Funds NVP, the Wells Fargo-backed venture firm has closed its largest ever fund, having secured $1.5bn to invest from seed to late stage. The mobile advertising platform Calldorado App Growth Fund will provide marketing funds for app developers using its software. Exits Pharmaceutical firm Roche agreed yesterday to acquire cancer research technology provider and portfolio … Continue reading "19 February 2018 – Wells Fargo-backed Venture Firm NVP Closes $1.5bn Fund"

Deals Ant Financial, e-commerce group Alibaba’s financial services affiliate, is reportedly preparing to raise $5bn in funding in a round that will value it at betwen $80bn and $100bn, making it the most valuable VC-backed private company of all time. Go-Jek has been raising a $1.2bn round over the past six months that already includes … Continue reading "12 February 2018 – Ant Financial in Potential $5bn Funding Round"

Deals Ping An Insurance is on a roll. At the end of November, the insurance provider was gearing up for a $1bn IPO of Ping An Good Doctor, and now it has raised nearly $1bn for its medical data collection and analysis subsidiary Ping An Healthcare Management at a $8.8bn valuation. Tencent continues to go … Continue reading "29 January 2018 – Ping An Insurance On a Roll"

Deals Alibaba has reportedly bought $3bn in shares of bicycle rental platform Ofo from venture firm GSR Ventures at a $10bn valuation, according to reports in China that cite comments made by a relative of GSR managing director Allen Zhu. E-commerce firm JD.com is looking to raise $2bn for its logistics services spinoff, JD Logstics, … Continue reading "22 January 2018 – Alibaba Buys $3bn in Shares of Ofo"

Deals Grab has added Hyundai to a series G round that already includes SoftBank, Didi Chuxing and Toyota which the ride hailing platform aims to close at $2.5bn. Educational services provider TAL Education has joined investment firm Tiger Management to invest $100m in DadaABC, which provides one-on-one online English lessons to a customer base sized … Continue reading "15 January 2018 – Grab Aims for $2.5bn Series G Deal"

Deals WP Engine, a provider of digital experience software for online publishing platform WordPress, has raised $250m in funding from Silver Lake. Health data analysis platform SomaLogic has closed its own large round, having raised funds from Nan Fung subsidiary Nan Fung Life Sciences and Madryn Asset Management to increase its latest round to $200m. … Continue reading "08 January 2018 – Kicking Off 2018"

Deals Days after SpaceX raised $1bn in funding, another satellite technology company, OneWeb, is lining up a $500m investment from SoftBank, which had previously put up $1bn of the $1.2bn OneWeb raised a year ago. . Office software producer Kingsoft spun cloud storage business Kingsoft Cloud out in 2012 but has retained a majority stake … Continue reading "18 December 2017 – OneWeb Follows SpaceX with a $500m Investment"

Covering the week’s venturing news including funding, investments, exits and people moves. This week’s episode includes: Fund news from Viola and GeneChem and deal news from Neon Therapeutics and Obsidian Therapeutics, plus much more. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0