Series A
DoorDash, a food delivery platform, has raised a $17.3 million Series A funding round, led by Sequoia Capital. Existing investors Khosla Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Pejman Ventures all participated. The company started out as a dorm project in Stanford University 15 months ago.
Lysogene, a gene therapy biotechnology company, has closed a $22.4 million Series A financing round. Paris-based Sofinnova Partners led the round, while Bpifrance, through its Innovio fund, and Novo Seeds participated. The company is developing a treatment for Sanfilippo syndrome Type A, a fatal disease affecting children for which there is currently no cure.
WholeWorldBand, which allows users to collaborate on unfinished music, has raised $6.8 million in a Series A round led by IIU and Balderton Capital. The company will use the funds to scale the platform and increase community engagement. IlU chairman Dermot Desmond commented: “WholeWorldBand addresses a global market and will fundamentally change the way music is created, shared and monetized.”
Series B
Brandwatch, a social media analytics company, has raised $22 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Highland Capital Partners Europe, while Nauta Capital and other existing investors participated. The company previously raised $6 million in 2012 and plans to use this fresh round of funding to double its product and engineering teams.
M&A
F5 Networks has acquired Defense.Net Inc., which provides cloud-based security services for protecting data centers and Internet applications from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The cloud-based technology of Defense.Net will complement the on-premise offerings of F5 Networks. Deal terms were not disclosed.