Daily funding roundup - January 29, 2016

BloomReach announced $56M funding; BirdEye raised $8M; Sonovate closed $7.15M Series A funding

• Velo Labs, a San Francisco, CA-based creator of Skylock, a Bluetooth connected bicycle lock, raised $1 million in funding. The round was led by DSCN Capital and Mesh Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to bring the product to market. Founded by Jack Al-Kahwati, Velo Labs has developed Skylock, a Skylock is a bicycle lock that is Bluetooth-enabled and connects to a smartphone allowing for keyless entry and a capacitive touch interface in case the phone runs out of battery. The lock will never run out of power as 12 hours of sunlight will keep it running for six months.
  
  
• Toronto-based native advertising company StackAdapt has secured $1 million in a Series A financing. The round was led by Canadian venture capital firm Plaza Ventures, and builds on StackAdapt’s seed round of September 2014. As a result, Rob Richards , managing partner at Plaza, has joined the company’s board of directors.
  
  
• Cronofy, an API for calendar services, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Firestartr along with henQ. The UK startup will be using the funds to grow its teams in Nottingham and London. “This round is all about growing the team and in turn accelerating growth. We have a series of first-rate people ready to join us and we couldn’t be more excited,” said Adam Bird, CEO. The startup’s API allows developers to integrate their customers’ calendars into their apps, whether it’s for travel services or recruitment and labour platform. Some of Cronofy’s biggest clients include Skyscanner, Zesty, and JobAdder.
  
  
• dopay has secured $2.4 million in pre-series A funding in a round led by Techstars Ventures and Force Over Mass Capital. The UK headquartered startup, which offers a payroll service for the unbanked, was one of the first companies to go through Barclays’ London-based FinTech accelerator. It will use the cash to back up the launch of its services in Egypt and help drive expansion into new markets in the Middle East and Africa.
  
  
• Belgium’s Smappee, which develops energy monitoring solutions, has closed a $2.7 million Series A funding round led by its current CEO and COO. Smappee’s smart traffic controller device monitors the amount of electricity consumed and generated in a building so you can keep tabs, via the smartphone app, on how much energy each of your appliances is using up in real time and what the costs are. This new round of funding will be used to further develop Smappee’s technology and expand its functions to other energy sources like gas and water.
  
  
• nuTonomy Inc., a Cambridge, MA-based developer of advanced software for autonomous vehicles, closed $3.6 million seed funding round. Backers included Signal Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Fontinalis Partners and Dr. Steven LaValle, former Chief Scientist of Oculus VR. In conjunction with the funding, Chris Thomas, a founder and partner of Fontinalis Partners, will join nuTonomy’s Board. The company intends to use the funds for continued growth in the U.S. as well as in Singapore.
  
  
• Truebil, an online market for buying and selling second hand cars, has raised a Rs 35 crore ($5 million) series A funding from venture capital investors Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital and San Francisco-based Tekton Ventures. The rounds also participation from existing investor, Kae Capital. The Mumbai-based startup, whose founders include former Housing employees, is focused on peer to peer sales of cars unlike large classified players like CarDekho and CarTrade.
  
  
• Recruitment contract finance provider Sonovate has closed a £5 million (approximately $7.15 million) Series A funding round led by Dawn Capital, with support from DN Capital. The London-based firm also secured an additional £15 million ($21.5 million) in debt funding provided by Shawbrook Business Credit. Alongside the funding announcement, the company also said Josh Bell, partner at Dawn Capital, would join its board.
  
  
• BirdEye, a software company focused on helping its clients improve their business reputations and customer experiences in real time, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Trinity Ventures. Plenty of Silicon Valley luminaries also piled into the round, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff; Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang; Square’s project engineering lead Gokul Rajaram; Kevin Weil (the former Twitter product head who just hightailed it to Instagram); BranchOut founder Rick Marini; Haystack founder Semil Shah; and angel investor Ellen Levy.
  
  
• Vascular Flow Technologies (VFT), a medical device company using proprietary Spiral Laminar Flow (SLF) technology to replicate natural blood flow for enhanced patient outcomes, today announced that it has closed a £10 million (approximately $14.30 million) financing round. The funds will support VFT’s realignment of business strategy to focus on research and development, as well as the strategic joint development and out-licensing agreements with leading industry partners. The equity round consisted of two concurrent transactions; a £7 million ($10.01 million) loan note restructuring into the Series A Ordinary Preference shares and a £3 million ($4.3 million) Series B capital increase. The Series B financing round was led by an undisclosed family office and supported by institutional and individual angel investors.
  
  
• BloomReach, a cloud personalization platform companies, today announced $56 million in Series D funding from top investors in marketing technology, including Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Salesforce Ventures. Also demonstrating BloomReach's growing presence, joining its Board of Directors is the CEO and co-founder of Guidewire Software, Inc., Marcus Ryu.

VC's Raising Funds

• Susa Ventures, a 2.5-year-old, seed-stage firm with offices in San Francisco, New York, and L.A. , is looking to raise up to $50 million for a second fund, two years after raising a $25 million debut fund. Susa, which invests in companies that are heavily reliant on data as an enabling platform, lists 29 companies on its site.
  
  
• China-based investment firm Qiming Venture Partners is currently raising a $650 million fund – its fifth. While the fund focuses on China-based startups in the information technology, healthcare and clean tech spaces, many of the dollars come from U.S.-based funds. The fund’s expected to close today, a source told China Money Network. This brings Qiming’s total assets under management to $2.3 billion across five U.S. funds and three Chinese funds, CMN said – marking this one of the largest China-focused venture funds. Qiming has invested more than 160 China-based startups, several of its companies now trade on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange.

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. 

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