If you thought the world didn’t need another prepared food distribution and delivery service, apparently you’d be wrong, as the newly minted startup Territory has managed to pull in $6.7 million for its healthier eating options. The company formerly known as Power Supply raised the money as it looks to expand to new geographies and consolidate its position in its current markets. Read More
Grammarly raises $110 million for a better spell check
Some people really need help with grammar. By the way, “a lot” is two words. “Your” and “you’re” are not the same thing. Grammarly has been quietly building a freemium grammar checker to help students, writers and people who want to make a good impression on social media or email. Now they’re raising $110 million from General… Read More
Pandora sells $150M in preferred stock to KKR to fund shift to on demand
Pandora is taking a cash infusion to maintain “a strong balance sheet” as it struggles to shift from radio to the increasingly popular on-demand streaming model. Private equity firm KKR has agreed to buy $150 million in Series A preferred Pandora shares and be paid a 7.5 percent or 8 percent quarterly dividend; KKR’s Richard Sarnoff will take a board seat. Read More
Dell Technologies Capital emerges from stealth, announces over 70 investments
Most venture capital funds that have 27 exits under their belt are not in stealth. In fact, most venture capital firms today don’t even know what 27 exits looks like. But Dell Ventures, in stealth until today, has been steadily investing at a rate of about $100 million per year. The group certainly knows what the market is willing to buy. It’s seen nearly 37 percent of… Read More
Music royalty collector Kobalt nabs $75M led by Hearst Entertainment at $775M valuation
As music streaming continues to grow in ubiquity, a company that’s built a platform to collect royalties on music played across billions of streams is cashing in on the opportunity. Kobalt, the European startup that has built technology and a platform to collect music royalties by tracking when even a sample of a song is played across multiple platforms, has raised another $75… Read More
Open Source database developer MariaDB picks up $27M from the EIB
As open source database architecture continues to grow in popularity, one of the bigger developers in the area has picked up some funding in an attempt to better target the opportunity. MariaDB Corporation, the company that develops solutions and contributes to the open-source SQL fork managed by the MariaDB Foundation, today announced that it has raised €25 million ($27 million) from… Read More
Garena rebrands to Sea and raises $550 million more to focus on Indonesian e-commerce
Garena, one of Southeast Asia’s biggest tech startups, has picked up $550 million in new funding and changed its name. The Singapore-headquartered consumer Internet company told Bloomberg that it is now called Sea Ltd. to reflect is global expansion plans (and also because SEA is an acronym for Southeast Asia). Its new valuation was undisclosed. Read More
Will the tech acquisition spree continue?
The year was off to a good start for technology acquisitions, according to data provided by PwC. There were 486 U.S. tech deals announced in the first quarter totaling $42.8 billion. In terms of both number of deals and value of deals, it was the best start of the year for U.S. tech M&A since 2014. There were 28% more deals than the same period last year, although the total was just 2%… Read More