Monday, October 7

FUNDING

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

Cathie Wood Invests $12 Million in CrowdStrike Stock After Microsoft Outage
FUNDING

Cathie Wood Invests $12 Million in CrowdStrike Stock After Microsoft Outage

Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, recently made a significant investment of nearly $12 million in CrowdStrike stock following a major global tech outage caused by the company's software update. This incident led to an 11% decrease in shares. The software malfunction in Crowdstrike affected millions of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows users worldwide, resulting in grounded flights, delayed surgeries, disrupted bank operations, and more. The repercussions of this event were still evident on Monday. During the tech meltdown, two of Wood's exchange-traded funds increased their positions in CrowdStrike. The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) purchased 27,061 shares valued at approximately $8.25 million, constituting 2% of the fund's assets. On the other hand, the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (AR...
India’s leading escooter player Ola Electric raises $385 Mn
FUNDING

India’s leading escooter player Ola Electric raises $385 Mn

Bengaluru, 27th Oct 2023: Ola Electric, a leading player in the electric vehicle (EV) industry, has recently secured an impressive funding amount of Rs 3,200 crore. This substantial investment comes from prominent investors, including Temasek and State Bank of India (SBI). In an official statement, Ola Electric proudly announced the successful conclusion of this funding round, led by Temasek and SBI. The company plans to allocate these funds towards the expansion of its EV business, as well as the establishment of India's inaugural lithium-ion cell manufacturing facility. This facility will be situated in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu. Looking forward, the Bangalore-based firm is eager to accelerate its growth trajectory in the EV market. Ola Electric aims to achieve this by ramping up its...
Premium Sneaker Brand Mainstreet Marketplace Secures $2 Million
FUNDING

Premium Sneaker Brand Mainstreet Marketplace Secures $2 Million

Bengaluru, 30th June, 2023: Premium Sneaker Resale platform, The Mainstreet Marketplace raises $2 million in a seed funding round led by zerodha's cofounder Nikhil Kamath, Abhijeet Pai’s fund Gruhas and others.  There was participation from Silverneedle Ventures, Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato, Sujeet Kumar, founder of Udaan, Amarjit Batra, managing director of Spotify India, Yogesh Chaudhary, director of Jaipur Rugs, Sujeet Kumar and Arjun Vaidya, founder of Dr. Vaidya. Comedian Tanmay Bhat, actors Mouni Roy and Ashish Chanchlani, musician Nikhil Chinappa also took part in the funding round. The D2C platform will deploy the funds towards hiring an experienced senior management team, expanding their brick-and-mortar into more cities, and building on the quality of their customer ...
Leading Cyber Security Firm Safe Security Raises $50 Million Series B Round Funding
FUNDING

Leading Cyber Security Firm Safe Security Raises $50 Million Series B Round Funding

PALO ALTO, Calif.,18th April, 2023: Safe Security, the leader in AI-based cyber risk management SaaS platforms, today announced the close of a $50 million Series B round led by Sorenson Capital, with participation from Eight Roads, venture capital arm of Fidelity Investments, Telstra Ventures, WTI, and all existing investors. This round brings the company’s total funding to over $100 million. With the current macroeconomic climate, cybersecurity teams are re-evaluating their cybersecurity investments, which are flush with point solutions that do not provide holistic cyber risk visibility and points of attack exposure. Alongside this financial pressure, external cyber regulation and guidelines stemming from the White House and regulatory bodies, like the SEC and the National Cy...
Welo App – A Virtual Workspace Company Backed By Atlassian and Zoom
FUNDING

Welo App – A Virtual Workspace Company Backed By Atlassian and Zoom

BOSTON, 3rd April, 2022-- Welo App, the shared virtual workspace platform announced that it has received investments from Atlassian Ventures and the Zoom Apps Fund, making it a company to watch in the burgeoning video communications ecosystem. Welo connects geographically distributed colleagues by allowing users to move naturally around a shared virtual space. Colleagues can reach out for a quick 1on1 chat, or engage as a team to collaborate on projects. “As online work becomes a bigger part of our lives, it is crucial to give people the flexibility they need to make video meetings efficient and meaningful,” said Cliff Pollan, Welo’s Co-Founder. “These investments support Welo’s mission to improve productivity and revive culture in the distributed work paradigm.” Video communications...
TruePay Raises $32 Million in One of the Largest-Ever Series A Rounds in Brazil
FUNDING

TruePay Raises $32 Million in One of the Largest-Ever Series A Rounds in Brazil

SÃO PAULO, Nov. 24, 2021-- TruePay, a startup that helps small and medium sized retailers have free and secure access to credit, has raised US$32 million in Series A funding led by Addition. This growth stage investment is one of the largest ever made in Brazil. The funds will be used to improve the solution, increase capacity and expand the team. The startup, which has been growing 100% a month, plans to grow tenfold by the end of 2022. Founded in December 2020, TruePay has clients throughout Brazil and a merchant base in the thousands. "We are very happy to have the trust of some of the best investors in the world as well as the super talented people that we were able to bring on board. A raise like this is a symbol of the impact TruePay will make in the market by delivering f...
Leonardo DiCaprio Invests in Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms
FUNDING

