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Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and two Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning after a round of peace talks in Kyiv earlier this month, people familiar with the matter have told both the WSJ and the Financial Times. The three developed symptoms following the March 3 meeting that included red eyes, painful tearing, peeling skin on their faces and hands, and temporary blindness, say these sources, who believe Abramovich could have been targeted by hardliners who wanted to sabotage the talks.
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Noom uses psychology to help you lose weight. They have a support system with people trained in psychology, fitness, and nutrition available whenever you need them. You’ll also be partnered with a personal goal specialist to help keep you on track. With Noom, you’ll see lasting results in no time.
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Classplus, a four-year-old, Noida, India-based startup that is helping teachers and creators operate, manage and sell courses to students, has raised $70 million in Series D funding co-led by Alpha Wave Global and Tiger Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Dispatch, a six-year-old, Bloomington, Mn.-based B2B last-mile delivery platform, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by PeakSpan Capital. FreightWaves has more here.
GrowSari, a six-year-old, Manila, Philippines-based platform for digitizing small businesses in the Philippines (it helps with inventory management, offers pricing tools and more), has added $77.5 million to its Series C round. Along with prior funding, including $45 million announced in January, this brings the round’s total to about $110 million. Investors included the International Finance Corporation, KKR, Wavemaker Partners and the Temasek Group’s Pavilion Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Yokoy, a three-year-old, Zurich, Switzerland-based startup that helps large companies manage their expenses, invoicing and credit card processing, has raised $80 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from earlier backers Left Lane and Balderton Capital. CNBC has more here.
ZongMu Technology, a nine-year-old, Shanghai, China-based autonomous driving system startup, just raised $157 million in Series E funding. Dongyang State-Owned Assets Investment and Zhejiang Caitong Capital Investment led the round, joined by Sunic Capital, Zuoyu Capital, and a fund backed by Cosco Shipping Development and China Cinda Asset Management. Bloomberg has more here
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Causal, a three-year-old, London-based spreadsheet startup that let's users collaborate on complex financial models, has raised $20 million in Series A funding co-led by Accel and Coatue, with participation from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The Evening Standard has more here.
Latitud, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based company that aims to help with startups' early stages — from company formation, to accessing cross-border capital and cap table management, has raised $11.5 million in seed funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and NFX. Endeavor, Canary, FJ Labs, Ganas Ventures and unicorn founders, such as Nubank’s David Vélez, also joined the round. Cofounder Brian Requarth previously sold the online real estate marketplace VivaReal for $550 million dollars. TechCrunch has more here.
Pixxel, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based space tech company that's developing a constellation of hyperspectral satellites, raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Radical Ventures. The Economic Times has more here.
Shoreline.io, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based incident automation startup, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round, joined by Dawn Capital. SiliconAngle has more here.
Smarter Sorting, a seven-year-old, Austin.-based "product intelligence" company that says it uses AI and machine learning tech to reveal the core chemical and physical attributes of consumer products, has raised $25 million in funding led by G2 Venture Partners. Built in Austin has more here.
Zepto, a four-year-old, Byron Bay, Australia-based instant payment platform that says it lets merchants make, manage and receive secure payments by connecting directly from the payer’s bank to a merchant’s bank, just raised A$25 million ($18.8 million) in Series A funding co-led by AirTree Ventures and Decade Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
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Eksab, a nearly five-year-old, Cairo, Egypt-based startup fantasy sports and predictions platform, has raised $3 million in seed funding. 4DX Ventures led the round, joined by Darwazah Capital, Golden Palm Investments and P1 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Hylo, a two-year-old, London-based athletic footwear startup that relies on renewable materials, has raised £2.5 million ($2.74 million) in Series A funding led by Eka Ventures. Hypebeast has more here.
Janani, a 1.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based infertility treatment startup whose products include at-home sperm count kits, has raised $2.2 million in growth capital from a group of investors including Y Combinator, Olive Tree Capital, and Goodwater Capital. The Economic Times has more here.
