Daily funding roundup - July 17, 2015

Protagonist Therapeutics bagged $40M; Upstart raised $35M; Courtagen secured $20M

• CredSimple, a startup building a medical credentialing database, snagged $1.5 million in seed funding to help healthcare and insurance companies manage their doctor networks. Bowery Capital led the round, with participation from Primary Venture Partners and a handful of angels.
  
  
• ShoCard raised $1.5 million from Morado Ventures Partners, AME Cloud Ventures, Enspire Capital and Digital Currency Group. ShoCard certifies and stores ID documents into the Blockchain, so that you can securely retrieve them later and prove your identity whenever you need to. Its first use case is for bank and credit card identification processes.
  
  
• Privitar, a new British tech firm looking to transform the way organisations use sensitive personal or private information, has closed a $1million seed funding round. Privitar attracted over $1million of seed financing in an oversubscribed funding round from investors including: Tom Glocer and Sir Peter Job (both former chief executives of Reuters), Rockspring CEO David Gammon and David Cleevely, founder of Abcam, Cambridge Angels and the Centre for Science and Policy in Cambridge, and co-founder, Gerard Buggy who is CTO of First Derivatives.
  
  
• Mumbai-based startup LivQuik, the parent company of mobile payment service QuikWallet, raised $1.6 million in a fresh round of funding from its existing investor Snow Leopard Ventures. The startup will use the freshly raised funds in scaling the team, technology, and merchant base. QuikWallet is a mobile wallet service that lets you pay the bill from your cellphone – no cash or card needed. The startup touted as India’s first mobile app for restaurant and retail payments.
  
  
• New York City-based food media company Spoon University raised $2 million in seed funding. The round was led by SoftTech VC with participation from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Box Group, VaynerRSE, BBG Ventures, MATH fund, Joanne Wilson, Howard Morgan, Project Mayhem Ventures, Kosinski Ventures and RuggedVC. In conjunction with the funding, Stephanie Palmeri of SoftTech VC will join the board.
  
  
• Angiodroid, a San Lazzaro di Savena (Bologna), Italy-based medical technology startup, landed $1.6 million in funding. Backers included Innogest, ZernikeMeta Ventures – via Ingenium Emilia-Romagna, and members of Italian Angels for Growth. The company intends to use the funds to increase sales efforts and to introduce new products in its sector of focus.
  
  
• InnaVirVax, a biopharmaceutical company specialized in research and development of therapeutic solutions for infectious and major chronic diseases, completed its third funding round which secured $4 Million from its historical investors. The FCPR CapDecisif 2, G1J Ile-de-France, Pradeyrol Development, Fa Dièse and FRCI (Fonds Régional de Co-Investissement d’Ile-de-France) funds have decided to reinforce their support for, and confidence in, the company.
  
  
• Workspot, a cloud-based provider of mobile workspace solutions, raised $5 million from a network of investors. The funding is led by Helion Ventures along with Translink Capital and Qualcomm Inc., through its venture investment group, Qualcomm Ventures. The funding will be used to advance Workspot’s powerful technology even more and expand their marketing initiatives.
  
  
• Guidebook which gives any organization the ability to easily create and manage native iOS and Android apps for venues and events nabbed $10 million to date in seed and Series A funding. London-based Mosaic Ventures co-led the financing with MHS Capital. With the help of their investors, Guidebook plans to continue its rapid growth in Europe. As part of the Series A financing, Toby Coppel, one of Mosaic's founding partners, has joined Guidebook’s board of directors.
  
  
• Massachusetts startup Courtagen roped in $20 million to support development of its genetic tests for pediatric neurology disorders. Existing investors such as Harbor Light Capital and Adler & Co. contributed financing, and new investors including Bunker Hill Capital and First Analysis also participated in the round. The company added two board members as part of the financing, appointing Bain & Co. partner Chuck Farkas as a board member and First Analysis managing director Tracy Marshbanks as a board observer.
  
  
• Chinese cooking community Xiachufang raised a $30 million series B funding, its first since the company’s 2012 series A. The new round was led by China Growth Capital, with ecommerce giant JD.com and previous investors Ceyuan Ventures and Zhixin Capital also investing.
  
  
• Online lending platform Upstart raised $35 million in Series C funding to expand its services. Third Point Ventures led the round with participation from existing investors such as Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital and Collaborative Fund. The company has raised $42.7 million to date.
  
  
• Bay Area startup Protagonist Therapeutics bagged a $40 million Series C to advance its oral, peptide-based gastrointestinal drugs – taking a precision medicine approach to ultimately go up against the top-selling “mabs.” The new funding round was led by new investor Canaan Partners, along with Adage Capital Management, RA Capital Management and Foresite Capital. All the company’s other investors – Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Lilly Ventures, Pharmstandard International and Starfish Ventures – joined the new round as well.

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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