Daily funding roundup - March 29, 2016

LeSports bagged $1.2B financing; Betterment raised $100M; Lesson.ly added $5.8M to Series A funding

• Slice Labs, an insurtech startup focusing on on-demand insurance, secured $3.9 million in seed funding, led by Horizons Ventures and XL Innovate. The company is setting out to change the way we look at on-demand insurance, by offering policies that can be purchased with a click. Through imaginative uses of technology, design, and data, Slice Labs allows people in the on-demand economy to purchase insurance when they need it, without committing to annual plans.
  
  
• Lesson.ly, provider of online training software for employees, secured $5 million round of Series A funding led by OpenView Venture Partners. The company had previously raised a $1.1 million round from Allos Ventures. Only a decade old, Boston-based OpenView is true to its name, with explicit information about its investment strategy listed on its website: the firm invests $5-20 million in business-to-business (B2B) software companies with a path to $1-15 million in yearly revenue.
  
  
• Pyze, a new mobile app analytics and engagement solution, launched out of stealth today with $1.7 million in seed funding from DoubleRock and several prominent angel investors. In addition to the seed funding, Pyze has received close to $500 thousand from startup programs by Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft BizSpark Plus, which is enabling Pyze to potentially quickly scale its SaaS business.
  
  
• Central Valley Fund II (CVF) invested $3.3M in mezzanine capital financing to Valley Healthcare Staffing (VHS), a provider of nursing and allied healthcare travel staffing services, in order to facilitate the exit of legacy minority shareholders. The investment was completed in partnership with Founder and CEO Steve Swan, who is the principal shareholder of the Company. Steve Swan willcontinue to oversee the day-to-day operations and support his management team in the ever-evolving healthcare marketplace- which has experienced dramatic growth as aresult of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  
  
  
• Interior design startup Havenly added $5.8 million to a Series A funding the Denver-based company announced in November—bringing the round to $13.3 million total. The add-on was led by San Francisco-based Binary Capital, whose founders have made some big headlines since forming their first fund in 2014—and even before that, with prior investments including Twitter, Instagram, and GrubHub. Havenly’s existing investors, Boulder, CO-based Foundry Group and Chicago Ventures, also participated, according to a statement.
  
  
• Rythm, a Paris, France- and San Francisco-based maker of active wearable products, raised more than $11 million in funding. Backers included French entrepreneurs Dr. Laurent Alexandre and Xavier Niel, as well as public grants. The company intends to use the funds to grow operations. Led by CEO and co-founder Hugo Mercier, Rythm offers Dreem, a personal neurotechnology headband designed to increase sleep quality, which is available now for $349.00 at Rythm.co and is supported via mobile apps on iOS devices.
  
  
• Airfare prediction startup Hopper nabbed $16 million in a round led by BDC Capital IT Venture Fund, in addition to existing investors Omers Ventures, Accomplice, and Brightspark Ventures. This takes the company’s total funding to $38 million. With an extra $16 million in its coffers, Hopper said that it will push for “continued growth” and expand its team in Montreal and Cambridge.
  
  
• BDC Capital has invested $6.7 million in Toronto-based Wave, a company that provides online financial tools for small businesses. This money comes from BDC Capital's new $150 million IT Venture Fund II announced last month. BDC Capital's investment is part of Wave's Series C funding round, which has now raised $22.1 million and includes participation from CRV, The Social+Capital Partnership, OMERS Ventures and an unnamed strategic investor in the fintech sector. Wave has earmarked all Series C funds for the ongoing innovation and development of its suite of tools.
  
  
• Tokyo-based BizReach, a Japanese company providing an online talent search platform under the same name, fundraised about 3.73 billion yen (about $32.9 million) in the second funding round. This round was led by YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, investing 1.6 billion yen ($14 million), with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment, Dentsu Digital Holdings,Gree, Rakuten, Link and Motivation, EFU Investment Limited, East Ventures, and IMJ Investment Partners.
  
  
• Betterment, a digital investment startup based in New York, raised $100 million in a Series E round venture funding led by Kinnevik, a Swedish investment firm. The firm previously raised $105 million in funding; existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Anthemis Group, Menlo Ventures, and Francisco Partners participated. Including the funding, the deal values Betterment at $700 million, up from $450 million in 2015.
  
  
• LeSports, a China’s Internet-based eco-sports company and independently funded subsidiary of global technology brand LeEco, secured $1.2 billion (RMB 8 billion) in Series B financing. Backers included HNA Group – the Chinese conglomerate involved in aviation, holding, capital, tourism and logistics divisions – as well as several celebrity investors, including Sun Honglei, Jia Nailiang and Liu Tao. The round brings the company’s total investment to $1.35 billion (RMB 8.8 billion) and values the LeEco unit at $3.3 billion (RMB 21.5 billion).
  

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