Daily funding roundup - December 4, 2015

iPinYou bagged $78M; Prosetta raised $31M; ZeroFox secured an additional $27M funding

• Desino, a Cologne, Germany-based wheelchair manufacturer, completed a €500,000 (approximately $546,000) Series A funding round. Backers included Prof. Michael Friebe, the German Business Angel of the Year 2011, who acts as the pool spokesperson for other investing business angels. The company, which is also backed by High-Tech Gründerfonds and Dieter Lorenzen and is currently in talks with an additional institutional investor, will use the funds to open up the German market in 2016.
  
  
• Onovative, which introduced its Core iQ bank marketing software, has raised $1.2 million in a second round of funding. The investment takes the company’s total funding to more than $1.6 million. The round was led by the Bluegrass Angels Fund. Also participating were the Sequel Fund, the Enterprise Angels Community Fund, the Kentucky Enterprise Fund, and Commonwealth Seed Capital, along with individual investors. Onovative says the funds will go toward “fuel(ing) sales growth and product development.” As part of the investment, Onovative relocated from its offices in Jeffersonville, Indiana to its new headquarters in downtown, Louisville, Kentucky.
  
  
• Staffly, an online retail staffing company, announced that it has received $1.25 million in seed round funding. ff Venture Capital led the round with participation from existing shareholders LionBird, Three Fish Capital and WS Ventures. Today’s investment brings the total to just around $2 million, according to the company. Staffly provides vetted staffing for retailers. 
  
  
• LindaCare, a software company specializing in the field of tele-monitoring solutions for chronic disease patients, has announced the closing of a €1.5 million (approximately $1.6 million) Series A financing round, led by Capricorn Venture Partners. The funding will be used to support the development and launch of LindaCare’s product in key markets in Europe.
  
  
• The digitization of government docs scored another win today, this time in the form of a $5 million investment in SeamlessDocs, a startup that offers cloud-based document automation for governments. The new Series A funding comes from the Govtech Fund, a venture capital firm that focuses on emerging government technology startups. Last year, SeamlessDocs raised $2.7 million in seed funding and embedded its digital forms into dozens of state and city departments, including the city of Los Angeles.
  
  
• Teforia, a company that is building an Internet-connected tea infuser that is pitched as being able to brew tea customized for your taste buds, has raised $5.1 million led by UpFront Ventures with participation from Lemnos Labs, PreAngel Wareness and InnoSpring.  The machine tracks earthy, floral, savory, and sweet flavor profiles as well as caffeine and antioxidant levels in loose leaf teas, and based on the user’s feedback saves those preferences in the app. 
  
  
• Israeli 3D sketching developer uMake  has raised $5.2 million in its Series A financing round led by BlueRun Ventures with the participation of AngelList and UpWest Labs. The Tel Aviv-based company, which was founded in April 2014 by CEO Evi Meyer and CTO Erik Sapir, enables user to sketch in 3D on i-Pads.
  
  
• Baobab Studios, a startup that specializes in animated virtual reality content, has notched a $6 million “A” round led by Comcast Ventures alongside participation from HTC and Samsung Ventures. Also joining the funding mix are Advancit Capital, The Chernin Group, Freelands Ventures, Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus and Paypay co-founder Peter Thiel. Fan, who previously served as VP of games at Zynga, said Baobab’s plan is to be “agnostic,” and to develop content for a wide range of VR platforms. Early on, it will also distribute movies with HTC, maker of the Vive headset, powered by SteamVR.
  
  
• ZeroFOX, a social media cyber security, has raised an additional $27 million in capital to provide detection and defense for social media security threats. Previous investors NEA, Genacast Ventures and Core Capital also participated in the round, along with Silicon Valley Bank. Finally, several industry veterans participated in the round as strategic investors, including Lane Bess, former CEO of Palo Alto Networks; Tim Eades, CEO of vArmour; and Avi Rubin, the Technical Director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
  
  
• Prosetta Biosciences, Inc., a San Francisco, CA-based biotechnology company focused on human and animal treatments and therapeutics, raised approximately $31 million in Series D funding. Backers included Alger Management and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, among others. The company intends to use the funds for research and development, with an emphasis in the fields of central nervous system diseases and disorders, oncology, inflammation, antiinfectives, vaccines, animal health and biodefense, among other fields, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
  
  
• Beijing-based iPinYou, a programmatic digital ad buying firm, has completed a RMB500 million ($78 million) new round of financing led by China Mobile Innovation Industry Fund, Beiguang Wenzi Gehua Fund and Shenzhen Capital Group. In an announcement, iPinYou says it has also dismantled its variable interest entity (VIE) structure to become a Chinese company, with an aim for a domestic listing very soon. The company says it will use the proceeds to accelerate its international business with a focus on cross-border marketing.

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