- Japan-based startup news media The Bridge today announced raising an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures and PR Times. Founded in 2011 as Startup Dating, the website went through a rebranding exercise in 2013, and is now known as The Bridge. It covers startups in Japan and beyond in English and Japanese, and organises multiple events and meetups in the country. The funds will be used to “strengthen human resources” and build other media businesses to help connect investors and entrepreneurs.
- Athletigen Technologies Inc., a Canada-based sports genetics company, raised US$1.55 million in seed funding. The round was led by Exponential Partners, which joined existing strategic investors Dr. Ray Muzyka and Content Bloom. In conjunction with the financing, Exponential Partners’ Pat Wilkison will join Athletigen’s Board of Directors. The company intends to use the funds to grow its platform.
- TopSpin Security, Inc., a Herzliya, Israel-based provider of advanced malware detection technology, secured $7 million in Series A funding. Backers included Shlomo Kramer, Mickey Boodaei, Zohar Zisapel, and Rakesh Loonkar. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its sales efforts in key markets.
- Quartzy, a lab supplies marketplace, announced it has closed a $17 million round in Series B financing to help the startup build up the supply of lab equipment offered to customers. Eminence Capital led this latest round. Khosla Ventures, which led the Series A round, also joined in for the Series B, along with a number of other investors including the YC Continuity fund, A Capital, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, Binary Capital’s Justin Caldbeck, Scribd and Parse founder Tikhon Bernstram, and Factual’s Gil Elbaz.
- Zipnosis, a Minneapolis based virtual care platform has raised a $17 million in Series A funding led by Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. The round also included participation from Ascension Ventures, a subsidiary of Ascension, the nation’s largest non-profit and Catholic health system; along with existing investors Fairview Health Services, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Arthur Ventures, Waterline Ventures and Omphalos Ventures. The telemedicine company plans to use the capital to expand Zipnosis’ sales and marketing efforts and to accelerate product development.
- Berlin-based Movinga, an online relocation company has raised $25 million from Index Ventures, according to Deutsche Startups. The company had earlier raised a €6 million funding round from Global Founders Capital, the investment vehicle from the Rocket Internet crew. Prior backers include Earlybird, Heilemann Ventures and various business angels, including Project A’s Florian Heinemann and Home24 founder Philipp Kreibohm.
- Hometeam, a New York-based home care services platform for older adults, secured $27.5 million in Series B funding. Oak HC/FT joined existing investors Lux Capital, IA Ventures and Recruit Strategic Partners in the round. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its medical and technology development and to expand into several new states and major cities in the coming months.
- Silvercar, a car rental and shared mobility company, today announced its largest capital raise to date with a $28 million Series C equity issuance led by Audi. The Series C announcement comes as Silvercar unveils its enhanced digital and mobile platforms designed for an optimized user experience and expands into Las Vegas, its 12th market. Silvercar also received funding from Series B investors including Austin Ventures and Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook. The funding will enable Silvercar to accelerate its award-winning airport car rental business and expand to new markets nationwide.
- VR head-mounted display provider DeePoon has landed $30 million USD in series B funding led by Xunlei Ltd. and Kaiying Network Technology Co. Ltd. The latest round brings Le Xiang Technology’s valuation to approximately 800 million RMB. DeePoon was established in April 2015, followed a seed investment of several dozen million RMB from Hollysh. In October, the company received an series A investment from Double Safe Guard.
- Scholar Rock, a biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing drugs that selectively target supracellular activation of growth factors in the disease microenvironment, today announced a $36 million Series B financing. Fidelity Management and Research Company led the financing with participation from additional new investor Cormorant Asset Management. All of the existing investors in Scholar Rock also participated in this financing round, including Polaris Partners, Timothy Springer, ARCH Venture Partners, EcoR1 Capital and The Kraft Group.
- Shanghai-based Dada, an Uber-like mobile app that focuses on providing last mile logistics services, has completed US$300 million series D round of financing from DST Global, Sequoia Capital and other unnamed investors, according to Chinese media reports. Launched in 2014, Dada operates through Imdada.cn and is valued at over US$1 billion after the completion of the latest round.
- General Motors Inc and Lyft Inc Monday announced an alliance to develop an on-demand network of autonomous vehicles as well as a $500 million investment by the automaker as part of a $1 billion fund-raising round by the ride-sharing service. The two companies said the partnership, which involves one of GM’s largest investments in another company, stemmed from their shared view that autonomous vehicles will first reach consumers as part of a ride-sharing service, rather than vehicles owned by drivers.
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