Hedvig raised $18M; Lully closed $2.1M seed round; Prettygreat nets $500k
- Hipster Whale (Crossy Road) co-founders Andrew Sum and Matt Hall invested in Prettygreat, the Brisbane-based indie studio (pictured) founded by former Halfbrick folks earlier this year, to the tune of $500,000 AUS (~$380.1thousand USD). Last year Hipster Whale made a tidy chunk of change on the back of Crossy Road's microtransactions and video ads. Sum told Gamasutra earlier this year that "we far exceeded any financial goals we had," and now he and his compatriot are putting some of that money back into a fellow Australian indie; they will also formally join Prettygreat as shareholders and advisors.
- Vino75, a Florence, Italy-based wine ecommerce startup, raised $250 Thousand
$274.3 Thousand
with Club Digitale. The company intends to use the funds to expand into international markets, extend its catalog, adding producers from abroad and reach 300k subscribers.Co-founded by Andrea Nardi-Dei, Elisa Scapin, Diego Di Sepio and Francesco Limberti, Vino75 is a wine ecommerce company that combines technology and tradition. It today counts a catalog containing over 900 labels coming from 200 producers and a total of 37,000 subscribers.
- Delhi-based Egg Communication Pvt. Ltd, which started out as a Facebook page for foodies last year and is floating an independent website under Eattreatonline.com, landed $350,000 (Rs 2.2 crore) in an angel round of funding from a pool of 15 investors, according to a press release. The investors who participated in the round included DiVitas Capital, filmmaker Homi Adajania, Vogue India’s fashion features director Bandana Tewari, Sussanne Khan (interior designer and former wife of actor Hrithik Roshan), Kalyani Saha (VP communications, Dior Couture, India), Nonita Kalra (former editor, Elle India), Andrea Aftab and Pia Pauro (directors at EATINC and proprietors of Amici and The Imperial Hotel), and Shiv Khanna (director at Catalyst Ventures). Eattreatonline.com is expected to go live next month and expects to generate revenue through advertisements.
- Mumbai-based Newgen Internet Networks raised close to US$940,000 in a pre-series A funding round led by Ventureworks India. The company owns an online beauty video portal called Glamrs. The site explores various genres for women like beauty, health, nutrition, and style and offers engaging content in the form of quick videos. It was founded in 2012 by angel investor Sadarangani, Zubin Sarkari, and Shanel Chellaram. Sardarangani was also the founding angel investor of online travel agency Cleartrip.com and Bangalore-based digital CRM firm Vizury.
- Hong Kong-based travel activities booking startup Klook Travel completed a US$1.5 million seed investment round, led by mainland China tech veteran Xiaoguang Wu, Senior Executive Vice President and CEO of e-commerce, Tencent. It has also launched Klook Mobile, Asia’s first travel activities mobile app available both on iOS and Android. Klook is an online platform that provides travellers with a curated selection of activities and attractions in Asia, which can be booked seamlessly through paperless ticketing, in addition to offering exclusive discounts of up to 50 per cent.
- Lully, a YC-backed startup that built a device to help prevent night terrors, closed an $2.1 million seed round. The company is also presenting at the Highway 1 Accelerator demo day tomorrow, with plans to launch the non-beta generation of the device at the end of this month.
- MeritNation, an online e-learning platform which helps students across Indian schools with their curriculum through self-learning online content, has now gulped in a further $4 Million round from Info Edge (India) Limited. The ed-tech startup, which has raised close to $16 Million in multiple funding rounds, plans to use these funds to ramp up the tech infrastructure behind the smart learning engine which powers its recently launched ‘Meritnation Live‘ platform​.
- Arsenal Medical and 480 Biomedical today raised $26.5 million in combined funding from a committed syndicate of investors to advance their respective product platforms. Arsenal Medical, a company developing novel, polymer based foam and nanofiber products, raised $16 million from Polaris Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, and Intersouth Partners. 480 Biomedical, a clinical stage company developing innovative bioresorbable scaffold products, raised $10.5 million from the same syndicate in conjunction with a long term strategic investor. Both rounds included a conversion of debt, in addition to new equity financing. The companies, which spun out one from the other in late 2011 andcontinue to share lab space and resources, are jointly led by President and CEO Dr. Maria Palasis, who assumed leadership of both organizations in January 2015.
- Hedvig, a company with distributed systems DNA that is reinventing software-defined storage, closed an $18 million Series B funding round. The investment was led by Vertex Ventures with participation from existing investors True Ventures and Atlantic Bridge. Vertex Ventures General Partner In Sik Rhee also joined Hedvig's Board of Directors. With approximately $30.5 million in financing to date, the company will use the latest round of funding to fuel rapid global expansion and address the demands of its growing customer base.
- Cyphort, a pioneer of Advanced Threat Defense (ATD) solutions, secured $30 million in Series C funding. Sapphire Ventures led the round and was joined by all existing investors: Trinity Ventures, Foundation Capital and Matrix Partners. The latest round of funding will be used to help with the security company’s rapid growth and expansion into new markets. The new funding brings Cyphort’s total investment to more than $53 million since inception.
- Latin American mobile commerce powerhouse Movile and Just Eat, the global online take-out service, announced a $50M investment in Brazil’s food delivery service, iFood. The raise brings iFood’s total funding to $62M. Movile and Just Eat are responsible for investing in all but iFood’s original $1.6mm Series A. Movile invested $4.6 million in the company’s B and C rounds, and last year Just Eat funded a $5.7M Series D and merged its Brazil operations with iFood. Movile CEO Fabricio Bloisi and CFO Arthur O’Keefe sit on the board with Jerome Gavin from Just Eat and Dan Faccio from Naspers, which owns a majority stake in Movile.
- Coupa Software, a cloud-based startup that manages company spending, landed $80 million funding round at a valuation of more than $1 billion. The investment was led by T.Rowe Price and Iconiq Capital. Other investors include Permji Invest and existing investors Crosslink Capital, Battery Ventures, El Dorado Ventures and Rally Ventures. The new round brings Coupa's total funding to more than $165 million, the release states. The company said the money will be used to continue to expand internationally, increase sales and product development, among other objectives.
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