AOL co-founder Steve Case, via his investment fund Revolution Growth, has now made a second deal to fund a company focused on healthy eating. The firm is putting $30 million into Revolution Foods (no relation to Revolution Growth!), a company launched eight years ago by two women and mothers who wanted to find a better and more affordable way to provide healthier school lunches.
As with last year’s $22 million investment into organic salad chain Sweetgreen, Revolution Foods is not really a “tech” company, however.
Yext, a company that helps local businesses manage their listing information online, is gearing up to break out of the U.S. with its latest funding round.
The New York City-based company announced today that it has received a $50 million round of funding led by Deven Parekh of Insight Venture Partners. This is Yext’s sixth round of funding, bringing its total to around $115 million.
Yext plans to invest the new funding in upcoming products and international expansion, cofounder and CEO Howard Lerman told me in an interview. The company plans to launch in Germany, Australia, Canada, and the U.K. later this year. It will hit the rest of Europe and Asia in 2015.
WritePath, an editing company that serves college applicants, technical writers, and academic researchers, has raised $525,000 in seed funding led by B Dash Ventures. The Singapore-based startup will use the capital to set up offices in Japan, Korea, and the U.S. WritePath operates three online editing services called Topadmit.com, Topsciedit.com, and Bizeditors.com that each serve different verticals.
Zurich-based travel startup Nezasa, which offers a “one-stop shop” to design and book your personalised travel itinerary, has closed an $800,000 second round of funding from an unnamed family office, various business angels and existing investors.
The company competes with traditional travel agencies and similar custom/personalised travel upstarts, such as Evaneos, and Trip.me. Evaneos recently closed a much larger Series B round of $6 million, led by XAnge Private Equity, with participation from previous investor ISAI.
Pathbrite makes a tool that students can use to create web-based portfolios showing what they have learned. It seems to be working: More than 500 organizations, the vast majority of which are colleges, use Pathbrite to help their students create e-portfolios.
And now the company has raised a new $3.7 million in capital from Cengage Learning, a Boston-based company that provides educational content, services, and technology.
DNA Data se ha llevado el premio gordo de los Toribio Echevarria de este año, los más prestigiosos que desde hace 24 años se entregan a statups en Euskadi. La agraciada tiene su sede en Miramón y está especializada en el diagnóstico molecular de enfermedades genéticas con la ayuda del análisis del ADN. Con su tecnología se pueden hacer pruebas de paternidad, conocer el sexo de un bebé y secuenciar genes, que es la aplicación con mayor potencial.
Ya estamos en junio y las inversiones en startups españolas se siguen sucediendo. A continuación, nuestro informe resumen mensual. Si nos hemos dejado alguna o hay algún dato incorrecto, no dudéis en indicárnoslo, rápidamente actualizaremos el listado.
What is it about Finnish startups and fitness? We’ve recently covered Sportsetter, an app that lets you discover different fitness experiences, and HeiaHeia, the corporate wellness platform — both companies that hail from Finland. Today another Finnish startup, MyNextRun, which helps runners discover and signup for running events, has raised a new round of funding.
While smartphones have decimated the point-and-shoot camera market, the emergence of GoPro as a $1 billion company has shown that there’s still an audience willing to pay for a device that can take great footage at big events or during outdoor activities like hiking or snowboarding. But for most people, a $200+ camera is overkill when smartphones are increasingly capable of taking great low-light photos and image-stabilized video.
Based in South Africa, Douglas Hoernle, went from working in the Cape’s wine industry to the edtech space when he co-founded the startup Rethink Education. He says that his family always had a passion for education and that he was looking to do something with a greater, lasting social impact than what the fine arts of the wine industry has to offer.
He looked at one of the fathers of modern elearning for inspiration — Salman Khan — who’s the founder of the incredibly popular Khan Academy, a non-profit online education platform. His company has served as a popular muse for current startups in the edtech space.
