| Friday! [Clashes giant cymbals.] Hope you have a dynamite weekend, everyone. See you Monday.:) |
| Top News |
| Top News A Google minivan in “autonomous mode” was just involved in a crash in Arizona. It wasn’t fatal, but it wasn’t pretty. |
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| New Fundings |
| Divvy, a two-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based provider expense management solution, raised $10.5 million in funding led by Pelion Ventures, with participation from Josh James, CEO of Domo; Aaron Skonnard, CEO of Pluralsight; and Jeremy Andrus, CEO of Traeger Grills. More here. Freeda Media, a two-year-old, Milan, Italy-based millennial-focused media organization, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Alven Capital, with participation from U-Start and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here. StratiFi Technologies, a 2.5-year-old, New York- and San Francisco-based fintech startup that makes software for wealth advisors, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Anthemis Group, with participation from Wolverine Holdings, Cboe Global Markets, HOF Capital, and AngelList, among other investors. More here. Swift Health Systems, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based maker of an invisible orthodontic treatment, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from disclosed sources. The company says it has now raised $25 million altogether. More here. UBTECH, a five-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based maker of humanoid robots for entertainment and educational purposes, has raised an astonishing $820 million in Series C funding led by Tencent. Other investors in the round include the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Minsheng Securities, Telstra Corporation, Haier Group, Green Pine Capital Partners, CreditEase, and earlier backers, including CDH Investments. China Money Network has more here. Wunder Capital, a five-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based financial firm that lends money to solar projects, has raised $112 million in Series A funding led by Cyrus Capital Partners, with participation from earlier backers, including Techstars Ventures. More here. Wuxi Vision Pro, an eight-year-old, Shanghai, China-based ophthalmic medical device maker, has raised $12.6 million, including from Qiming Venture Partnersand Ruijian Capital. China Money Network has more here. |
| New Funds |
| Indaco Venture Partners, a new, Milan, Italy-based venture capital firm, says it has raised €130 million euro from Intesa Sanpaolo, Fondo Italiano d’Investimento and Fondazione Cariplo. The firm, which plans to invest the capital in 20 to 30 later-stage startups, says it is targeting more than €200 million for a final close. More here. |
| IPOs |
| Carbon Black, a 17-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based cybersecurity company, just had a very solid first day of trading. MarketWatch has more here. |
| Exits |
| Allscripts, one of the country’s largest provider of electronic medical records, has snapped up a patient engagement platform company, HealthGrid for $60 million, plus $50 million in potential earn-out payments based on certain revenue targets. Healthgrid was founded in 2014 in Orlando, Fla.; we aren’t sure of its funding situation. (It doesn’t appear to have raised venture capital.) FierceBiotech has more here. |
| People |
| Nathan Hubbard, a former Ticketmaster CEO who most recently ran Twitter’s now-defunct commerce initiative, has raised more than $30 million over the last 18 months for a new startup called Rival that aims to modernize how teams and arenas manage ticket sales. Hubbard insists that he wants to partner with Ticketmaster, not compete with it. Who lost the most on Theranos. |
| Essential Reads |
| Amazon and Walmart are fighting to control Flipkart, a company that both see as central to winning the Indian market. Facebook is weighing an ad-free subscription model. This small college’s endowment manager beat Harvard . . . with index funds. An argument for Uber and Airbnb to follow Spotify with a direct listing. |
| Detours |
| Why there won’t be a Nobel Prize in literature this year. The upside of envy. A look at the reason dogs have floppy ears. |
| Retail Therapy |
| School performance, check. One too many meetings, check. Double-barrel vaporizer? Bring it. |