Seed
North Technologies, a mobile app incubator started by Digg founder Kevin Rose, has raised $5 million in seed funding from Redpoint Ventures, Greylock Partners, Google Ventures, and True Ventures. The San Francisco-based incubator currently boasts two apps: Tiiny, a video and photo sharing app, and Watchville, an aggregator of wristwatch-related news. Along with the announcement came news that Rose would formally be stepping down from his current role as a venture partner with Google Ventures.
BlockCypher, a block chain web service that enables enables developers to build Bitcoin functionality into their sites, has secured a $3.1 million Seed round. Investors include Tim Draper, New Enterprise Associates, Granite Ventures, and AME Cloud Ventures.
Series B
GGV Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Digital Sky Technologies, and Founders Fund are among those to invest in Boxed‘s $25 million Series B. The Boxed mobile app facilitates bulk purchases that otherwise would take place at big box retailers like Costco and Sam’s Club. The company has now raised $32.6 million.
Data collection, storage, and analysis platform Treasure Data has raised $15 million from Scale Venture Partners and returning backers Sierra Ventures and AME Cloud Ventures. Treasure Data is a Heavybit Industries portfolio company.
Series C
The similarities between Moovit and Waze are obvious: crowdsourced traffic information platforms originally founded in Israel. It goes without saying then that investors in Moovit’s $50 million Series C, which included Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners, and Gemini Israel Ventures, are eyeing a Waze-type exit.
Growth equity
Travice, the operator of the Chinese taxi hailing app Kuaidi Dache, has raised a reported $600 million from SoftBank and Alibaba. With the investment, Alibaba joins its two domestic competitors in the ride-hailing app market. Tencent has a stake in Didi Dache, while Baidu has invested in Uber.