Thursday, March 28

FUNDING

Startup Funding News: Get the latest news on startup funding, small business funding, investor management and many more about funding on Pixr8.

Kong Raises $100 Million from Tiger Global & others
FUNDING

Kong Raises $100 Million from Tiger Global & others

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 10, 2021-- Cloud connectivity platform Kong raises $100 million in Series D funding, led by Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investors Index Ventures, CRV, GGV Capital and Andreessen Horowitz as well as new investor Goldman Sachs. The latest round brings Kong’s total funding to $171 million, tripling its valuation to $1.4 billion since the Series C round. Kong will use the capital to scale its go-to-market operations, grow world-class Engineering and Customer Experience teams, and accelerate cloud connectivity with its new SaaS-based Kong Konnect service connectivity platform. The fundraising follows a record year for Kong, marked by a significant increase in adoption of its flagship open-source software Kong Gateway now exceeding 220 ...
AI startup Databricks Raises $1 billion from Microsoft, Google & Amazon
FUNDING

AI startup Databricks Raises $1 billion from Microsoft, Google & Amazon

San Francisco, Feb 2, 2021: AI startup Databricks raises $1 billion in funding in Series G round from Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services. Using this round of funding the startup value soar at a $28 billion valuation. Databricks is an analytics-based cloud computing platform that has 5,000 customers,  including 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies. "We see this investment and our continued rapid growth as further validation of our vision for a simple, open and unified data platform that can support all data-driven use cases, from BI (business intelligence) to AI," said Ali Ghodsi, Databricks chief executive and co-founder. "Databricks helps organizations eliminate the cost and complexity that is inherent in legacy data architectures so that data teams can collaborate and...
Robinhood raises more than $1 billion from existing investors
FUNDING

Robinhood raises more than $1 billion from existing investors

(Reuters) 02/01/21- Online broker Robinhood has raised more than $1 billion of fresh capital from existing investors, having been strained by high volumes of trading this week and raising the ire of customers, celebrities and politicians for curbing the purchase of some hot stocks. Robinhood's existing investors include venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Ribbit Capital, who came together on Thursday night to offer the emergency funding, according to a New York Times report. Reuters could not immediately verify if Sequoia and Ribbit helped with the emergency infusion. "We're pleased to share that we've raised over $1 billion from existing investors to continue to invest in record growth. This is a strong sign of confidence from investors that will help us continue to furthe...
GoodTrust Raises $2.3 Million in Seed-Funding, Launched Digital Legacy Platform
FUNDING

GoodTrust Raises $2.3 Million in Seed-Funding, Launched Digital Legacy Platform

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 26, 2021-- GoodTrust, a digital-legacy platform has closed a $2.3 million seed funding round led by Bling Capital, Synetro Ventures, Azure Capital Partners, and Silicon Valley angel investors including Nikesh Arora, Bobby Lo, and Christian Wiklund. Other angel investors feature several current and former Google executives including Scott Levitan, Arjan Dijk, Tony Fagan, Jori Pearsall and Gopi Kallayil. Founded by former Google executive Rikard Steiber, GoodTrust provides a secure digital-legacy platform for online accounts, social media, financial accounts, photos, documents and more. GoodTrust provides a straightforward and simple way of managing all these assets today as well as designating and sharing access with loved ones and other trusted third par...
Back Office Startup Pilot Raises $60M in Series C Funding
FUNDING

Back Office Startup Pilot Raises $60M in Series C Funding

SAN FRANCISCO, 26th Jan 2020-- Pilot, the largest provider of back-office services for startups and small businesses in the US raises $60 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital, doubling its total funding to $120 million including investments from Index Ventures and Stripe. The additional raise enables Pilot to expand its breadth of back office services that remove distractions and help companies focus on success in a challenging business environment. Back office operations like bookkeeping can be painful, expensive, and time-consuming, especially for small businesses,” said Pat Grady, partner at Sequoia. “Pilot combines intelligent software with a concierge approach to deliver a painless and even delightful back office experience. Pilot is doing for the back office wha...
BharatPe raises $20 Million from Alteria Capital, ICICI Bank
FUNDING

BharatPe raises $20 Million from Alteria Capital, ICICI Bank

New Delhi, 18th Jan 2021: Indian fintech company BharatPe raises about USD 20 million in debt funding from venture firm Alteria Capital and ICICI Bank that will be used to strengthen its lending business and provide credit to merchants. Founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018, BharatPe offers merchants a single interface for all UPI apps like Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM, Mobikwik, Freecharge, and others. BharatPe co-founder and CEO Ashneer Grover said $13 million in debt came from Alteria Capital, while the remaining $7 million was from ICICI Bank. Bharat Pay also facilitates loan facility for its merchant partners. Last week, BharatPe raised around $8 million in debt funding from Innoven Capital. With this, BharatPe has raised a total of USD 28 ...
Quick Heal invest $2 mn in Israel based L7 Defense
FUNDING

