Week Ending 10.28.18
ESENTIRE ACQUIRES VERSIVE
XTALPI RAISES FUNDS FROM CHINA LIFE
THROUGHPUT & TRUE DECISION HIRE COOS
AND MORE ↓
MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
ThreeBridge Solutions, the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based consulting firm, said it acquired LiftPoint Consulting, the data analytics firm using AI. Terms weren’t disclosed.
Bitdefender, the Bucharest, Romania-based cybersecurity firm, said it acquired RedSocks Security, a Dutch cybersecurity firm using AI. Terms weren’t disclosed.
eSentire, the Cambridge, Canada-based cybersecurity firm, said it acquired Versive, a cybersecurity firm using AI and machine learning. Terms weren’t disclosed.
Lyft, the San Francisco, California-based ride hailing firm, acquired Google-backed AR firm Blue Vision Labs. Lyft is paying USD 72m to start and may pay as much as USD 30m more if certain targets are hit, according to TechCrunch.
FILINGS
Helios and Matheson Analytics, the New York City-based IT services company using AI, said it plans to spin off its ticket subscription service MoviePass.
Helios is under a New York state investigation for fraud, according to a tweet last week from New York Attorney General Carrie Underwood.
StoneCo, the Sao Paulo, Brazil-based payments firm using AI, saw its shares jump 31% on the first day of trading on the Nasdaq. The company and shareholders, including Tiger Global Investors, upsized the initial public offering to raise USD 1.22bn from the sale of 50.7m shares at USD 24.00 each.
Stone was originally raising as much as USD 1.1bn from the sale of 47.7m shares at USD 21.00 to USD 23.00 each.
Qualtrics International, the Provo, Utah-based business software developer using AI, refiled for a USD 200m initial public offering on the Nasdaq.
FUNDING
DataRobot, the Boston, Massachusetts-based AI company, said it raised USD 100m in a Series D led by venture capital firm Meritech and Sapphire Ventures. The venture capital arm of semiconductor maker Intel also participated.
XtalPi, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company using AI, said it raised an additional USD 31m from investors, including the state-owned insurance company China Life, in a Series B that originally closed in January at USD 15m. In what the company is calling a Series B-1 extension XtalPi has now raised a total of USD 46m. Tencent and Google participated in the January round.
Namaste, the Toronto, Canada-based cannabis company using AI, upsized a follow on offering to USD 51.75m from the original USD 45m. The company sold 17.25m shares with warrants instead of the 15m shares it had announced last week. The price at USD 3.00 remained the same.
Earlier this month the company refuted Citron Research reports that a sale of US assets were to a related party under securities rules. Namaste acknowledged one action in progress by US regulators it did not identify.
Arctic Wolf Networks, the Sunnyvale, California-based cybersecurity firm using AI, said it raised USD 45m in a Series C led by Future Fund, the Australian sovereign wealth fund.
People.ai, the San Francisco, California-based business services firm using AI, said it raised USD 30m in a Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz’ crypto fund a16z.
Syntiant, the Irvine, California-based Ai semiconductor maker, said it raised USD 25m in a Series B led by Microsoft’s venture fund M12. Funds operated by Amazon, Intel and Motorola also participated.
Eyesight, the Herzeliya, Israel-based sensor company using AI, said it raised USD 15m in a funding round led by the investment unit of Hong Kong-based marketing firm Jebsen.
Usher, the Santa Clara, California-based software as a service company using AI, said it raised USD 12m in a Series A led by venture capital fund 8VC.
Finn AI, the Vancouver, Canada-based firm using AI for natural language customer service, said it raised CAD 14m (USD 11m) in a Series A led by Canada’s Yaletown Partners and Seattle’s Flying Fish Partners. Finn AI also hired a new managing director. (See People section for details)
METRON, the Paris, France-based company using AI to reduce industrial energy consumption, said it raised EUR 8m (USD 9m) from investors including BNP Paribas.
Resolution Games, the Stockholm, Sweden-based AR/VR game maker, said it raised USD 7.5m in a Series B led by AI-focused venture capital firm MizMaa Ventures.
Pattern89, the Indianapolis, Indiana-based advertising firm using AI, said it raised USD 3.5m in a financing led by F&M Investments, which has a real estate focus.
Afiniti, the Washington DC-based AI consumer services platform, raised USD 135m in a Series D that valued the company at USD 1.6 bn. The deal features USD 75m in equity and USD 60m debt, according to a TechCrunch report.
VergeSense, the San Francisco, California-based sensor maker using AI, said it raised USD 1.5m in a funding round led by JLL Spark.
Wahed Invest, the New York City-based financial robo-advisor, raised USD 8m in funding at a USD 100m valuation, according to a Menabytes report.
Ople, the San Mateo, California-based AI software company, said it raised USD 8m in a Series A led by Triage Ventures.
Innovusion, the San Francisco, California-based company developing autonomous driving technology, said it raised USD 30m in Series A led by a venture capital fund run by Chinese car maker Nio, Eight Roads Ventures and F-Prime Capital.
Tencent-backed Nio raised USD 1bn in a downsized US IPO last month.
Other deals include Promethium, Wallarm and Ultra Capital
LEGAL & REGULATORY
American Retail Group, the Las Vegas, Nevada-based firm which completed a reverse merger earlier this year with Simex, had it shares suspended after making claims it was working with a regulated custodian for cryptocurrency transactions, according to a statement from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
PEOPLE
ThroughPut, the Sunnyvale, California-based company using AI to provide corporate supply chain services, said it hired Seth Page as COO and head of corporate development. Page joins from Progress, the business services firm, where he was general manager and executive vice president of strategic partnerships and channels.
TruDecision, the Grapevine, Texas-based financial technology company using AI, said it hired former Wells Fargo executive Joel Kennedy as COO. TruDecision is focused on auto loans.
Earlier this month, former General Motors Financial executive Steve Bowman joined its advisory board. In September former IBM executive and blockchain researcher John Medellin did as well.
Marchex, the Seattle, Washington-based telephone analytics firm, said it hired Junemei Zhong as chief AI scientist. Zhong was chief data scientist at Inspur, the cloud computing company using AI.
Lark Health, the Mountain View, California-based medical app firm using AI, said it hired Dr Rosemary Ku as chief medical officer. She held the same role at Restore Health, which was acquired by Zillion, another healthcare company.
STATS, the Chicago, Illinois-based sports data and analytics firm using AI and machine learning, said it hired former JPMorgan executive Leo Wang as head of engineering and technology.
Earlier this month STATS hired Blake Konrardy as vice president of product management. He joins from State Farm’s HiRoad unit, an insurance technology business.
In September STATS hired Jill Hansen as CFO and Steve Xeller as chief revenue officer. Hansen was previously managing director of finance and accounting at Vista Consulting while Xeller joined from MicroStrategy, where he was executive vice president of international sales. In July STATS hired former JPMorgan banker Helen Sun as chief technology officer.
Finn AI, the Vancouver, Canada-based firm using AI for natural language customer service, said it hired former IBM executive Linda Wittich as managing director, global sales and strategic account management. The company also completed a Series A. (See Fundings for more details)
Anthem, the Indianapolis, Indiana-based health insurer, hired former Google executive Udi Manber as head of AI, according to a CNBC report.
CareerBuilder, the Chicago, Illinois-based job wesbite using AI, said it promoted Sasha Yablonovsky to executive vice president of customer experience.
Other hires include Manifold and PenFed Credit Union
Board appointments include Pure Storage, Medidata, UiPath, Nozomi Networks and Tissue Analytics
DATA
No data was released in the areas we track.