JD.com, the Chinese online direct sales company, said it will raise $1 billion for its JD Finance subsidiary, from investors including Sequoia Capital China, China Harvest Investments and China Taiping Insurance, Reuters reports. The funding values JD Finance at 46.65 billion yuan (around $7 billion). JD.com will maintain a majority ownership in JD Finance following the financing. “During this phase of rapid development, we will benefit from the operating expertise that world-class financial institutions bring,” said a spokesman for JD.com. “We will continue to evaluate all options [for future additional financing] but plan to maintain a majority ownership in any eventuality.”
Estimote, which offers a sensor-based analytics and engagement platform, as raised $10.7 million in Series A funding led by Javelin Venture Partners. Digital Garage, Homebrew, Box Group and Commerce Ventures all participated in the funding round. “At Estimote our mission is to help developers and innovators delight mobile users with magical experiences. We focus on streamlining development and deployment processes by creating something we love to call an ‘OS for the physical world’, a real breakthrough in how software is built. And changing the world is much easier with great partners,” the company wrote in a blog post.
VeloCloud Networks, a cloud-delivered SD-WAN company, has closed a $27 million Series C financing round, led by March Capital Partners and two strategic investors, one of which is Cisco Investments. New Enterprise Associates and Venrock, both existing investors, also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to date to $49 million. “VeloCloud has already established itself as a SD-WAN leader and secured an impressive array of customer and ecosystem partners,” said Sumant Mandal, General Partner, March Capital Partners. “We see a rare, tremendous growth opportunity for SD-WAN in the next few years and strongly believe that VeloCloud, with its unique Cloud-Delivered strategy, is best positioned for great success in this burgeoning category.”