Daily funding roundup - January 27, 2016

Tarveda Therapeutics secured $38M; Branch Metrics received $35M investment; PitchBook raised $10M

• CosmosID, a bioinformatics company focused on microorganisms and infectious diseases, today announced it has closed $6 million in Series B funding led by the Applied Value Group (AVG), a private management consulting and investment firm chaired by Bruce Grant (former head of one of the largest telecommunications carriers in Sweden). CosmosID says it will use the new funding to grow its engineering capabilities, clinical applications, research and development (R&D), and develop new products.
  
  
• PitchBook, a Seattle-based startup that conducts research about investments. The company, which has been around since 2007, has barely taken any funding. Besides a $4.25 million Series A round that closed in 2009, it has been bootstrapped.  As it happens, though, many bootstrapped companies eventually find themselves in a position where they want to grow, but without the money to support it. So they turn to venture capital. Such is the case with PitchBook, which announced on Wednesday that it has raised $10 million in Series B funding. The capital came from Morningstar, who has previously invested in the company. The funding brings PitchBook's total funding up to $14.25 million, at a $160 million valuation. With this latest round, Morningstar now owns 20 percent of the company. 
  
  
• Lever, a SaaS-based recruiting platform, is announcing tomorrow that it has secured $20 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners. Coincidentally, ScaleVP, a big investor in enterprise software providers (like Lever, Box, DocuSign, and HubSpot), just closed $335 million for its Scale Venture Partners V, L.P.. Also participating in Lever’s new round are existing investors Matrix Partners and Index Ventures as well as new investors Correlation Ventures and a syndicate led by Naval Ravikant (CEO and co-founder of AngelList). To date, the company has raised $32.8 million.
  
  
• Singapore-based financial technology (fintech) startup Jewel Paymentech has secured over S$1.5 million ($1 million) in Series A funding, in a round led by Tuas Capital Partners.Others participating in the round were private and institutional investors, including 8capita.The funds will be used to expand the team and roll out solutions to tackle challenges in the payment space, according to Jewel Paymentech.
  
  
• Fabelio, an online furniture marketplace in Indonesia, has raised a $2 million series A round in short order, coming just months after a seed round. The company aims to sell high-quality furniture to Indonesians both from suppliers and in-house designers. Venturra Capital, a new VC firm which has rapidly burst onto the scene, led the round. Existing backers 500 Startups and IMJ Investment Partners also joined.
  
  
• Icejam, a Canada-based mobile games company, raised CDN$3 million (approximately $2.2 million) in seed funding. The round was led by Build Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Patrick Keefe, general partner of Build Ventures, joined icejam’s Board of Directors. The company, which has now raised $3.5 million in total, intends to use the funds for future growth, continue development of its proprietary new Playable Data™ Platform and prepare its first game for market introduction.
  
  
• panOpen has announced the official launch of its learning platform exclusively based on Open Educational Resources (OER), with nearly 100 pilot programs in place at colleges and universities nationwide.  January also marks the close of the second investment round led by Zen Group, LLC, bringing panOpen’s total initial financing to $4.5 million. panOpen plans to use the proceeds to support platform development and institutional outreach.
  
  
• StatMuse, a startup out of San Francisco that currently lets you search for basketball facts and statistics through ordinary “natural” language requests, has picked up a $10 million round of funding. The Series A comes from the Walt Disney Company and TechStars (StatMuse was in a 2015 cohort in the Disney/TechStars Accelerator), along with Allen & Company, Greycroft Partners, Promus Ventures, Haas Portman, Deep Fork Capital, and Bee Partners. The round also included some notable names from the sports world: former NBA commissioner David Stern and United Talent Agency also chipped in.
• Branch Metrics, a tool for app developers and marketers, took in a $35 million investment led by Founders Fund, the startup announced today. New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Pejman Mar Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, and new investor Madrona Venture Group also joined the round for Branch. To date, the startup has raised at least $53 million.
  
  
• Tarveda Therapeutics, Inc., formerly Blend Therapeutics, today announced that it has secured $38 million in Series C financing co-led by new investor Novo A/S and existing investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA). The company also announced the change of its corporate brand to clearly highlight the company’s differentiated approach to treating cancer.

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: cannon.skule.ca