Daily funding roundup - October 12, 2015

Symphony raised $100M; Xpenditure closed $5.7M round; EverSport Media secured $4.2M

• Gridle, a productivity platform for work, has raised a seed round of $100,000 led by Jyotsna Bapat from IIITBangalore through deal making platform LetsVenture. Other angels include Gaurav Zutshi, Rohit Jamwal, Rohit Kilam and Sanjay Tekale, all of whom are technology and finance executives. Their funding will be used to expand sales and operations. The product targets companies with up to 500 employees and has helped improve team productivity by anything between 11 and 13%. 
  
  
• Zestrip, a Milan, Italy-based travel experience startup, landed €100,000 ($113,700) in seed funding. Backers included Stefano Calderano, Ceo of Jusp, and other angels.The company will use the funds to expand operations. Co-founded in 2015 by Michele Arisi, Andrea Pasino and Carlo Vezzoni, Zestrip offers travel experiences for every taste and budget “to those who like to wander off the beaten path” by connecting travelers and local guides across several cities in Italy.
  
  
• Golfdigg, an app that offers last-minute golf deals in Thailand, has secured THB 23.83 million (roughly $673,700) in funding from telecoms group Intouch through venture capital arm, Invent. The investment, which the startup received in full, brings its valuation to US$2.8 million. Golfdigg allows users to book slots at golf courses across Thailand for lower rates than walk-in prices.
  
  
• InnoQuant, a Barcelona, Spain-based provider of a proximity marketing platform, secured €1.8 million ($2 million) in seed funding. Inveready Capital funded the company along with public funds. The company intends to use the funds to bring the platform to the market. Led by María Fernanda González, Ph.D., and Oleg Morajko, Innoquant provices Moca, a mobile marketing platform that allows brands to enhance interactions with people by delivering highly-personalized proximity campaigns and gather insights from customers in real-time.
  
  
• K4Connect, a user-centric technology integration company, announced today that it has raised $1.9 million in a seed round to support the launch of its debut product for senior living communities. The senior market, which is expected to double in size over the next 15 years, is prime for an influx of new technologies and investments. The momentum in the market is evidenced by strong support for K4Connect from several leading investors, including: Silicon Valley-based Sierra Ventures and Better Ventures; North Carolina-based Lowe's Companies, Inc.; and Florida's Stonehenge Growth Equity Partners. Individuals including Stephen Morton, President and COO of Signature Senior Living, and Chris Regan, a patent attorney with Allen, Dyer, Doppelt, Milbrath & Gilchrist, P.A., as well as two other unnamed investors have committed funds for K4Connect's growth.
  
  
• TryTheWorld, a NYC-based food subscription service, raised $2.3 million in funding. Backers included French vc firm Alven Capital and some US business angels. The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations. Co-founded by Kat Vorotova and David Foult, TryTheWorld allows people to subscribe and get boxes of foods, produced by local artisans and curated by high level chefs coming from around the world.
  
  
• EverSport Media Inc. has raised $4.2 million to bring sporting events that are rarely or never aired by television networks to fans online around the world. The company allows sports fans to watch events–like European soccer matches, or surfing, skateboarding, rock climbing and college athletics–live or on-demand using their browsers and Web-connected devices. The company offers an EverSport.tv site, apps and an embeddable player.Investors in the Series A round for EverSport include German TV station ProSieben, Emil Capital and Third Wave Capital as well as several individual angel investors. 
  
  
• Belgian startup Xpenditure has closed $5.7 million in Series A funding. The Brussels-based company offers an expense management platform aimed at enterprises, SMEs and sole traders — basically anybody who has to track and action expenses — and, ultimately, promises to do away with the need to manually file monthly expense reports. Xpenditure’s Series A round was led by various private investors, including existing shareholder Bart Swanson (Summly, Badoo, Amazon). Other investors include Lorenz Bogaert and Toon Coppens (Netlog, Twoo – sold to IAC), and Jonas Dhaenens (Combell/Unitt).
  
  
• French startup Wynd just raised a $7.8 million Series A round (€7 million) for its ordering, payment and reward solution for restaurants. Today’s funding round comes from Alven Capital with Orange Digital Ventures also participating. With the additional funding, the company plans to work on hiring more people, improving the product and being able to open up points of sale more quickly.
  
  
• Cabify, a Madrid-based application with a growing presence in Latin America and Spain, secured fresh funding led by Rakuten, an e-commerce company in Japan by sales. The deal announced on Monday will provide Cabify with $12 million to further fund its push into Latin America. It also provides the company with the stamp of approval from one of the most high-profile investors in internet services. Cabify’s latest investment, while smaller than its rivals, will help fund expansion into 20 new cities in Latin America and Spain in the next eight months. The deal also deepens Rakuten’s ties with the taxi-booking upstarts, after the company led a $530m investment round in Lyft, Uber’s chief US rival, earlier this year.
  
  
• U.K. Games Fund today launched a scheme where new and small game studios can get grants of $38,000 to help bring game ideas to life. The money comes from a central government prototype fund of $6 million, which will go to help early-stage projects in the U.K. gaming industry over the next four years. While the global video game market is worth $91.5 billion, young companies still struggle to secure funding and often turn to non-traditional means like crowd-funding for support. This new government scheme to back small studios will help projects that might otherwise have failed to leave the drawing board.
  
  
• Messaging startup Symphony said on Monday it had raised more than $100 million in a new round of funding from investors including Google, Switzerland’s UBS Group AG and European venture capital firm Lakestar. Symphony’s chat service allows financial firms, corporate customers and individuals to put all of their digital communications on one centralized platform. The service is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc and other big Wall Street banks. Symphony said it will use the new capital to address demand and to speed up expansion of its global operations.
  
  
• AngelList revealed today that it has been tapped by a major Chinese private equity firm to set up a new $400 million fund. The money is supplied by China Science and Merchants Investment Management Group. The new fund, dubbed CSC Upshot, will be based in the US and run separately from AngelList. It shows that Chinese investors are looking for more opportunities around the world – and at an earlier stage than most Chinese investment firms usually go for.
  

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