Daily funding roundup - August 24, 2015

Mirantis announced $100M; PlanSource received $70M; CB Insights raised $1.15M

• As anyone who writes about tech can tell you, getting information on private companies is not easy to get. Unlike with public companies, where the information is all there, private companies don't have to disclose anything if they don't want to, and for good reason. A few recent leaks for Uber and Snapchat, both showing the companies losing oodles of money last year exemplify who private companies remain so secretive. That is what has made the information from CB Insights so valuable. It is a private company database that provides real-time information on companies, their investors, their acquirers and the industries they compete. CB Insights was launched in 2010, but it has not taken any money, until now, revealing on Monday that it has raised $1.15 million from the National Science Foundation.
  
  
• Singapore’s home and office cleaning startup ProperHands raised US$177,000 (S$250,000) from Crystal Horse Investments and Tri5 Ventures. ProperHands matches customers with freelance cleaners and takes care of booking, scheduling, and billing. Co-founder and CEO Wayne Soh says they will use the funds to build an app to fully automate their value chain. According to him, most cleaners are not tech-savvy so it’s tedious for them to allocate and arrange cleaning sessions.
  
  
• Friendsy, a viral new social network for only college students, closed a $500,000 seed round with Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Slow Ventures. To date, Friendsy has raised a total of more than $700,000 from sources including Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Slow Ventures, and Princeton University to prepare for the back-to-school push this fall.
  
  
• dapulse, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based SaaS project management solution provider, secured $2.6 million in the first part of its Series A funding. Backers included Genesis Partners and Entree Capital. The company, which is still in the process of raising funds, intends to use the funds expand its product efforts, enhancing integrations and feature sets.
  
  
• Get Smart Content, a multi-channel personalization platform, announced that it has raised a round of funding worth $3.5 million. The round was led by Origin Ventures with participation by Chicago Ventures and Virgo Capital. This funding comes as Get Smart Content reports strong revenue growth and a growing roster of progressive, enterprise B2B clients, including HP, Siemens, Iron Mountain and Rockwell Automation. The company plans to use the capital to expand its sales team targeting enterprise and mid-market customers, as well as new hires in customer support and services. 
  
  
• Everything But The House (EBTH), an online estate sale marketplace, pulled in $30 million in new funding to help people who are downsizing sell their stuff to bargain hunters and collectors around the world. Greenspring Associates led the Series B round, with participation from previous investors Greycroft Partners and Spark Capital, which brings the company’s funding total to $43 million raised in a ten-month span.
  
  
• Building on the market success of its high performance RF MEMS antenna tuners, Cavendish Kinetics announced that it has completed its final funding round with a strategic raise of $36 million, to accelerate the development of its next generation RF components. Cavendish’s new generation of RF components fully leverages its proven RF MEMS technology, and adds a range of virtually loss-less RF MEMS switches to its growing portfolio of industry leading RF MEMS tuners.
  
  
• Europe based skin cancer detection app, SkinVision has landed an amount of $3.4 million led by global healthcare company LEO Pharma. As part of the deal, LEO Pharma will work with SkinVision’s leadership team on global solutions that can expand the reach of SkinVision’s technology solutions. With the help of the raised funds, SkinVision plans to build on its technology and also establish stronger ties with national healthcare systems in select markets.
  
  
• TrueFacet, a New York-based startup that hosts an online marketplace for luxury jewelry, announced a $2.7 million funding round led by Seattle-based venture capital firm Maveron. Freestyle Capital also led the round, which included participation from previous investors Social Leverage and Seattle-based Founders’ Co-op.
  
  
• Annapolis' Link Labs recently raised $5.7 million in venture capital funding, which will mean more employees and development opportunities. The total includes contributions from TCP Venture Capital's fund for military veterans, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development's venture fund and other individual investors. Located off Riva Road, Link Labs is a wireless technology firm that launched in 2014. It has 15 full-time workers and four part-timers.
  
  
• Freee, an accounting software as a service startup led by ex-Googler Daisuke Sasaki, just confirmed a windfall of JPY 3.5 billion (US$28.7 million) in a series C round. Recruit Holdings, Japan Co-Invest, and a previous investor, Silicon Valley-based DCM, all participated. With this funding, Freee elevates to some rarified air. Since 2014, only three other Japanese startups have broken US$25 million in a single funding round. It joins news aggregator SmartNews (US$36 million), printing solutions firm Raksul (US$34 million), and app monetizer/online payments/robotics startup Metaps (US$36 million).
  
  
• Mirantis, a company that sells a distribution of the OpenStack open-source cloud software, announced a $100 million funding round. Intel Capital led the round, and now Mirantis will be collaborating with Intel to increase enterprise adoption of OpenStack. To date, Mirantis has raised at least $220 million, including the $100 million round announced last October.
  
  
• Europe’s economic and political union recently awarded nearly $4M in non-repayable grants to 31 studios developing narrative-driven game projects, through its Creative Europe initiative. Recipients include The Chinese Room, creator of Everybody’s Gone to The Rapture, The Witcher 3:Wild Hunt developer CD Projekt Red, and browser-based game specialist Bigpoint Games, along with a number of lesser-known studios. The funding is intended to support early-stage development of new narrative endeavors, providing up to 50 percent of development costs. With developers increasingly looking to alternative sources like crowdfunding for financial support, it’s great to see a political body that understands the value of games as a medium for storytelling.
  
  
• PlanSource, a leading provider of cloud-based health exchange and benefits administration technology, received a commitment for a minority equity investment of $70 million from Boston-based private equity firm Great Hill Partners. PlanSource expects to use the funds to drive growth in sales and marketing, invest in continued product innovation, and expand its operating and technology infrastructure.
  
  
• Malaysia-based automotive portal Carsome has raised US$350,000 in seed funding. The round was led by 500 Startups and Idea River Run, and will go towards expansion plans into multiple cities, which will be announced later this year Specifically, the startup will be going to two other countries in the last quarter of the year, and four more early next year, founder Eric Cheng tells Tech in Asia.
  
  
• Europe’s Lakestar has announced a fresh €350 million ($400 million) fund, as the Guernsey-based venture capital (VC) firm looks to plow more cash into European and U.S. startups. Founded and chaired by European VC Klaus Hommels, who was an early investor in Skype, Spotify, Facebook, and other well-known tech companies, Lakestar II is a follow-up to the €135 million ($154 million) fund launched in 2013, which is still active.
  
  

If you are interested in being included in our funding roundup, submit your press release or blog post about your financing round to mitos@vator.tv. 

Image source: techinasia.com