Daily funding roundup - October 27, 2015

Mitos Suson · October 27, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/40f0

Taris Biomedical raised $32M; SimilarWeb scored $25M; Spigit secured $13M

Real-time consumer engagement app OnePulse has closed a $1.07 million seed investment round, led by AngelLab, D5 Capital and the London Co-Investment Fund along with a number of senior brand and technology executives. With an influx in funding, OnePulse is looking to aggressively grow their user base, further enhance their client offering with a 2.0 version of the tool and begin international expansion.
A new Seattle startup has raised $2.5 million from an impressive group of investors to change how shippers connect with trucking companies. Convoy today announced the funding round, which was led by Code.org founders Hadi and Ali Partovi. Other participating investors include Bezos Expeditions — the investment arm of Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos — Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, former Starbucks President Howard Behar, KKR CEO Henry Kravis, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar via Omidyar Technology Ventures, and several others.
Fitness app startup VirtuaGym has announced it raised €2.1 million (around $2.3 millio) in a Series A round from Belgium-based investment firm Saffelberg Investments. The new capital infusion will be used to boost international growth and further the development of the company’s product and services that is both offered to consumers and fitness professionals. The company claims that its app and cloud-based software have been used by over 7 million consumers and 1,800 businesses. Large industry partners include Life Fitness, Matrix and Keiser.
SmartZyme, a biopharmaceutical company utilizing the proprietary Provolution platform for protein design and engineering of both new and better therapeutics, announces the closing of a $4 million investment by OrbiMed, a leading healthcare investment firm. SmartZyme also named Nissim Darvish, M.D., Ph.D., senior managing director at OrbiMed Israel, and Stephen Squinto, Ph.D., venture partner at OrbiMed, to its board of directors.
Commerce Signals, a new data collaboration company serving retailers, mobile operators, banks and payment networks, announced it has secured $4 million in a Series A funding round led by OpenAir Equity Partners. Commerce Signals’ Federated Data platform transforms the way companies share and collaborate on data.
Fieldwire, a San Francisco-based mobile and web platform designed to make collaboration on construction projects more efficient, has raised $6.6 million in fresh funding led by Formation 8. Other participants in the round included Trinity Ventures and earlier backers BloombergBeta and AngelPad, the investment fund and accelerator where the company first gained investors’ attention in the fall of 2013. The round includes $1.1 million in previously disclosed seed funding.
Razorpay, an online payment gateway solution, today announced its series A funding round of $9 million, led by Tiger Global along with participation from Matrix Partners.The startup accepts and validates Internet payments via credit/debit cards, net banking and popular digital wallets from the end customers in real time.
Spigit, a SaaS provider for crowdsourcing innovation, announced today that its parent company Mindjet Corporation has raised $13 million in new financing led by its largest current investor, Investor Growth Capital ("IGC"). Spigit will use the additional funding to amplify global sales and marketing efforts, as well as expand research and development.
SimilarWeb, a website traffic and mobile app analytics, announced on Monday the closing of a $25 million growth equity round led by Naspers, the global Internet and media group, and Investor Lord David Alliance. This round brings SimilarWeb’s total funding to $65 million. The additional capital will be used to aggressively expand the company’s operations including opening new offices and furthering its acquisition strategy.
Marqeta, an Emeryville, California-based Open API issuer processor platform, closed a $25 million Series C funding round. Backers included IA Capital, the team behind NetSpend, CommerzVentures, Max Levchin, 83North, Granite Ventures and Commerce Ventures. The company, which has raised $46 million in total, will use the funds to expand its market reach in the US, to invest in its Open API platform and initiate international expansion in North America and Europe in 2016.
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel and billionaire George Soros are leading a $25 million investment in electronic bond-trading startup TruMid Financial LLC. The New York-based company is among a dozen firms competing to transform the U.S. corporate-debt market as worries mount over the difficulty of trading the $8.1 trillion of securities in existence. The investment, which was joined by Jeff Bahl, the former head of U.S. high-yield credit trading at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other individual investors, would value TruMid at more than $100 million, according to people familiar with the deal
Talentsoft, a company for cloud-based HR software solutions, has raised €25 million (around $27.6 million) in a round exclusively led by Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division. The company is aiming for more international growth, raising the capital to ramp up hiring and shoot for $100 million in revenue by 2018. Next year, Talentsoft wants to recruit 120 new employees.
Taris Biomedical LLC, a Lexington, MA-based company using proprietary delivery technology and expertise in bladder biology to develop novel treatments for urologic diseases, raised $32 million in funding. The round was led by Flagship Ventures with participation from return investor Polaris Venture Partners and new investor RA Capital Management. The company, which last year sold its lead clinical program to Allergan Inc. in a transaction worth up to $587.5 million, including up-front payment, development and commercial milestones, will use the proceeds to advance a new pipeline that targets a range of bladder diseases, launch multiple clinical trials over the next 12 months and further expand the team.