Leonardo DiCaprio Invests in Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands and REHOVOT, Israel, 4th Oct, 2021- Leading cultivated meat firm Aleph Farms and Mosa Meat announced an investment from Hollywood actor, Leonardo DiCaprio. Both companies have demonstrated the ability to grow beef directly from animal cells, with the unveiling of the first cultivated hamburger by Mosa Meat in 2013 and the first cultivated steak and ribeye by Aleph Farms in 2018 and 2021 respectively. The detail of the deal has not been disclosed yet. "One of the most impactful ways to combat the climate crisis is to transform our food system. Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms offer new ways to satisfy the world's demand for beef, while solving some of the most pressing issues of current industrial beef production. I'm very pleased to join...
Picsart Raises $130 Million at More Than $1 Billion Valuation
FUNDING

Picsart Raises $130 Million at More Than $1 Billion Valuation

SAN FRANCISCO, 1st Oct 2021-- Picsart, the world’s largest creative platform has raised $130 million in Series C funding. The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from new investors G Squared and Tribe Capital, as well as existing investors Sequoia, DCM, Graph Ventures, and Siguler Guf & Company. With over $100 million in annual revenue run rate, Picsart is now valued at over $1 billion. The company has raised a total of $195 million in capital since its founding. “Picsart is powering visual culture and breaking barriers between inspiration and creativity,” said Hovhannes Avoyan, Picsart’s founder and CEO. “We want to make the world more creative and have users in every country of the world designing, remixing, editing, and sharing on Picsart and beyond. This a...
Plant-Based Food Company TMRW Foods Raises $2.6 Million
FUNDING

Plant-Based Food Company TMRW Foods Raises $2.6 Million

VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 25, 2021-- TMRW Foods, the growing Canadian plant-based food innovation company, announced a seed round investment of $2.6 million. Investors for this fundraising round include Greg Blake (Daiya co-founder), Richard Cooperstein (CEO & Senior Managing Partner of Media Investment Group, former Senior Executive at Disney's Worldwide Television Group, Paramount Pictures & Facebook), Eric Patel (Director at Fresh Prep, former Director at Smart Sweets, former Board Chairman at Daiya), and the Milne Group (owners of Virtuous Pie, Mila and Harken Coffee), who have increased their stake in the company. TMRW's mission is to redefine protein for the masses by creating protein with more flavour, nutrients and variety than any protein available...
Former Amazon Alexa Employee Launched Level AI with $15 Million in Funding
FUNDING

Former Amazon Alexa Employee Launched Level AI with $15 Million in Funding

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 25TH Aug 2021-- Level AI a company founded by former Amazon Alexa product leader Ashish Nagar launched to modernize customer service using conversational artificial intelligence to uniquely help organizations work with customers to solve any issues in real-time and elevate the customer’s overall experience. The Level AI platform debuts amid a COVID-driven surge in customer-service call volumes and as enterprise contact centers shift to the cloud. With strong early demand for its cloud-based solution, Level AI is already working with more than 30 brands through its enterprise partners. Level AI also announced the close of $13 million in Series A funding in conjunction with its launch, bringing its total funding to date to $15 million. The round was led by th...
Smallcase raises $40 mn from Amazon & others
FUNDING

Smallcase raises $40 mn from Amazon & others

Bengaluru, 20th Aug 2021: Bengaluru-based stock management company Smallcase raises USD 40 million (about Rs 297 crore) in funding, led by Faering Capital as well as new investors Amazon, Smbhav Venture Fund, and Premji Invest. The Series C round also saw participation from existing investors, including Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Beenext, DSP Group, Arkam Ventures, WEH Ventures, HDFC Bank Group, and Rare Enterprises CEO Utpal Sheth, a statement said. The round brings the total capital raised by Smallcase to over USD 60 million, it added. With the close of the transaction, Sameer Shroff - co-founder and Managing Director at Faering Capital will join the board of Smallcase. The fund raised will be used to continue launching better investment products for the retail investor...
Bhavin Turakhia Led Titan raises $30mn from WordPress Parent Company
FUNDING

Bhavin Turakhia Led Titan raises $30mn from WordPress Parent Company

Dubai, 4t Aug 2021: Titan, a professional email startup founded by serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia has secured a USD 30 million (about Rs 222.7 crore) investment from Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com. This is the largest investment made by Automattic and values Titan at USD 300 million. "(The investment has been made) with the goal of jointly working with us in a deep strategic relationship to both enable Automattic users to benefit from Titan and vice versa, as well as to work with us to achieve this vision of creating an outstanding email product for professionals and business users," Turakhia told Pixr8 News in a virtual briefing. He added that people signing up on Wordpress.com with Automattic for a WordPress hosting website will have the ability to use Tita...