Daily funding roundup - January 22, 2016

FiveStars raised $50M; IVP led $30M round for Qubole; Iterable closed $8M Series A funding

• D-Eye, a Padua, Italy-based startup that has developed a “digital eye” into the state of the human body, raised €1.5 million (approximately $1.6 million) in funding. Backers included Italian Government co-investment fund Invitalia Ventures, venture capital firm Innogest, Fondazione Cottino, current shareholder Si14 and managers of the company. Founded in 2014 by ophthalmologist Andrea Russo and led by CEO Richard Sill , D-Eye designs and manufactures mobile sensing and examination devices, along with companion applications, that enable mass health screenings and data collection to improve access to vital health examination services.
  
  
• GetSocial raised $2.5 million to expand its social networking platform for marketing and monetizing mobile games. The Amsterdam-based has built a backend platform for amplifying engagement of mobile gamers as well as data analytics tools that help mobile game developers cut the cost of user acquisition. The company raised money from Dutch venture capitalists including Astor Participaties, Enabling Technology Fund, Slingshot Capital, and Novamedia.
  
  
• Bengaluru-based consumer technology startup CREO, has secured $3 million in funding from Sequoia India, Beenext Ventures and India Quotient. Formerly known as Mango Man Consumer Electronics, CREO’s first product offering was Teewe – an HDMI media streaming device that was launched in September 2014. It then went on to launch Teewe 2 in May 2015 and claims to have established itself in about 50,000 households across India.
  
  
• Waldo Photos announced yesterday that it has raised a $5 million seed round, led by Upfront Ventures, to fund its photo-finding platform. The company plans to use the funds to not only launch its service to the public in the next 2 to 3 months, but to also increase hiring and partnerships. Upfront Ventures is the only institutional investor in this round, and contributed $4 million. Waldo declined to name other participants or disclose its valuation.
  
  
• Iterable, a growth marketing and user engagement platform, yesrterday announced it has closed a series A round of funding led by Charles River Ventures, with participation from previous investors. This latest round takes its total funding to $9.2 million, following a seed round in January 2015. The company was founded in 2013, and was a member of the Spring 2013 class at the AngelPad accelerator. Today’s funding raise will go toward improving that functionality for Iterable customers.
  
  
• Real estate portal Housing has raised $14.7 million (INR 100 Cr) in a fresh round of funding from Softbank. The company said that the funding will be used to drive its new strategy and growth plans. The company said in the statement that it has established a focused strategy on buying and selling homes. With 85 million visits in 2015 and 1.7 million verified listings to date, Housing is building scalable revenue streams around its product, demand and supply, and facilitating and fulfilling transactions.
  
  
• Mountain View, Calif.-based Qubole, a big data-as-a-service provider, announced it has raised $30 million in Series C financing. IVP led the round, which included existing investors CRV, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Norwest Venture Partners. As part of the funding, IVP General Partner Somesh Dash has joined the board. The company has now raised $50 million in total funding, including a $13 million Series B round in late 2014.
  
  
• Akili Interactive Labs, Inc. ("Akili"), a company focused on developing clinically validated digital medicine for cognitive assessment and personalized treatment, announced today that it has raised $30.5 million in new equity investments to support the further clinical development of the company’s late-stage products and build a commercial infrastructure for a potential U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance and product launch in 2017. Several investors, including JAZZ Venture Partners, Canepa Advanced Healthcare Fund and PureTech Health participated in the financing.
  
  
• Baofeng Mojing, a China-based manufacturer of virtual reality devices, has raised a RMB230 million (US$35 million) Series B round led by state-owned CITIC Capital Holdings, according to reports today in Chinese media. The other investors reportedly are media company Huayi Brothers and VC firm Green Pine Capital Partners. The funding brings the company’s valuation to RMB1.4 billion (US$213 million).
  
  
• FiveStars, a San Francisco, CA-based rewards program for small businesses, secured $50 million in Series C funding. The round was led by HarbourVest Partners with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures and DCM Ventures. The company, which has raised $105m to date, intends to use the funds to expand operations and increase hiring in all roles and functions, especially sales and engineering.
  
  
• Blockchain startup Digital Asset Holdings, which is run by former JPMorgan Chase Executive Blythe Masters, has raised $52 million and has a deal with ASX to bring Australian stock settlement into the digital age. Participants in the investment round included JPMorgan, Citi, Accenture, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), CME Group and ASX. ASX, the company behind Australia’s stock market, is said to have put $10 million of their own cash into the funding round

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. 

Image source: foleytangroup.com