Daily funding roundup - June 10, 2015

Mitos Suson · June 10, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/3e26

Spotify raised $526M; Duolingo received $45M; SumUp got $45M

  • Spotify raised an $526 million in a funding round that values the lossmaking music streaming company at $8.5 billion. Investors in the round included Nordic mobile operator TeliaSonera, British asset manager Baillie Gifford, and Canadian hedge fund Senvest Capital, according a person close to the deal. Goldman Sachs, which Spotify hired to raise the funds, also contributed. TeliaSonera said it had invested $115 million for a 1.4 per cent stake in the company. The businesses announced that they would work together to develop areas such as media distribution, data analytics and advertising.

  • Duolingo, a company known for its popular language-learning app, raised another $45 million in funding. The latest round, lead by Google Capital, brings Duolingo's total funding up to $83 million, following a $20 million Series C last year. The language startup says this latest investment, which comes at a $470 million valuation, will "enable the Duolingo team to make the platform even more adaptive, personalized and effective, and to expand the platform’s presence in schools across the globe."

  • Pachyderm, a startup that has built an open source platform for employing containers, such as those made in Docker, for running big data analytics and processing jobs, raised an $2 million in a new round of funding. The funding, which is Pachyderm’s seed round, comes from a cadre of venture capital firms including Data Collective, Foundation Capital, Blumberg Capital, Susa Ventures, Crunchfund (which, for disclosure’s sake, was founded by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington), Caffeinated Capital, Soma Capital, and Ace & Company. Also pitching in were angel investors Paul Buchheit, Jonathan Abrams, Avichal Garg, and Jay Jamison.

  • Tile, a San Mateo, CA-based creator of a wearable object for people not to lose their things, raised $3 million in a Series A extension funding. Khosla Ventures made the investment which represents an extension to a $13 million Series A round, led by GGV CapitalThe company intends to use the funds to continue scaling. introduce new products and, expand the platform.

  • ZypMedia, a programmatic media-buying platform for local advertising formerly known as ExtendTV, closed an $4.4 million Series B round of funding led by Sinclair Broadcast Group. U.S. Venture Partners, an existing investor, participated in the round on a pro-rata basis. Sinclair has also struck a partnership with ZypMedia to use its programmatic media-buying platform for digital advertising in local markets.
     


  • Volta Industries, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of electric car-charging services, nabbed an $4.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Three Bridges Ventures with participation from Riverwood Capital, 500 Startups and Epic Ventures.

  • ANSR Consulting India Pvt Ltd, a corporate consultancy firm focused on bringing multinationals to open their IT back-office operations in India that also runs Bangalore-headquartered startup accelerator Kyron, raised $9 million (Rs 57.6 crore) from Accel Partners with participation of unnamed family offices and individual investors. The funds will be utilised to bring more global in-house captives (GICs) into India in addition to creating an engagement program where startups can work closely and directly with these multinationals, separate media reports that first reported the development citing the company, said.

  • Wynyard Group Limited raised an NZ$40 million to position the company for continued future growth. The placement was well received by a range of institutional and other qualified investors in New Zealand, Australia and Asia with 22,346,369 shares to be issued at a price of $1.79 per share. Settlement of the placement is expected to occur on 12 June 2015. UBS New Zealand Limited acted as sole arranger and underwriter of the placement.

  • Lattice Engines, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of marketing and sales applications, closed an $28 million Series D financing round. The round, which brought total investment to $75 million, was led by River Cities Capital Funds and Piper Jaffray Merchant Banking with participation from Blue Cloud Ventures and previous investors Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). In conjunction with the funding, Sequoia partner Doug Leone joined the company’s Board of Directors along with Robert Heimann, Director at River Cities. Lattice will use its new capital to attract talent through investments in engineering, go-to-market, and its partner ecosystem.
     


  • SumUp, a startup originally founded in 2012 in Berlin that competes against the likes of iZettle and Rocket Internet’s Payleven, landed an undisclosed amount led by Swiss backer Venture Incubator. The exact figure is not being disclosed, but SumUp’s CEO Daniel Klein confirms that the total raised by the company to date is now $45 million (€40 million) and that this latest round values the company in the “healthy hundreds of millions.”
     
  • Pax Labs, the folks responsible for the Pax botanical vaporizer, recieved an $46.7 million in Series C financing led by existing investors, including Tao Capital and Sand Hill Angels, with participation from Fidelity Management & Research Company, Sivia Capital, and many more. The company plans to use the funding to expand internationally — right now Pax only sells products in the United States and Canada — and to deliver even more products in more verticals and categories.
     
  • Ivideon, a Russian startup whose cloud platform allows users to beam video to any device using almost any hardware configuration, scored an $4 million from Russian venture fund Impulse VCThe investment deal was one of 14 agreements signed or announced on day one of Startup Village, totaling a combined $272 million in value, the Skolkovo Foundation reported this past Friday.

  • High Alpha, an Indianapolis, Indiana venture studio focused on conceiving, launching, and scaling next generation enterprise cloud companies, raised $35 million. Backers included Emergence Capital, Greenspring Associates, Hyde Park Venture Partners and strategic angel investors. Led by Scott Dorsey, Managing Partner, High Alpha combines company creation with early stage capital, expertise and resources to build software companies. It is comprised of High Alpha Studio and High Alpha Seed. High Alpha Studio creates, operates and supports new companies by providing product development, sales and marketing, finance, brand and design, and talent development services. High Alpha Seed invests in High Alpha Studio companies and other emerging enterprise cloud companies.

If you would like to be included in our daily funding roundup, please submit your press release to mitos@vator.tv

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Mitos Suson

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