Daily funding roundup - October 1, 2015

Mitos Suson · October 1, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/4072

General Assembly raised $70M; Neon Therapeutics secured $55M; Dolly landed $8M

  • Social Finance (SoFi for short), a lending startup has raised a monster round of funding, taking $1 billion from SoftBank, with existing Third Point Ventures and affiliates of Third Point LLC, Wellington Management Company LLP, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), RenRen, Baseline Ventures, DCM Ventures and other investors also participating. The round comes only around six months after SoFi raised a $200 million round in February of this year. The company has now raised a total of $1.42 billion in venture capital.

  • Dolly, an on-demand moving and delivery service announced a new $8 million funding round on Wednesday, led by Maveron. The round also included participation from Jeff Wilke, senior vice president of consumer business at Amazon; series seed lead investors Chris Capps and Dick Kiphart from KGC Capital; and other angel investors. This round follows a $1.7 million seed round raised in late 2014, giving Dolly a total of $9.7 million in venture funding.

  • MedZed, LLC has raised $3.2 million from accredited investors to develop its technology-enabled house call platform.  MedZed uses a combination of in-home caregivers and technology to connect high-risk patients to their medical team. MedZed began conducting home-based care in Atlanta in 2014 and expanded to New York this past summer.  During the fourth quarter of 2015, the company is launching a program with a large healthcare delivery system in Southern California.

  • Aceable Inc., a driver’s education mobile app developer, has completed a $4.7 million round of seed financing. The Austin company that was founded in late 2012 plans to use the capital to expand its national presence in drivers education, hire workers and enter into new markets and verticals, according to a company announcement. Investors included Silverton Partners, Floodgate Ventures, NextGen Angels and the Capital Factory.

  • NodePrime emerged from stealth with a $7 million seed funding round, with participation from Menlo Ventures, NEA, Formation 8, Ericsson, Initialized Capital, Crosslink Capital and TEEC Angel Fund. The company also announced the NodePrime Platform, the first software-defined datacenter platform that allows companies to centrally view, diagnose and control their IT infrastructure in minutes. Companies that use the platform include SAP, Ericsson and GoDaddy.

  • CampusLogic, a student financial aid self-service platform, announced the closing of a $7.5 million Series A led by Continental Investors (Chicago), with participation from Great Lakes Higher Ed. This round includes the successful conversion of an earlier $4.1 million raise led by NY-based venture fund University Ventures with participation from Continental Investors, Desert Angels, and Arizona Technology Investors-among other private investors.

  • French dating app Happn just raised a $14 million Series B round from Idinvest with participation from Alven Capital, DN Capital, Raine Ventures and business angels, such as Fabrice Grinda, David Wolfson and Gil Penchina. Previously, the company had raised an $8 million Series A round. As a reminder, Happn uses your phone’s location to show you potential matches. Every time you cross someone’s path, this person’s profile will be added to the top of your feed. Then, you can like people and potentially start chatting with them.

  • California and Israel-based BigPanda, a self-described data science platform that promises faster IT solutions to clients, has secured $16 million to expand. Battery Ventures led the Series B funding round and existing investors Sequoia Capital and Mayfield also participated. Scott Tobin from Battery will join the BigPanda board. The startup will use the new infusion of financing, bringing the company’s total funding raised to date to $23 million, to double staff at its R&D center in Israel and to expand its sales and marketing team in the United States, going from 50 employees to over 100.

  • Therachon, a developer of innovative therapies for achondroplasia, announced today that it closed a $35 million Series A round. The funds will be used to advance Therachon’s lead program, a soluble form of human fibroblast growth factor receptor 3, through clinical proof of concept. OrbiMed led the Series A financing and was joined by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), along with existing investors Inserm Transfert Initiative (ITI) and Versant Ventures. Joining the Board of Directors are Stephen Squinto, Ph.D., venture partner at OrbiMed, and Sara Nayeem, M.D., Principal at NEA.

  • Elcelyx Therapeutics has raised $40 million in a Series E financing following receipt of guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding the late-stage development of product candidate Metformin Delayed Release (Metformin DR). Proceeds from new investors Sailing Capital, certain investment funds for which Clough Capital Partners, L.P. serves as investment manager, and all existing investors, support the immediate initiation of a large Phase 2b, dose-ranging clinical trial to evaluate Metformin DR. 

  • Neon Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based newly formed immuno-oncology company developing neoantigen-based therapeutic vaccines and T cell therapies to treat cancer, secured $55 million Series A financing. The round was led by Third Rock Ventures, LLC, with participation from Clal Biotechnology Industries and Access Industries. Led by Cary Pfeffer, M.D., interim chief executive officer, and Robert Tepper, M.D., interim chief scientific officer, Neon Therapeutics is advancing NEO-PV-01, a personalized neoantigen vaccine that builds upon initial clinical trials developed collaboratively by the Broad Institute and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute under the leadership of Dr. Catherine Wu, and philanthropically funded in part by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.

  • Digital economy educational startup General Assembly, Inc. has raised $70 million Series D in a round led by Advance Publications and Wellington Capital Management LLP, that included previous investors IVP, Learn Capital, Maveron, Rethink Education, WTI and others. Founded in 2011, General Assembly describes itself a global educational institution that is building a community of individuals empowered to pursue work they love through instruction and opportunity in technology, business, and design.

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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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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