Daily funding roundup - June 3, 2015

Fourkites raised $1.25M; Plot.ly landed $30M; Mic nabbed $17M

• Chicago-based FourKites, a provider of trucking logistics for shipping companies and freight brokers, landed $1.25 million in seed funding, its first round since being founded in 2012. The round was led by Hyde Park Venture Partners, based in Chicago.
  
  
• The new business intelligence startup, Plot.ly which is based in San Francisco, just nabbed $5.5 million in a Seed round of financing, just a couple years after starting in August 2013. The round was led by MHS Capital, Siemens Venture Capital, Rho Ventures, Montreal-based Real Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank. 
  
  
• E-commerce company ICustomMadeIt, which sells customised merchandise, raised Rs 1.59 crore (about $250,000) in its second round of funding from TV author and screenwriter Virendra Shahaney and Paresh Doshi, a stereotactic and functional neurosurgeon.The Pune-based startup, founded in May 2013, raised its first round of funding of $150,000 in December last year, and launched operations in February. "There is a general misconception that customisation of products, including bespoke ones, is an expensive affair, compared to regular merchandise purchases," said Raj Iyer, chairman and MD of the startup.
  
  
• AmnioLife Corporation, a human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue-based products developer, closed an $833 thousand in a Series A round through an angel investment fund.  Fountainhead Investment Partners, a healthcare angel investment fund, led the round and is working closely with AmnioLife to structure strategic partnerships with medical device companies.
  
  
• Virtual Software Systems (VS2), a Waltham, Mass.-based cybersecurity startup, completed a $2 million round of seed funding. Backers included Bulldog Investors, Sequel Capital Management, and a number of private investors. The company intends to use the funds to hire additional engineers and develop partnerships to bring its solution to market later this year.
  
  
• DMG Information (DMGI) led a $3 million (Rs 18.3 crore) Series A round of funding in Mumbai-based commercial real estate intelligence provider Propstack Services Pvt Ltd. DMGI is a subsidiary of UK-based media house Daily Mail and General Trust, the publishers of British newspaper Daily Mail. Real Capital Analytics, which provides a suite of reports and tools to research commercial real estate, has also participated in this funding round. Two-year old Propstack serves corporates, funds, rating agencies, brokers, property owners and developers with information on commercial buildings in Mumbai. It will use the funds to expand its services to the commercial real estate hubs of Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The company also aims to launch additional products and augment its headcount.
  
  
• Drug discovery platform Atomwise raised $6 million in seed funding to dig deeper into artificial intelligence and potentially speed up the process in which we discover new drugs. The funding came from VC firms that all have some sort of a science-focused component. Data Collective led the round, with participation from Khosla Ventures, DFJ, AME Cloud Ventures and OS Fund.
  
  
• Lawn care startup LawnStarter nabbed $6 million in Series A funding. The company describes itself as “your personal lawn care concierge” — the idea, said co-founder Steven Corcoran, is to express LawnStarter’s “focus on customer experience.”
  
  
• Chennai-based speech recognition solutions company Uniphore received a new investment from IDG Ventures. They had earlier raised their Series A round from Kris Gopalakrishnan (Co-founder of Infosys) and prior to that they had received  investment from IDG Ventures India, India Angel Network, Ray Stata, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Analog Devices, Inc. and YourNest Angel Fund among others in 2014.
  
  
• Boulder-based toy maker Sphero, maker of the BB-8 robot toy modeled after a robot that will appear in the next "Star Wars" movie, said it's secured an additional $45 million. Investors were led by Mercato Partners and additional investors include a subsidiary of  and Foundry Group. The company was formerly known as Orbotix and has now raised a total of $80 million.
  
  
• Mirror nabbed $8.8m in Series A financing to reposition itself as a smart contract trading platform built on bitcoin's blockchain. Led by Ripple Labs investor Route 66 Ventures, the round also included Battery Ventures, Crosslink Capital, RRE Ventures and Tim Draper. As part of the deal, Route 66 venture partner Pascal Bouvier will join Mirror's board of directors.
  
  
• Mic, a news and media company aimed at a millennial audience. The company nabbed $17 million Series B round and that it’s hired Madhulika Sikka, previously executive editor at NPR News, to take on the same title at Mic. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Also taking part were Axel Springer and existing investors including Lerer Ventures, Jim Clark, Advancit Capital, Red Swan Ventures, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This brings the total raised to $32 million, including a $10 million Series A amount in April 2014.
  
  
• Skeleton Technologies, Europe’s manufacturer of high-performance ultracapacitors for transportation, industrial and grid applications, completed Series B financing of €9.8 million ($10.7 million) from a consortium led by a strategic investor in the electrical equipment sector. The round has been led by NASDAQ OMX Tallinn noted Harju Elekter Group (HAE1T), which owns electrical equipment manufacturing plants in the Nordic-Baltic markets, and UP Invest, one of largest investment firms in the Baltic region. Skeleton Technologies plans to use the funds for ramping up production of their graphene-based ultracapacitors to meet the strong demand for electrical engineering applications from a growing customer base, including hybrid truck manufacturers, Tier 1 automotives and grid-scale energy storage companies. Last month, Skeleton Technologies announced a deal with the European Space Agency to send ultracapacitors into orbit for the first time in the European programme.
  
  
• Nubank, which has developed a platinum Master Card credit service that you apply for and manage using only your mobile phone, completed $30 million. The Series B round was led by new investor Tiger Global Management, with existing backers Sequoia Capital, Kaszek Ventures and QED Investors also participating. The company is not disclosing its valuation in this round.
  
  
• VideoBlocks, a provider of royalty-free stock video, closed an $8 million funding round led by North Atlantic Capital. The funding comes after Reston, Va.-based VideoBlocks raised a $10.5 million in Series A round in 2012, led by Updata Partners with participation from QED Investors. “This year we see the opportunity to invest more heavily in video stock footage and support our quickly growing stock-marketplace business,” said VideoBlocks founder and CEO Joel Holland. The funding from North Atlantic Capital is a venture-debt deal, which means the investment firm doesn’t own an equity stake in VideoBlocks, Holland said. “It’s an interest payment so we didn’t have to give up any meaningful equity,” he said.
  
  
• Auspherix Limited (UK), an early stage anti-infectives company originated in Sydney, Australia, secured £6m in Series A venture financing. The round was led by new investor Imperial Innovations plc (AIM IVO) with participation from Australian founding investor the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF). The company, which is establishing operations on the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst site just outside of London, UK, intends to use the funds to advance its drug discovery program, expand the management team and recruit a microbiology team.
  

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