Kadmos, a year-old, Berlin-based fintech focused on international salary payments with an initial focus on migrant workers, has raised €8.3 million led by Addition., with participation from earlier backer Atlantic Labs. Tech.eu has more here.
Outgo, a year-old, Seattle-based financing startup for freight carriers, just raised $3.4 million in funding co-led by Neo and PSL Ventures, with participation from Bezos Expeditions. GeekWire has more here.
Phantom Neuro, a two-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based robotic limb control startup, has raised $3.3 million in seed funding led by LionBird Ventures. Axios has more here.
SucceedSmart, a year-old, Los Altos, Ca.-based executive search platform, has raised $6 million in funding led by Storm Ventures, with participation from Tau Ventures and others. More here.
Treeswift, a two-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based company whose product, SwiftCruise, involves a swarm of drones that navigate under the forest canopy to quickly collect data (for carbon capture estimation, timber value appraisals, and deforestation monitoring, among other things), has raised $4.8 million seed funding led by Pathbreaker Ventures. The Robot Report has more here.
Weaver, a four-year-old, London-based marketplace and SaaS contract negotiation platform for matching homeowners and architects with vetted contractors, has raised $4 million in seed funding. The European venture firm btov Partners led the round, joined by FJ Labs, and Enterprise Fund, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
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Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, has launched a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. Affinity used its proprietary data to analyze over 925 unicorns from the last five years. Learn how top venture capital firms use relationship intelligence to spot more unicorns. Read the report.
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HP has agreed to buy Poly, a maker of workplace communications products, for $1.7 billion in a bet on the rise of hybrid work. HP will pay $40 cash for each outstanding share of Poly, a premium of more than 50% from its closing price Friday. The companies valued the deal for Poly, formerly known as Plantronics, at $3.3 billion, including debt. The WSJ has more here.
It’s consolidation time for the freelancer marketplace industry. French startup Malt is acquiring Comatch, a competing marketplace focused on consultants and industry experts. Comatch originally started in Germany, which means that Malt is also doubling down on the German market with this acquisition. Terms of the deal are undisclosed, but it involves a mix of equity and cash. TechCrunch has more here.
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The Family, a nine-year-old, Paris-based incubator and venture firm, is suing its cofounder, Oussama Ammar, saying it believes he misappropriated approximately 3 million euros that were collected in 2019 and 2020 to be invested in various U.S. tech companies, including the payments giant Stripe. Ammar, who left the outfit in November and now lives in Dubai, says he has his own complaints against his former colleagues. Irish Tech News has more here.
Meet Pavel Durov, the tech billionaire who founded Telegram, fled from Moscow 15 years ago after defying the Kremlin, and has a penchant for posting half-naked selfies on Instagram. Courtesy of Business Insider.
Kyle Lui, a longtime DCM partner, is leaving the crossover investing giant to join Bling Capital as its second general partner. Bling was founded in 2018 by former Google exec Ben Ling. TechCrunch has more here.
FedEx said today that Fred Smith will step down on June 1 as CEO of the package-delivery company that he founded and be succeeded by the company’s president and chief operating officer, Raj Subramaniam. Smith, now 77, founded FedEx in 1973. CNBC has more here.
The SEC today charged three software engineers at cloud software vendor Twilio and several of their friends and family members with involvement in an insider trading scheme. CNBC has more here.
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Does social media make teens unhappy? It may depend on their age, according to a large, multi-year study.
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The turmoil in Chinese tech shares is damping the financial firepower that SoftBank has for new investments and prompting debate about whether it might sell more shares of Alibaba, which has long been its single biggest investment and the source of much of its financial strength.
Tesla said it will request shareholder approval at its annual meeting for an increase in the number of shares of the company to enable a stock split, though it didn’t specify when such a split would take place or what the ratio of shares would be. Tesla shares closed today at $1,091.84.
Did you recently receive a spam text . . .from yourself? You're not alone. The Verge takes a look here.
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