Series A
San Mateo marketing and analytics company Piqora has gained $7.7 million in a Series A investment round. DFJ led the funding, which saw contributions from Freestyle Capital, Lazerow Ventures, Baseline Ventures, Altos Ventures, and Firebolt Ventures. Total backing behind the company now exceeds $11 million. Piqora has also revealed the debut of “the industry’s first centralized Instagram Conversation Manager,” according to a press release.
Palo Alto cybersecurity company Sentinel Labs has raised $12 million in a Series A financing round led by Tiger Global. New investor The Westly Group joined previous ones Accel Partners, Granite Hill Capital Partners, and Data Collective in contributing to the funding. The company had earlier received $2.5 million in seed funding from investors such as Accel Partners, Data Collective, UpWest Labs, Granite Hill Capital Partners and Dan Scheinman.
Personal learning technology company Declara has raised $16 million in Series A funding. GSV Capital led the investment; Catamount Ventures, Data Collective and Founders Fund participated. Customers include Genentech and Education Services Australia.
Series B
Guardant Health, a Redwood City biotech company, has secured more than $30 million in a Series B funding led by Khosla Ventures. Current backer Sequoia Capital and fresh investor Pejman Mar Ventures contributed to the round. The capital will go towards buttressing “the continued commercial expansion of its GUARDANT360 non-invasive tumor sequencing test,” says a press release.
Kala Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which advances ophthalmic products, has realized a $22.5 million Series B round. Ysios Capital led the investment; a new strategic investor contributed along with existing backers Lux Capital, Crown Venture Fund, Polaris Partners and Third Rock Ventures, says a press release. Waltham, MA-based Kala Pharmaceuticals develops treatments targeting ocular diseases.
Series C
Website-making company Weebly has received $35 million in a Series C funding round. Current partner Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holdings Ltd. invested. Upwards of 20 million people worldwide have built a Weebly site, blog or online store, says the San Francisco company.
Series F
Mountain View-based Pure Storage has raised $225 million in a Series F investment round that valued the company at more than $3 billion. The funding counted Tiger Global, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Wellington Management Company, Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Redpoint Ventures as investors. Total backing behind the enterprise storage array venture now comes to $470 million.
Funding
Cincinnati biopharma Aerpio Therapeutics, Inc. has gained $22 million in a fresh funding round led by OrbiMed, a new backer. Current investors Triathlon Medical Ventures, Satter Investment Management, Kearny Venture Partners, Venture Investors, Novartis Venture Funds and Athenian Venture Partners contributed. The company concentrates on developing therapies for vascular diseases.
Menlo Park semiconductor company InVisage Technologies, Inc. has gained $18 million in funding, bringing its total backing to more than $100 million. GGV Capital, RockPort Capital, InterWest Partners, OnPoint Technologies, Intel Capital and Nokia Growth Partners all invested. The company is looking to debut its QuantumFilm Camera Sensor soon.
CorvisaCloud, LLC., a cloud-based communications company out of Milwaukee, has completed a $30 million funding round. The investment came from CorvisaCloud’s parent company, Novation Companies, Inc. “According to DMG Consulting’s Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report, more than 62 percent of organizations were using some type of cloud-based contact center solution as part of their operation in September 2013, and approximately half (45.6 percent) of the organizations that are not yet using cloud-based contact center solutions are planning to move in this direction in the next 18 months,” says a press release.
Delivery Hero, the Rocket Internet company which serves the food delivery industry, has raised $85 million in a Series F funding round led by a “6 billion dollar global investment fund,” according to TechCrunch. The company, based in Berlin, links upwards of 55,000 food-ordering sites around the world, says its LinkedIn page.
M&A
South Africa’s Dimension Data, “the $6 billion global ICT solutions and services provider,” has picked up all of Valencia, CA-based IT services company Nexus. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.