Daily funding roundup - January 15, 2016
Huanxi invested $50M in Mubi; Taulia Inc.received $46M; Keyme secured $20M funding
- The Wireless Registry, a San francisco, CA-based global registry for wireless names and identifiers, raised $1.7 million in funding. Backers included members of the founding teams of Neustar and Blackbird (sold to Raytheon), as well as American Family Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures, and Point Judith Capital. The company intends to use the funds to continue building its team, scale its technology platform, and grow its customer base.
- Data provider Social123 has raised $4.25 million in venture capital. Social123 helps companies identify marketing and sales leads and keep their contact data up-to-date. The Series A was led by Vocap Investment Partners and included existing investors Ellis Capital and serial Internet Security Systems’ co-founder Tom Noonan. The capital will be invested in product development and sales and marketing.
- Estimote, a beacon company whose small, wireless sensors and accompanying software provide indoor location technology to some of the largest retailers as well as 65 percent of the Fortune 100, has now closed on $10.7 million in Series A funding. The round will help the business scale to meet the needs of its current customer base, around half of which is retail, as well as fund R&D efforts related to what’s next. The new round was led by Javelin Venture Partners, and included new investors Homebrew, Box Group, Digital Garage, Commerce Ventures, and a group of strategic angel investors, including Josh McFarland, who just sold TellApart to Twitter. Existing investors from Estimote’s seed round also participated.
- MiMedia Inc., a personal cloud for digital content, including photos, video, music and documents, has closed a $15 million Series C funding round led by some of the most distinguished global family offices, including Thorney Investment Group (Australia), Whitebarn Associates, R&R Venture Partners, as well as a strategic investment from Micromax Informatics, India's leading smartphone manufacturer. This round brings the total invested capital to date to $35 million. The new funding will enable MiMedia to accelerate growth, expand its management team and support its existing and launched global distribution partnerships with some of the world's largest tech, media and telecom companies.
- KeyMe, a cloud-based locksmith that saves and duplicates nearly every type of key, today announced a $20 million Series B round of financing led by Comcast Ventures with additional participation from Battery Ventures, White Star Capital, 7-Ventures, the venture arm of 7-Eleven, Ravin Gandhi, Coinstar founder Jens Molbak and The Michael Polsky Family Office, among others. The investment will enable KeyMe to launch its next generation of kiosks in new markets nationwide, expand its proprietary technology to support even more sophisticated automotive transponder keys, scale kiosk production and expand its executive team.
- Fugue (formerly known as Luminal), a Frederick, MD-based startup developing an operating system for cloud computing, raised $20 million in Series C financing round. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from previous investors Core Capital. The company, which has raised total financing to $34m, also announced its rebranding to Fugue [few-g], which is the name of its cloud operating system.
- PlaceIQ, a company building a new model of consumer behavior by connecting physical and digital activities across time, space and mobile devices, yesterday announced a $25 million Series D funding round and the addition of business leader George Bell to its Board of Directors. The funding will fuel further development of PlaceIQ's industry-leading, location-based audience platform, which currently provides consumer analytics and media targeting for the world's largest brands in retail, CPG, automotive, entertainment, travel and more. The funding will also further investment in the award-winning Place Visit Rate (PVR®), PlaceIQ's foot traffic measurement technology that provides granular data on consumer visitation across the entire purchase journey.
- Taulia Inc., a financial supply chain company, today announced that it raised $46 million in Series E financing, led by London-based Zouk Capital. New strategic investors and institutional investors joined the round, which included all existing institutional investors. In additional news, Taulia named seasoned Silicon Valley financial executive John Varughese as CFO. "This additional investment allows Taulia to further accelerate its rapid expansion," said Cedric Bru, CEO of Taulia.
- Streaming service Mubi is set to launch in China after the company agreed a joint venture that will see it receive US$50 million investment from Hong Kong entertainment firm Huanxi Media. Huanxi will plough US$40 million into Mubi China for a 70% stake in the JV and is investing a further US$10 million for an 8% stake in Mubi itself, which offers movies via the web and mobile apps in more than 200 territories.
- Jawbone has raised a new round of funding, bringing in $165 million from The Kuwait Investment Authority to fund its operations. The company also revealed that president Sameer Samat will be leaving to take another job at Google. However, he’ll remain associated with Jawbone both as an advisor and investor. First reported by Re/code, Jawbone has since confirmed the new investment, with a company spokesperson telling VentureBeat that it’ll use to “fund operations and growth and bring new products to market.” Additionally, in an effort to retain its talent, Jawbone has also created a 30 percent equity pool for its current employees.
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: snapmunk.com
Mitos Suson
I produce Vator Events and enjoy the challenge. I am learning and growing a lot, being involved with Vator and loving every moment of it!
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Javelin Venture Partners
Angel group/VC
Joined Vator on
Invests in early-stage tech companies with incredible potential, managed by teams of energetic, trustworthy and capable leaders. Key focus areas include digital media, Internet commerce, mobile and healthcare IT. Javelin looks for advanced bleeding-edge innovations, where the addressable market size is substantial and strong competitive advantages exist. A typical investment is between $1 to $4 million, with reserves for follow-on investments. In addition, Javelin also considers smaller seed investments for unique companies just getting started. Located in downtown San Francisco, while invests throughout the world. Javelin is a very active investor with a long-term outlook and the objective of creating substantial value.
NEA
Angel group/VC
Joined Vator on
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When it is time to take a promising business or business idea to the next level, entrepreneurs want a venture partner who understands and believes in the power of big dreams, bold visions and fresh ideas that have the power to change an industry, a sector, the world.
Moreover, entrepreneurs want a venture partner who knows what it takes—through first-hand experience and carefully nurtured relationships—to make a company succeed, to turn an idea into an action, and to make a plan a reality.
For more than 30 years, NEA has been helping to build great companies. Our committed capital has grown to $13 billion, including a $2.6 billion fourteenth fund closed in 2012. We invest across stage and geography in technology, healthcare and energy.
Remaining nimble as we’ve grown—with more than 65 investment professionals working out of our offices in the US, India, and China and investing across the globe—NEA is the entrepreneur's venture capital firm, consistently ranking among the top firms in portfolio IPOs each year. Since its founding, the firm has backed more than 175 companies that have gone public and invested in more than 290 companies that have been successfully merged or acquired—more liquidity events than any other venture capital firm.
Whether you are seeking investment to get your idea off the ground or looking to propel a proven idea toward greatness, NEA is the venture partner who will be there—because we’ve been there—every step of the way.
Battery Ventures
Angel group/VC
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