Encryption services provider Vera has closed a $17 million Series B financing round led by Sutter Hill Ventures. Existing investors Battery Ventures, Clear Venture Partners and Amplify Partners all participated in the round. “Vera is bridging a critical security gap by changing the way enterprises think about securing their data and we’re excited to be part of this opportunity,” said Stefan Dyckerhoff, Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures. “We’re turning a pivotal corner where businesses across every industry are re-evaluating their cybersecurity strategies across multiple dimensions in the wake of an increasingly dynamic and damaging threat environment. It’s become very clear that status quo approaches to security have grown tired and ineffective — it’s time for a new guard to emerge. In many ways, Vera is a leader among this new and exciting class of security solution providers. All of us at Sutter Hill Ventures are extremely impressed with how Vera has redefined information security and it’s exciting to see the industry take notice.”
Opternative, a startup offering online eye exams, has closed a Series A financing round worth $6 million. Jump Capital led the round, with participation from Tribeca Venture Partners, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Chicago Ventures, Craig Duchossois, Corazon Capital (Sam Yagan), NextGen Venture Partners and others. The company has raised $9.5 million to date. “Opternative’s telemedicine application has cleared a bottleneck for a large and growing market dynamic in online eye care,” said Garrett Vygantas, M.D., Partner at Jump Capital. “We are eager to continue to work with Opternative to commercialize this technology and develop additional products that support the vision of the company.”
Pliant Therapeutics, which will develop new therapies for fibrotic disorders, has launched with $45 million in Series A financing from Third Rock Ventures. “Pliant’s founders include world-renowned researchers from the University of California, San Francisco who have discovered key insights into the biology behind fibrosis and developed small molecule therapeutics to target this devastating disease process,” said Neil Exter, partner at Third Rock Ventures. “Third Rock Ventures is very excited to have Dr. Coulie join these esteemed experts to bring forward an entirely new approach for fibrosis patients who currently have limited options.”
Nimble Collective, which is developing a cloud based platform for the animation industry, has closed an $8.5 million round of funding from New Enterprise Associates. “The animation content market generates $90 billion annually, yet millions of talented animators simply do not have access to the expensive studio-quality technology tools and big budgets currently required to bring high-quality creative projects to fruition,” said Michael Howse, co-founder and investor of Nimble Collective. “Nimble will change that by democratizing the market with the world’s first collaborative, cloud-based platform for generating content that animators can distribute and profit from in exciting new ways.”