August raises $38m for smart lock technology

August, which offers a product that attempts to replace keys with smartphones, has raised $38 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Qualcomm Ventures and Comcast Ventures also participated in the round, which brings August’s total funding raised to $50 million. August’s flagship product is the August Smart Lock, which allows consumers to use virtual keys to open their homes. “Over the past two years, we’ve worked to deliver one of the most secure, intelligent ways to manage home access with the August Smart Lock and Connect, but this is just the entryway to a much larger vision,” said Co-Founder Jason Johnson. “With this new financing, our team will define a new product category in the smart home, aiming to solve what we call the ‘last five foot problem.’ There has always been talk of the ‘last mile problem’ of bringing trusted services into the home. With our smart lock, mobile apps, and cloud-based access control, we offer homeowners, property managers, and guests a sophisticated and trusted way to control home access, bridging the gap between service providers and homeowners.”

Machine intelligence software company Ayasdi has raised a $55 million Series C funding round, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Previous backers Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Khosla Ventures, FLOODGATE, Citi Ventures joined new investors Centerview Capital Technology and Draper Nexus in the round. “By combining many machine learning algorithms together with topological mathematics and artificial intelligence, Ayasdi developed an entirely new approach that simplifies complex data analysis for large organizations,” said Ted Schlein, General Partner at KPCB. “Machine Intelligence is one of the breakthrough innovations that will drive the next information and productivity wave in the coming decade.”

Artsy, an art discovery platform, has raised a $25 million Series C financing round led by Catterton, the Wall Street Journal reports. Thrive Capital, IDG Capital Partners and the Rockefeller family are all previous investors returning for this round. The company previously raised $18.5 million in Series B funding in April 2014 led by Thrive Capital.

Helpling, a Rocket Internet-based marketplace for home cleaning services, has raised $47 million. Lakestar, Kite Ventures joined the likes of Rocket in the latest round of funding. Helpling is based in Berlin and operates in 200 cities. The company plans to use the funds to increase the number of users in the 12 countries where it is available through marketing.