- Placenta stem cells: Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) led a $250M venture round in its spinout Calularity, a biotech startup mining placenta cells for stem cell treatments. The round brought total fundraising up to $290M.
- Other investors in the round included United Therapeutics (NASDAQ:UTHR), Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SRNE), and Human Longevity (Private:HLONG). The startup’s board members include GV founder Bill Maris and former FDA commissioner Andrew Von Eschenbach.
- Celularity’s products include wound-treating biological repair products, immunotherapy boosters, and the placental cell therapy products. The company claims “some 800 issued patents” in placental stem cells.
- Competition: Americord banks placental tissue and Pluristem Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PSTI) sells placental cell-derived products.
- Grocery gains: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) competitor Instacart raised $200M in Series E financing. Coatue Management led the round with Glade Brook Capital Partners and existing investors. The round brought Instacart’s valuation up to $4.2B and total fundraising to $874.8M.
- Instacart has nearly 200 grocery partners and is available in 70M households in the United States and Canada. The company will use the funds to build software, shopper support teams, and grow sales.
- Other competitors: Shipt, which Target (NYSE:TGT) acquired in December for $550M, and Postmates ($278M in total funding).
- Gaming spin: Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY, OTCPK:TCTZF) was among the investors in a $130M pre-IPO round in Korean messaging company Kakao’s standalone games unit.
- Other investors in Kakao Games included Netmarble Games (also backed by Tencent), Actozsoft, Bluehole Studio (producer of PlayerUnknown’s “Battlegrounds”), and Premier Growth.
- Kakao spun out the games unit last year and plans to list the unit this year. The parent company will operate as a holding firm that oversees the gaming unit and the numerous other units that include a taxi company and mobile payment system.
- Payment processor: MasterCard (NYSE:MA) was among the investors in a $71M Series C funding for marketplace business payment service YapStone. The Series C round will ultimately total $200M with the current contribution bringing YapStone’s valuation to around $500M. Total fundraising totals $187M.
- Premji Invest led the round with participation from previous investors Accel and Meritech Capital Partners.
- YapStone currently processes over $18B in annual payments. The startup also offers accounting, bookkeeping, and data services for its enterprise customers.
- Competitors: PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), which processed $451B in payments last year, and Stripe (Private:STRIP) are the major players in the space.
- India car rental: Ford (NYSE:F) was among the returning investors in a $40M Series C round in Indian on-demand car rental company Zoomcar. Mahindra & Mahindra (OTCPK:MAHDY) led the round and has a 16% stake in the startup. The round brings Zoomcar’s valuation up to around $170M and total fundraising to $102.2M.
- Zoomcar has a presence in 29 cites and has 2.7M registered users and 3.5K cars.
- Competitors: Everyone from Avis (NASDAQ:CAR), which has a regional presence, to Carzonrent and Myles.
- Customer support software: GV (GOOG, GOOGL) led a $25M Series B round in customer support software startup UJET. Other participants included Citi Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and DCM Ventures. The round brings total fundraising to over $45M.
- UJET software connects customers to support agents through a phone or web app or by phone. The startup will use the new funds to scale its business, open a NY office in March, and an EU headquarters in Q2.
- Competitors: Intercom ($115.8M in funding, Social Capital backing) and Helpshift, which has $38.5M in funding with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) backing.
- Previously: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) updating software upgrade schedule; eMagin +24% on Apple investment (Feb. 12)
- Now read: PayPal Holdings: Buy The Dip
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