Quick Heal invest $2 mn in Israel based L7 Defense

California, 15th Jan 2021: Antivirus firm Quick Heal Technologies invested $2 million in an Israel-based cybersecurity startup L7 Defense. L7 Defense specializes in Application Program Interface (API) Security and Next Generation Web Application Firewall (NG-WAF). This is the second round investment by Quick Heal in L7 Defense. Last Year Quick Heal invested $300,000 in L7 Defense to acquired customers in financial, telecom and IT industries across US and Europe. Dr Kailash Katkar, Managing Director and CEO, Quick Heal said, "L7 Defense has proven its unique capabilities in the area of API Security and NG-WAF which led us to further increase our investment. Simultaneously, this move enables 'Seqrite' to foray into application security and strengthen our solution stack to secure m...
BoAt raises $100 million in funding from Warburg Pincus
FUNDING

BoAt raises $100 million in funding from Warburg Pincus

New Delhi, Jan 6, 2020: Indian based famous electronic gadgets brand boAt has raised $100 million (about Rs 731.6 crore) in funding from an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm. While boAt did not disclose the valuation at which the funds were raised, it said the fresh capital will enable it to further fortify its leading market position and widen its Research and development (R&D) capabilities and product portfolio. The funding will also help build on boAt's efforts to create and support a manufacturing ecosystem under the Make-in-India initiative, a statement said. The product portfolio of boAt includes headphones, earphones, smartwatches, speakers, travel chargers and premium cables. Launched in 2016, boAt currently has approximately 150 employees o...
CyberSecurity Firm FireEye Raises $400 Million Led by Blackstone
FUNDING

CyberSecurity Firm FireEye Raises $400 Million Led by Blackstone

MILPITAS, Calif., 10th December 2020--FireEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: FEYE), the intelligence-led security company raises $400 million in funding led by Blackstone. Blackstone was joined by ClearSky, a cybersecurity-focused investment firm, as a co-investor in the transaction. FireEye also announced that Viral Patel, a Senior Managing Director of Blackstone, and Art Coviello, former chief executive officer of RSA Security, have been appointed to the FireEye Board of Directors, effective immediately. Viral Patel, a Senior Managing Director of Blackstone said, "We have confidence in FireEye's long-term strategic vision and its world-class set of cyber security products and services. As a member of the Board of Directors, I look forward to partnering with management and my fellow board members ...
Reface secures $5.5M in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz
FUNDING

Reface secures $5.5M in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz

KYIV, Ukraine, Dec. 9, 2020-- Reface, AI app for a video and GIF face-swaps raises $5.5 million in the seed round of financing led by Andreessen Horowitz and several well-known angel investors. With these funds, the startup aims to reinvent the way people interact with content. Reface strives to build the first social platform of dynamically personalized media content empowered with machine learning technologies. Since the official launch in January 2020, Reface app has been downloaded over 70 million times. Reface app allows you to snap a picture of your face and apply your likeness to any number of celebrities, without needing any After Effects or VFX knowledge. Within seconds, users can export their creations to a multitude of formats including animated GIF and standard ...
Fylamynt Raises $6.5 Million from Google
FUNDING

Fylamynt Raises $6.5 Million from Google

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 4, 2020-- Fylamynt, a cloud automation platform raises $6.5 million in seed funding. Fylamynt allows cloud engineering teams to build, run and analyze automation workflows securely for any cloud with little to no code. The seed round is led by Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused fund, with additional investment from Mango Capital and Point72 Ventures. The cost of operations is still very high in Fortune 1000 enterprises with application downtime costing an estimated $1.25 to $2.5 billion per year and the average cost per hour for critical application failures is $500,000 to $1 million.  Cofounders Dr. Pradeep Padala, Dr. Xiaoyun Zhu and David L...
Step Raises $50 Million in Series B Funding from Stripe, Justin Timberlake & others
FUNDING

Step Raises $50 Million in Series B Funding from Stripe, Justin Timberlake & others

SAN FRANCISCO, 4th December 2020-- Step, a financial services company built for teens and families raises a $50 million Series B round of funding. The round was led by Coatue, with participation from returning investors Stripe, Crosslink Capital, Collaborative Fund, and Will Smith’s Dreamers VC. Step also added several new investors including Charli D’Amelio, Justin Timberlake, The Chainsmokers, Eli Manning, Kelvin Beachum, Larry Fitzgerald, and Andre Iguodala alongside prominent fintech executives from the likes of Facebook, Square, Venmo, Visa, and others. To date, Step has raised more than $75 million from investors. “Since Step’s launch, we’ve seen massive demand for this new type of all-in-one banking solution, making it much easier for teens to learn about money manag...