Daily funding roundup - November 23, 2015

ColorChip raised $25M; Quizlet secured $12M; Sportpursuit received $14.4M funding

• South Korean apartment cleaning service WaHome has received $1 million in a seed investment from Sparklabs Global Ventures, Mashup Angels, Fast Track Asia and two individuals: Gabriel Fong, former Chairman, GoGoVan; and actor-turned-businessman Bae Yong-joon. The funds will be used to help WaHome boost its engineering team, roll out new features meant for its app on the iOS and Google Play Store, and further expand in South Korea.
  
  
• Accuitis, Inc. today announced the closing of a $1 million preferred financing round. The financing was a private placement with a significant investment from the recently formed Atlanta based, Bio/Med Investor Network. The Georgia Research Alliance, through its GRA Ventures program, has also granted a Phase IIIA loan. Accuitis expects to use proceeds from this financing to fund continued development of Accuitis’s first in class topical proteasome inhibitor (ACU-D1) for the treatment of Rosacea into Phase 1-2 clinical trials in 2016.
  
  
• NG1 Technologies, an Atlanta, GA-based cleantech solutions company, secured almost $1.5 million in Series A funding. Backers in the round, next to the close, included Band of Angels, Denver-based Sun Strategies as well as a private investor. The company intends to use the funds to expand the manufacturing and distribution for its current product, Tech Flo Exhaust, as well as to continue the current testing, research and development in the areas of fuel savings and emissions reduction.
• Online home appliances and furniture rental startup RentoMojo has raised Rs 13 crore from venture capital firms IDG Ventures India and Accel Partners India, indicating venture capital investors' interest in the sharing economy space is picking up. 
  
  
• HealthCrowd, a San Mateo, California-based healthcare mobile messaging platform, closed $2.1 million in seed funding. Backers included Startup Capital Ventures, Herlitz Capital, Healthy Ventures, Band of Angels, Berkeley Angel Network, and 37 Angels. The company intends to use the funds to scale operations.
  
  
• Ruby Ribbon, Inc. announced that the company has closed $7.5 Million in Series C Funding. The Round was co-led by DBL Partners, of San Francisco, CA, and Direct Selling Capital of Dallas, Texas, and included participation from current investors Trinity Ventures and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Ruby Ribbon is an apparel company creating a powerful brand, thousands of jobs for women and a fanatical customer base by offering technology-powered entrepreneurs the opportunity to sell its products through pop-up and virtual retail events.
  
  
• Europe-based professional moving services operator Movago has raised €7 million (approximately $7.45 million) in Series A funding. DN Capital led the round with participation from other investors that included Holtzbrinck Ventures and Piton Capital. In addition to the funding, Nenad Marovac from DN Capital has been added to Movago’s board of directors.
  
  
• PatientPop, a Practice Growth Platform for healthcare providers, announced today the closing of a $10 million Series A round of funding. San Francisco-based Toba Capital, which invests primarily in business software and technology-enabled services, exclusively funded the round. This brings PatientPop’s funding to a total of $13.3 million. PatientPop previously had raised a $3.3 million Seed round lead by athenahealth in May 2015.
  
  
• Sportpursuit.com, a London, UK-based flash sales site for sports enthusiasts, raised £9.5 million (approximately $14.41 million) in Series C funding. Backers included Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), Grafton Capital and existing investor Draper Esprit. In conjunction with the funding, Stuart Paterson (SEP) and Oliver Thomas (Grafton Capital) joined the Board of Directors of SportPursuit. The company intends to use the funds to continue its UK growth, accelerate its international expansion and develop new products and services.
  
  
• A San Francisco company called Quizlet Inc. has raised $12 million in Series A funding to expand its digital study tools. Investors in Quizlet’s Series A included Union Square Ventures, Costanoa Venture Capital,Altos Ventures and Owl Ventures. The Quizlet app started out as a 15-year-old hacker’s homespun replacement for traditional paper flashcards in 2005. With their firms’ investments, Fred Wilson of USV and Greg Sands of Costanoa VC are joining the edtech startup’s board of directors.
  
  
• Israeli optical communications developer ColorChip has raised $25 million in a financing round led by Israel Growth Partners with participation from Vintage Investment Partners, and existing investors Gemini Israeli Funds and BRM Group. IGP General Partner Haim Shani will be joining the ColorChip's board of directors. Founded in 2001 by Dr. Shimon Eckhouse and Prof. Shlomo Rushin of Tel Aviv University School of Engineering and based in Yokneam near Haifa, to date, the company has raised $60 million with Gemini and BRM leading the previous rounds.
  
  
• ObsEva, a Geneva, Switzerland-based biopharmaceutical company developing a novel generation of drugs addressing serious conditions compromising pregnancy from conception to birth, closed a $60 million Series B equity financing. Backers included new investors HBM Healthcare Investments, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), OrbiMed, Rock Springs Capital as well as existing investors Sofinnova Partners, Sofinnova Ventures, Novo Ventures and MS Ventures. In conjunction with the financing, Ed Mathers from NEA will join ObsEva’s Board of Directors. The company intends to use the funds to progress its late-stage pipeline of novel, oral treatments for women’s reproductive health conditions.
  
  
• U.K.-based Deliveroo, a startup that handles the delivery service for restaurants as well as an online marketplace for customers to browse and order meals, said on Monday that it has raised $100 million in new funding, just a few months after closing $70 million over the summer. The company also said that it’s expanding its service to Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney, giving it its first footprint outside of Europe. Deliveroo now operates in 50 cities, across 12 countries, and plans to use its new funds to continue its international expansion. Yuri Milner’s DST Global and Greenoaks Capital led this latest round in Deliveroo, with additional participation from existing investors Accel, Hummingbird Ventures, and Index Ventures. Deliveroo has now raised $200 million in funding to date.
  
  
• European private equity firm Gilde Buy Out Partners has closed its fifth fund at its 1.1 billion euros ($1.17 billion) hard cap. Gilde Buy-Out Fund V will invest in mid-market companies, focusing specifically on The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The fund’s limited partners include public pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, foundations and family offices.

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: elmcore.com