Daily funding roundup - November 17, 2015

Mitos Suson · November 17, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/417c

Earnest bagged $275M; Datto raised $75M; IIX Inc. secured $26M

  • Skulpt, creator of a device for measuring body fat percentage and muscle quality, today announced that it had raised $4.1 million in a Series A funding round led by Nautilus Venture Partners, with participation from Caerus Venture Partners. Caerus led Skulpt’s $1.6 million seed round last year. Impressively, Skulpt first got its footing in 2013 (four years after its founding) through a crowdfunded campaign on Indiegogo.

  • Indotrading, an Indonesian online B2B marketplace, raised funding from Golden Gate Ventures. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. According to a written note, the company is also backed by OPT SEA, GMO Venture Partners, Convergence Ventures, Aucfan, and Rebright Partners. The company will use the capital to expand operations.

  • Today, McKesson Ventures announced an undisclosed strategic investment in cloud-based home care platform ClearCare. The latest round of strategic funding follows an $11 million funding round in 2014, led by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), with participation from Cambia Health Solutions and existing investors Voyager Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Harbor Pacific Capital. Prior to this strategic investment by McKesson Ventures, ClearCare raised $15.5 million.

  • Wells Fargo & Company today announced it has provided a $1 million Equity Equivalent Investment (EQ2) to Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers, a 501(c)3 organization that provides small business loans and technical assistance to emerging entrepreneurs who may be challenged to meet traditional underwriting criteria by virtue of being a start-up or those who have credit challenges and/or a shortfall of collateral. MCCD will use the $1 million to fund its Open to Business program, allowing them to directly fund as many as 80 emerging entrepreneurs who would otherwise be unable to access the capital they need to pursue their dreams. 

  • SDK management startup SafeDK launches with $2.25 million in funds from an investment led by StageOne VC. SafeDK said its service monitors third-party SDKs in real time to warn developers about prospect privacy, performance, and stability issues. By doing so, developers can choose to turn off certain SDK features without affecting the app’s functionality. Eddy Shalev, Marius Nacht, and Kaedan Capital also participated in the funding round.

  • BridgeU, a London start-up which promises to make “education decision-making intelligent”, has scooped $2.5 million seed investment in deal led by Octopus Investments. Fresco Capital, Seedcamp and high-profile investors including Founders Forum’s Jonnie Goodwin and Deborah Quazzo, also backed the round. It will use the investment to expand and diversify its range of programmes to include foundation degrees, online programmes and alternatives to traditional higher education such as apprenticeships and vocational training.

  • TinyRx officially launches today with a mission of improving healthcare outcomes for consumers by driving lower costs, greater convenience, and improved quality of care. Available to consumers in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, TinyRx is a service for convenient prescription delivery and management. To-date, the company has raised $5 million in financing from Eight Partners, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale's recently-announced venture capital fund; Google Ventures; Stanford's StartX; and multiple seed funds and angel investors, including founders and early employees from companies like Google, Airbnb, athenahealth, and Collective Health.

  • Blockchain payments startup Align Commerce has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by storied Silicon Valley investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). Rounding out the all-star cast of investors were first-time and repeat firms including Digital Currency Group, FS Venture Capital, Pantera Capital, Recruit Ventures Partners and SVB Ventures, the investment arm of Silicon Valley Bank. The new funding, which follows an undisclosed seed round in April, will be used to expand Align's service beyond the 60 countries it serves today. 

  • Salesfusion, an Atlanta, GA-based provider of a marketing automation platform for small and medium sized-businesses (SMB), closed a $13.5 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Noro-Moseley Partners, with participation from BLH Venture Partners, Alerion Ventures, Tech Square Ventures, Ellis Capital, Dave Williams, and Hallett Capital, which was the sole Series A investor. The company, which has now raised $14.5 million in total to date, intends to use the funds to launch its new product, Salesfusion 360x, increase its market reach and expand its sales team.

  • Irvine, California-based software company Numecent said today it has raised a new round of $15.5 million from a broad range of European investors as the company seeks to expand its cloud-based services beyond Windows. The series B round includes $4.5 million from Deutsche Telekom, with the rest from “European industrialists, family offices and private equity firms,” according to Numecent. Deutsche Telekom also led the company’s series A round. Numecent has now raised a total of $38 million.

  • Toronto's Blueprint announced today that it has secured $23 million in funding, led by US-based Centana Growth Partners. Blueprint helps enterprise organizations to de-risk and accelerate large, complex IT projects. Customers include JP Morgan Chase & Co., Costco, MetLife, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Sallie Mae and several Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations. With the injection of funds, Blueprint will focus on continued expansion into new, global markets, increased innovation to respond to evolving market needs and interests, and enhanced services with Customer and Partner programs.

  • IIX Inc., a software-defined interconnection company, today announced that it has secured $26 million in Series B funding from a group of investors. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) increased its investment in the company with its participation in this round, and was joined by Formation 8, Drew Perkins, and AME Cloud Ventures (launched by Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang). This latest equity round brings IIX’s total raised funds to approximately $65 million, comprising debt and equity. The company has grown rapidly since completing its Series A round in 2014, and now operates offices in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, as well as a global interconnection footprint that includes more than 150 Points of Presence (PoPs) worldwide. The company will use the capital from its Series B funding to continue the growth of its team, expand its customer base in North America and EMEA, and accelerate its expansion throughout the APAC region.

  • ElMindA Ltd., a pioneer in neuroscience-based technology for analyzing brain network functionality, announced the successful completion of an oversubscribed $28 million Series C financing round. The global syndicate of investors in this round includes Shanda Group, New England Patriots owner – The Kraft Group, Wexford Capital, WR Hambrecht & Co, Palisade Capital Management, OurCrowd and Healthcrest AG and others. Proceeds will be used to continue advancement of ElMindA’s proprietary BNA™ (Brain Network Activation) system, which uses multi-channel EEG-ERP electrophysiology technology to provide a more accurate, objective assessment of brain functionality over time. ElMindA will also use the funds for commercial and clinical adoption following BNA’s 2014 FDA clearance in the U.S., and CE Mark approval in Europe for brain function assessment.

  • Datto, a company that specializes in backing up and keeping corporate data safe, now has another $75 million in funding. This Series B round, led by Technology Crossover Ventures, comes atop $25 million in earlier Series A funding from General Catalyst. In a statement, company founder and chief executive Austin McChord said the company was already profitable, and that it would use the latest investment to expand into Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

  • Earnest, one of the new online lenders using smart algorithms to serve millennials who may have short credit histories, announces Tuesday $275 million in new funding. Seventy-five million dollars of that is a series B round led by venture capital firm Battery Ventures, and an additional $200 million comes in the form of lending capital from New York Life and other insurance companies. The company also announced the addition of Battery Ventures general partner Roger Lee to its board.

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

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