Series B
Cambridge nutrition/pharmacology company Pronutria has raised a $12.25 million Series B funding round led by Flagship, which saw participation from private investors. The round brings total backing behind the company, founded in 2011, to $23 million. Pronutria also announced the start of two clinical trials to appraise its lead ProNutrein product candidates, according to a press release.
Menlo Park-based education platform Curious.com which has raised $15 million in a Series B round. GSV Capital led the investment, and all prior backers contributed. Among them: Redpoint Ventures, Bill Campbell and Jesse Rogers. The company leverages upwards of 5,000 “video-based” lessons from more than 700 teachers, according to the company.
Series C
Software Defined Security startup CloudPassage has realized a $25.5 million Series C funding round. Shasta Ventures led the investment, while Meritech Capital Partners, Tenaya Capital, Musea Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo contributed. In total CloudPassage has received $53 million in capital.
Series E
Tintri, Inc., the Mountain View storage provider for cloud and virtualization environments, has raised a $75 million Series E funding round. The oversubscribed round was led by Insight Venture Partners and included contributions from Lightspeed Venture, NEA and Menlo Ventures. Total backing behind Tintri stands at $135 million. The company, which at the end of 2013 had grown by 115 percent year over year, says its new capital injection “puts the industry’s only application-aware storage pioneer on-track for a future initial public offering.”
Funding
According to reports, Jawbone, which sells UP wearable bands among other products, is the latest company to receive a mega funding round at a monster valuation. The company has almost finished a $250 million round led by Rizvi Traverse Management. Previous backers in the San Francisco company include Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and J.P. Morgan’s Digital Growth Fund. Canalys predicts more than 17 million wearable bands to ship this year. Total funding behind Jawbone reportedly exceeds $275 million in VC funding and $100 million in debt and equity financing.
Bainbridge, WA-based Avalara, which provides automated sales tax services, has secured $30 million in funding in a round led by Sageview Capital and Battery Ventures. To date, the company has received upwards of $100 million in funds. Avalara ramped up fiscal revenue more than 400 percent from 2008 to 2012, according to a press release.
RiseSmart, which serves up enterprise career management services, has raised $11 million in growth equity funding. The investment round was led by Accel-KKR, while Norwest Venture Partners contributed. The San Jose company has received $24.85 million in funding since its start in 2007.
Trinity Ventures has led an $8 million Series B investment in San Jose-based software company Hoopla, which leverages “sales motivation” solutions. Safeguard Scientifics, Illuminate Ventures and private backers contributed to the round. The company aims to serve the 15 million global professionals that work with CRM systems, according to a release. Last year Hoopla enjoyed growth of more than 250 percent.
M&A
Comcast and Time Warner Cable will soon be one company, pending regulatory approval. The stock-for-stock deal has Comcast scooping Time Warner Cable’s outstanding shares, all 284.9 million of them, for CMCSA shares coming to roughly $45.2 billion in equity value, according to a release. Comcast will newly serve 30 million subscribers. The deal depends on shareholders’ okay at both companies and regulatory review, as well as “other customer conditions.”