Fundings & Exits

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Powerplant Ventures closes $42 million fund to back “plant-centric” food and tech startups

ZICO Coconut Water and Powerplant VC founder Mark Rampolla. In recent years, venture capital has poured into food companies, from meal kit and grocery delivery services to the makers of environmentally sustainable, or health-promoting food products.
Now, investors and entrepreneurs from tech, food and the restaurant industry have launched a firm, and closed a $42 million debut fund called Powerplant Ventures, to invest specifically in… Read More

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Penn Nat’l pays up to $170M for Rocket Games, a social casino studio from Zynga alums

viva While social games company Zynga’s push into real-money gambling may have had some hiccups, a group of alums who built a startup dedicated specifically to the genre have sold their company for up to $170 million. Rocket Games, a social gambling company based out of San Francisco, has been acquired by Penn National Gaming, the slot machine, video gaming machine, and casino company.… Read More

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Video distribution startup Zype raises $2M

zype Zype has raised another $2 million as it helps publishers deliver (and make money from) video across devices. Added to the $1.6 million that Zype announced last year, this brings the New York City startup’s seed round to $3.6 million. The round was led by Revel Partners, with participation from Point Nine Capital, Alpine Meridian Ventures, Berlin Ventures, Entrepreneurs Investment Fund… Read More

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Apptimize pulls in $12.4 million to help companies deploy apps faster

apptimize Apptimize, a company that helps businesses optimize, test and rapidly iterate their mobile apps, has just raised $12.4 million in a new round of Series B funding. Investor interest was strong due to the client list Apptimize has lined up, which includes notable names like Hotel Tonight, Trulia, Vevo, Hotels.com and The Wall Street Journal. In total, there are around 100 big-name businesses… Read More

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Distil scores $21 million Series C to crush bad bots

Padlock over binary background. Distil Networks, a company that helps discover and eradicate bad bots, announced a $21 million Series C round today.
Funders include new investor Silicon Valley Bank along with previous participants Bessemer Venture Partners, Foundry Group and TechStars. It comes on the heels of another $21 million round in June, 2015 and brings the total raised to $65 million across all rounds.
With the… Read More

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Didi wins, Uber retreats, but Chinese riders and drivers lose

didi-uber1 No one wants to fight a land war in Asia, not even Uber. It could have burnt mountains of cash battling for market share with local ride app juggernaut Didi Chuxing, between marketing, discounts, and driver incentives. Instead, Uber surrendered. It’s sold its UberChina operation to Didi in exchange for a 20% stage in the merged company, while Didi has invested $1 billion into Uber at… Read More

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Salesforce buys word processing app Quip for $750M

quip-screen Salesforce is continuing its buying spree to expand the kinds of cloud-based apps and services that it offers to its customers beyond basic CRM. The company has just announced that it is acquiring Quip, the cloud-based word processing app that was co-founded by Bret Taylor, formerly CTO of Facebook. We understand from two sources very close to the deal that the total price is $750 million.… Read More

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Verizon buys Fleetmatics for $2.4B in cash to step up in telematics

shutterstock verizon sign Hot off the heels of its acquisition of Yahoo last week for $4.8 billion, today Verizon announced another huge purchase: it’s buying Fleetmatics, a telematics company based out of Dublin, Ireland, for $2.4 billion in cash, to build out the products that it offers to enterprises in the areas of logistics and workforces that are on the move. The deal will make Fleetmatics a part… Read More

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Peek.com raises $10 million, strikes partnership to bring tour and activity booking to Yelp

Peek.com cofounders Oskar Bruening (CTO) and Ruzwana Bashir (CEO). Peek.com has raised $10 million in equity funding to become what it calls an “OpenTable for the $100 billion activities market,” according to CEO and co-founder Ruzwana Bashir. Based in San Francisco, with additional offices in Salt Lake City, Utah, Peek.com lets travelers, and locals, find and book activities such as tours, tastings and lessons, online or via mobile. The Peek.com… Read More

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Facebook crushes Q2 earnings, hits 1.71B users and record share price

Facebook Users Q2 2016 Coming off an all-time high stock price of $123.34, Facebook in Q2 2016 smashed earnings again. The social network continued steady growth just slightly slower at 3.63% compared to last quarter’s 3.77%, adding 60 million monthly users this quarter to reach 1.71 billion. It scored $6.44 billion in revenue and $0.97 EPS, blowing past estimates of $6.02 billion and $0.82 EPS.
This is… Read More

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