v2food, an Australian plant-based meat startup, raised a $35m Series A funding.

The round was led by Main Sequence Ventures, manager of CSIRO’s Innovation Fund, and Horizons Ventures, with participation from Fairfax Family investment fund Marinya Capital & Sequoia Capital China.

Funding will be used to expand R&D efforts including building a new research and production facility, planning to begin operation in regional Australia in 2020.

Led by Founder and CEO Nick Hazell, v2food is launching a range of plant-based meat products which will be launched in outlets across Australia in the next few months.

The company, which worked with Australia’s national science agency CSIRO to create its products that look like meat, cook like meat and taste like meat, is to release its first product in partnership with Hungry Jack’s Australia, the Rebel Whopper. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574722914.0384448/v2food-Raises-$35M-in-Series-A-Funding-Round?ref=audio_experience

viagogo, a worldwide ticket marketplace for live sport, music and entertainment events, acquired StubHub, a ticket marketplace, from eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) for a purchase price of $4.05 billion in cash.

The sale is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.

Led by Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, president, StubHub is a ticket marketplace spanning 44 countries which allows fans to buy and sell tickets to tens of thousands of events.

Its business partners include more than 130 properties globally across the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, WWE, NCAA, Matchroom Boxing, plus Paciolan, Tessitura and Roundabout Theatre Company.

Launched in 2006, viagogo provides ticket buyers tickets to events across the world and enables ticket sellers to reach a global audience in Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574721109.9489217/viagogo-Acquires-StubHub-from-eBay,-for-$4.05-Billion?ref=audio_experience

Contxto – The Colombian Stock Exchange launched an online crowdfunding platform known as a2censo last Wednesday.

It’s an innovative take on crowdfunding, given the State’s role in what is usually a private affair.

The government’s interest lies in channeling growth and investment to Colombian startups that show potential.

Interested parties need only fill out the online form and own a legitimate Colombian bank account in order to start investing.

Likewise, they must cover a financing fee, the interest over the investment, and a commission charged by the platform. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574719207.79613/Government-backed,-Colombian-crowdfunding-platform,-a2censo,-is-now-live?ref=audio_experience

The proverbial old-school, best-practice handbook dictates that this is done through tax breaks.

Last Wednesday, José Barroso Tostes Neto, the Federal Revenue Secretary of Brazil, announced a fiscal proposal that would favor the development of startups in the country.

This proposal is part of President Jair Bolsonaro’s overall pending tax reform.

Colombia has placed fintech startup growth front and center through mandatory electronic invoicing and its Orange Economy initiative.

Brazil, for its part, has sought to decentralize banking and has the largest number of startups dedicated to fintech. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574717407.5039186/Brazilian-tax-breaks-for-startups-in-the-works…-hopefully?ref=audio_experience

Contxto – Proceeding its recent mobile app launch, earlier today the Argentine fintech Ualá announced that it has raised US$150 million in a press release.

The Series C round was led by Asian financial powerhouses, Tencent and SoftBank.

Past investments include a US$10 million Series A led by Soros Fund Management LLC.

“Financial services are based on three pillars: payments, credits, and investments,” he said in a recent press release.

With 185 current employees in Argentina, today, it seems that 4 percent of the country’s population reportedly use its financial services. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574715608.6515212/Argentine-fintech-Ualá-raises-US$150-million-in-Series-C-led-by-Tencent-and-SoftBank?ref=audio_experience

New funding: Fresh Chalk just landed a $2 million seed round.

The Seattle startup debuted earlier this year with its service that helps users find local professionals by tapping into the knowledge of their friends.

Company background: Fresh Chalk aims to build a faster and more efficient way to find everything from doctors to plumbers to landscapers to photographers.

Fresh Chalk is taking on the likes of Facebook, Google, Yelp, and other giant platforms.

There have been various attempts at creating something similar to Fresh Chalk. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574713813.618423/Fresh-Chalk-lands-$2M-to-help-people-find-local-professionals-through-friend-recommendations?ref=audio_experience

Now, the requirement for Alexa Voice Service integration for AWS IoT Core has come down 1MB and a cheaper Cortex-M processor.

With that, chances are you’ll see even more lightbulbs, light switches and other simple, single-purpose devices with Alexa functionality.

All it needs to be able to do is detect the wake word to start the Alexa functionality, which is a comparably simple model.

“We now offload the vast majority of all of this to the cloud,” AWS IoT VP Dirk Didascalou told me.

Today’s container announcement for AWS’ IoT services is that IoT Greengrass, the company’s main platform for extending AWS to edge devices, now offers support for Docker containers. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574712008.4501145/AWS-expands-its-IoT-services,-brings-Alexa-to-devices-with-only-1MB-of-RAM-–-TechCrunch?ref=audio_experience

The startup fought for a second wind after selling off its physical storage operations to competitor Clutter in May.

Meanwhile, it frantically worked to stop team members from contacting the press about the startup’s internal troubles.

We’re always looking for top-tier engineering talent and look forward to welcoming these new team members to Coinbase” a Coinbase spokesperson tells us.

Sensing a better business model there, it sold its storage business to Softbank-funded Clutter and moved to helping retail stores run rental programs.

But for Omni, ballooning storage prices pissed off users as on-demand became less afforable than a traditional storage unit. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574710208.7973623/Omni-storage-&-rentals-fails,-shutters,-sells-engineers-to-Coinbase-–-TechCrunch?ref=audio_experience

Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover has raised another $10 million to invest in nascent upstarts via Weekend Fund.

The news represents the firm’s second fundraise after a $3 million debut angel fund that closed in 2017.

Weekend Fund, which also operates an experiment to encourage employees to build side projects into companies called Weekend Build, invests across geographies and industries with a particular interest in audio and voice products, tools for distributed teams and remote workers, and low-code/no-code projects.

Weekend Fund joins a long line-up of early-stage micro-funds (or nano-funds, if you prefer) setting aside capital to compete with the likes of GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital and other monster funds that deploy capital at the seed stage, too.

Weekend Fund, for its part, doesn’t lead investments, rather, it writes small checks as a participant in early financings. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574708408.041027/Weekend-Fund-raises-$10M-for-second-early-stage-fund-–-TechCrunch?ref=audio_experience

Vibenomics, an Indianapolis, IN-based provider of place-based audio experience solutions and an audio out-of-home (OOH) programmatic advertising marketplace, closed a $5m seed plus funding.

The new funding will be used primarily to expand the advertising marketplace by increasing the number of participating locations and building out the ad sales team.

Clients work with Vibenomics Audio Experience Managers who control music, messaging, and advertising to customize the vibe in each location.

The company recently launched an audio out-of-home (OOH) advertising marketplace enabling brands to reach a national audience of nearly 150 million consumers or target any combination of 4000 individual locations.

Founded in 2016 in Indianapolis as Fuzic, the company rebranded to Vibenomics in 2017. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1574706612.800039/Vibenomics-Raises-$5M-in-Seed-Funding?ref=audio_experience