMFive unveiled Tuesday its app streaming service “AdPlay” and announced that it has raised US$6 million in series A round. VMFive raised US$6 million, or NT$180 million, in series A round from investors including IT security company Trend Micro, General Mobile Corp., and Cherubic Ventures. Trend Micro’s Dr. Booster, an app that optimizes game play, also integrates AdPlay in its service to help VMFive expand to the Asia Pacific market.
  
  
• NextInput, Inc. announced that the company has completed its latest funding round of $8 million, led by Sierra Ventures and two strategic corporate investors. With their investment, Sierra’s Managing Director Ben Yu will join Steve Nasiri, the founder of InvenSense, Inc., on NextInput’s Board of Directors. Over the next several months, the company will expand its world-class team and increase production capacity in anticipation of customer production ramps. NextInput will also continue to innovate by developing the next generation of MEMS-based ForceTouch® solutions.
  
  
• Gurgaon-based Shuttl, a bus aggregating platform offering shuttle bus service to commuters across 50 routes in Delhi NCR, has raised $20 million in series A round. The funding round was led by Lightspeed Ventures, Times Internet and existing investor Sequoia Capital. In June, Shuttl had raised $3 million in seed funding from a clutch of investors led by Sequoia. The raised funding will be used for strengthen its technology and for expansion. 
  
  
• Axonics Modulation Technologies, Inc., developer of miniaturized implantable Sacral Neuromodulation technology, announced today that it has completed a $38.5 million Series B financing. Proceeds from the financing will be used to conduct a multi-center clinical study in Overactive Bladder patients anticipated to begin in early 2016 in Europe and North America.  New investors Advent Life Sciences, based in London, and Cormorant Asset Management, based in Boston, joined the existing syndicate led by Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners of Paris, France.
  
  
• Effector Therapeutics has raised $40 million in venture financing, the San Diego-based biotech said Tuesday. The financing was led by Altitude Life Science Ventures, along with AbbVie Biotech Ventures and BioMed Ventures. All of Effector's existing investors participated, including Abingworth, Novartis Venture Fund, SR One, The Column Group, US Venture Partners, Astellas Ventures, Osage University Partners and Mission Bay Capital.  The money will support testing of Effector's orally administered cancer drug eFT508 in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial, which looks for evidence of safety and early signs of efficacy. In another trial, the drug will be tested in lymphoma.
  
  
• Siteimprove A/S, a provider of web governance software, today announced that it has received a $55 million minority investment from global growth equity firm Summit Partners. The funding will support Siteimprove’s continued expansion of its global operations, sales and marketing as well as the development of its category-leading SaaS solutions for web governance.
  
  
• Growth equity arm of buyout firm TPG Capital LP has invested $75 million in life sciences services company Precision for Medicine, the latest in a string of TPG investments in the healthcare sector. Based in Bethesda, Maryland, Precision for Medicine helps pharmaceutical and life sciences companies develop and commercialize new drugs.  The company was founded in 2013 by healthcare executives Ethan Leder and Mark Clein with $150 million in financing led by investment firms Oak Investment Partners, J.H. Whitney and Company, and LCI Capital.

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Image source: venturebeat.com