Here are the startup highlights of last week from around the globe [ 2-6 July 2018]
ASIA
Indonesia’s Montir an on-demand service that brings a mobile car workshop to users’ location when their car or bike needs attention, has raised an undisclosed amount from East Ventures for its series A round. The startup claims to cut down long waiting times for servicing and repairs in Jakarta’s busy workshops.
Singapore’s Anchanto, a Saas startup, has raised USD 4 million in the first installment of series C round from MDI Ventures, the investment arm of Telkom Indonesia. Anchanto enables businesses and brands to sell their products across many online marketplaces in Asia.
In India, digital lender LoanTap has snapped up USD 6.2 million from China’s Shunwei Capital. Tuscan Ventures, entrepreneur Ashish Goenka, and existing investors India Quotient and Kae Capital also joined the round. The Bangalore-based firm offers personal loans to individuals, ranging from overdraft facilities to advanced salary loans.
South Korean prototyping software startup ProtoPie has raised USD 3.5 million Series A. The funding comes from Korea Investment Partners, which is a backer of South Korean internet dynamo Naver.
Melbourne based Airwallex has rung up USD 80 million Series B round led by Tencent and Sequoia. The deal is believed to be the second largest in the country and is the largest raised by a startup in Australia this year.
Japanese media group Uzabase is acquiring Quartz, a New York-based online business news platform, from Atlantic Media. The sale will cost between USD 75 million and USD 110 million.
Investors are banding together for USD 15 billion tech fund. London-based Centricus and Chinese companies China Merchants Group and SPF Group are teaming up to launch a fund that will target tech companies for potential investments and acquisitions. It will look for deals worldwide but focus primarily on China. A group of Chinese and international investors will back the fund.
Image recognition firm Trax has hauled in USD 125 million in a pre-IPO round at a nearly USD 1 billion valuation. The company operates a computer vision and image recognition platform that caters to food and drink retailers. The round was led by China-based Boyu Capital, ahead of a planned IPO in New York in two years.
Robotics company Turing Robot has raised series B-plus funds. Turing Robot focuses on the areas of cognitive computing, human-machine interaction, machine learning, and semantic recognition. Qianhai Wutong and Zoy Capital led the round.
Rocket startup iSpace has raised an undisclosed amount in series A from Matrix Partners. The Beijing-based firm works on rockets for small satellite operators and researchers. Its launchers cover a range of solid-fuel and liquid-fuel rockets for sub-orbital flight.
Europe
And in the EU, at least for now, its okay to share memes; snippets won’t land you in the courtroom. The European Parliament has voted against a law that would have significantly reformed copyright rules on the internet.
Booksy, a Polish- American app that enables appointment-based businesses such as hairdressers and beauty salons to take online bookings and operate other aspects of their business, has closed a series B round of USD 13.2 million. Its existing investor Piton Capital led this.
Spanish social-commerce fashion startup 21Buttons has secured USD 17 million. The round, which brings the total amount to USD 31 million, was led by Idinvest Partners. Again series B.
London-based Industrial IoT company Oden Technologies that provides manufacturing data analytics has nabbed a USD 10 million Series A funding round.
Berlin-based early-stage VC firm EarlyBird has closed a fresh USD 204 million fund focused on early-stage “deep tech” startups across Europe. It has also entered into a strategic partnership with London’s publically listed VC Esprit Draper to “share deal flow and resources to co‐invest in high growth technology companies across Europe.”
It is not just early-stage startups that VCs are targeting in Europe. Highland Europe has also closed a USD 540 million growth-stage fund.
USA
Planck Re, a New York and Israel–based insurtech startup, has raised a USD 12 million in a first funding round. The round was led by Arbor Ventures and includes Viola FinTech and Eight Roads Ventures.
Facebook has confirmed its acquisition of London-based artificial intelligence start-up Bloomsbury AI. The company that was backed by IQ Capital, the London Co-investment Fund and the UCL Technology Fund, among others has been acquired for up to USD 30 million.
Storyline, a startup working towards building skills of Alexa AI speakers has raised USD 770 K in a funding round led by Boost VC to help grow its skill builder API.
