Daily funding roundup - February 16, 2016

Seven Bridges announced $45M Series A; LiveAction raised $36M; Joi Scientific secured $5M funding

• Giphy, a service that acts like a hub for the short animated images, raised $55 million in funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from General Catalyst Partners, RRE, Betaworks, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, CAA and other existing investors. With this funding, the company has now raised nearly $80 million, and is valued at $300 million. 
  
  
• Foodscovery, an Italy-based online and mobile platform to acquire Made-in-Italy food products directly from producers, raised €800,000 (approximately $891,440) in funding. Backers included publisher Editoriale Il Fatto (€250,000 /owning a 7% stake), FI.R.A. (€300,000 /today owning 29,6%, having previosly made a €500,000 investment), AIM Italia-listed Digital Magics (3%) and business angels Claudio Di Zanni (2,6%) and Rosario Didonna (0,8%).
  
  
• Grana, a Hong Kong-based online clothing retailer, secured an additional $3.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by Golden Gate Ventures, with participation from MindWorks Ventures and Bluebell Group. The company, which has raised $6 million to date, will use the funds to build out its global team, continue to grow abroad following the recent launch in the U.S. (and China) markets, opening additional locations in the U.S., as well as to launch new product categories such as leather goods, undergarments and activewear.
  
  
• Pune based bespoke products startup Icustommade raised $4 million from Times Group’s Brand Capital, Siddhivinayak Skyscrapers, an undisclosed corporate giant and Dinesh R. Challa, IIT Roorkee alumnus; in its Pre-series A funding round. The company aims to use the funds to advertise its brand and offerings through various media publications of Bennett, Coleman. With this partnership, Icustommadeit seeks to expand presence in 18 target cities and also start its global operations.
  
  
• Joi Scientific Inc., a clean energy company that produces hydrogen gas, closed its Series A Round funding. The company raised more than $5 million in the over-subscribed round. The funds will be used to advance the product development and commercialization of its proprietary Hydrogen 2.0™ technology. Hydrogen 2.0 is the world’s first on-demand hydrogen production process based on the clean and cost-effective extraction of hydrogen from water at the point-of-use.
  
  
• Wavefront, a California-based provider of a data analytics platform to prevent outages, raised $11.5 million in Series A funding. The Series A round was led by Sequoia Capital. In conjunction with the funding, Bill Coughran from Sequoia joined Wavefront’s board. The company has raised $20.5m to date from Sequoia, Sutter Hill Ventures, and the Webb Investment Network.
  
  
• Data visualization startup Zoomdata closed a $25 million Series C round of funding led by Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs. Joining Goldman’s Principal Strategic Investments Group in the round was new investor Comcast Ventures and previous backers Accel Partners, Columbus Nova Technology Partners and New Enterprise Associates, based in Chevy Chase. Zoomdata raised a $17 million Series B round in October 2014 and a $4.1 million Series A round in July 2013.
  
  
• LiveAction, Inc., an enterprise IT network visibility software platform, landed a $36 million Series B round of financing in order to expand operations globally and accelerate feature product development, further establishing LiveAction as the visibility software standard for the Global 2000. New York-based venture capital and private equity firm Insight Venture Partners led the investment round with participation from prior investors Accelerate-IT Ventures and Cisco Investments. As part of the transaction, Insight Managing Director Michael Triplett, as well as Phillip Vorobeychik, senior associate at Insight, will join the board of directors.
  
  
• Seven Bridges, a biomedical data analysis company, announced $45 million in Series A fundraising, led by Kryssen Capital, an international investment fund that focuses on data-driven ventures at the cutting edge of science. The investment will support ongoing innovation of the Seven Bridges Platform, a scalable, cloud-based suite of tools for biomedical data analysis that powers genomic research focused on cancer treatment and precision medicine.

VC's Raised Funding

• Purdue University raised $10 million is available to help entrepreneurs create and grow their startups. The Purdue Startup Fund will be jointly funded by Purdue alumni and the Purdue Research Foundation. University President Mitch Daniels says that while the university already has several funding competitions and programs to help advance startups, the Startup Fund presents an opportunity for alumni to become even more engaged by financially supporting the translation of Purdue innovations to the public.
  

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Image source: crowdfundbeat.com