Uber is looking for more cash, just weeks after raising $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia. The ride hailing app is turning to the leveraged-loan market for funding this time, and has hired Morgan Stanley and Barclays to offer a leveraged loan in the range of $1 billion to $2 billion to institutional investors, The Wall Street Journal reports. Leveraged loans are a private version of junk bonds. Banks loan cash to companies with credit ratings below investment grade and then unload the loans to professional investors. Issuers of the loans don’t need to report financial information publicly.
Twitter has invested around $70 million in music streaming company SoundCloud, Bloomberg reports. The Berlin-based business will use the cash to expand its paid offering. According to a Bloomberg source the financing is part of a larger round, expected to be worth around $100 million. That round will reportedly value SoundCloud at $700 million. SoundCloud claims to have 175 million monthly users and released a premium service in March.
Biopharmaceutical company Allecra Therapeutics, which is looking to develop antibiotics to combat drug-resistant bacterial infections, has closed a $24.7 million Series B investment round. Delos Capital led the round, with participation coming from existing investors Forbion Capital Partners, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, EMBL Ventures and Allecra’s co-Founder Nicholas Benedict. Holger Reithinger of Forbion Capital Partners and Allecra’s Chairman, said: “This Series B investment into Allecra enables pursuit of the development program of AAI202, speeding the potential availability of AAI202 to patients who need it. Forbion is confident that Allecra can build on the already positive results for AAI202 and has invested in excess of our pro-rata share by deploying capital from both our main fund and now also from our latest co-invest fund.”
Lumus, which makes transparent near-to-eye displays for augmented and mixed reality, has raised a $15 million Series B round of financing led by Shanda Group and Crystal-Optech. Lumus will use the new funds to increase production capacity, expand R&D capabilities and to increase business development, TechCrunch reports.