Category: Venture Capital

SoftBank Ventures Korea is now SoftBank Ventures Asia

SoftBank Ventures Asia, which will be renamed from SoftBank Ventures Korea, will increase early stage investments globally with an emphasis on Asia. SoftBank Ventures Asia is the early-stage investment vehicle of the SoftBank Group and will act as the bridge to the SoftBank ecosystem by sourcing and funding the best startups and entrepreneurs.

Currently operating teams in Seoul, Beijing, San Francisco, and Tel Aviv, SoftBank Ventures Asia is now looking to expand its presence by opening offices and hiring investment professionals in Singapore and Shanghai.

“I am excited by the opportunity to enhance our presence in the early stage and look forward to backing passionate entrepreneurs with the boldest, most life-changing ideas. Our vision is to support promising young entrepreneurs by offering unparalleled access to SoftBank’s community, resources, and network,” said JP Lee, CEO and Managing Partner of SoftBank Ventures Asia. “SoftBank Ventures Asia invests to accelerate the Information Revolution and is increasingly interested in the application of artificial intelligence across different industries.”

SoftBank Ventures Asia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp. and was established as SoftBank Ventures Korea in 2000. While initially focused on the Korean market, starting in 2011 it has expanded to make investments in startups globally. With over US$1.1B under management, SoftBank Ventures Asia has invested in over 250 companies across 10 countries with a focus on AI, IoT, and robotics startups.

Notable investments globally include Tokopedia, the leading technology company in Indonesia focused on commerce, logistics, payments and financial services; Mythic, a fast-growing AI chip company based in Silicon Valley; Hyperconnect, operator of video communication service “Azar” with over 200M downloads across 230 countries; and SNOW China, an augmented reality camera app that is #1 in terms of users in Asia.

“The SoftBank Ventures Asia team first invested in Tokopedia in 2013 and were an early believer in our mission to democratize commerce through technology. They have been supportive shareholders and partners, and we continue to build a close relationship with them,” said William Tanuwijaya, CEO and Co-Founder of Tokopedia.

The new name is effective immediately and SoftBank Ventures Asia is already actively investing in the US, China, EU, Israel, Southeast Asia, and Korea. – AsiaPEVC.com

Also Read:
SoftBank Vision Fund Leads $400m Funding in Biotech Firm Relay Therapeutics
SoftBank Ventures Korea Co-Leads $20M Series C in Gauss Surgical

 

SoftBank Vision Fund Leads $400m Funding in Biotech Firm Relay Therapeutics

SoftBank Vision Fund, a subsidiary of Japan’s SoftBank Group Co, has led the $400-million Series C funding round in US-based biotechnology firm Relay Therapeutics, according to a statement Thursday.

The financing round was also participated by Foresite Capital, Perceptive Advisors, and Tavistock Group. Existing GV, Casdin Capital, BVF Partners, EcoR1 Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, and an affiliate of D.E. Shaw Research also backed the round.

Proceeds from this financing are anticipated to be used to accelerate the implementation of Relay Therapeutics’ long-term strategy. Relay said the fresh funds will support the expansion of the company’s discovery efforts, advance existing programs into the clinic and bolster its broad platform and diverse team.

Relay Therapeutics said it combines “unprecedented computational power” with leading-edge experimental approaches across the fields of structural biology, biophysics, chemistry and biology.

The integration of these disparate disciplines, tools and cultures enables Relay Therapeutics to overcome challenges that prior attempts have failed to solve and to design therapies against validated but previously intractable targets.

The company’s initial discovery programs in cancer have led to the development of highly selective inhibitors of disease-causing proteins in genomically defined patient populations.

“We are at a unique moment in the evolution of drug discovery where we can realize the promise of integrating ever more powerful experimental and computational discovery tools to tackle previously undruggable protein targets. The success of our early programs validates the potential of our platform to create breakthrough therapies that address a broad range of diseases,” said Sanjiv Patel, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Relay Therapeutics.

The latest funding round brings the company’s total funding amount to $520 million. It first raised $57 million in September 2016 for its Series A. In December 2017, the company raised another $63 million for its Series B.

“A financing of this magnitude allows Relay Therapeutics to significantly scale and advance both its platform and its pipeline. We are thrilled by the strong support of our investors for our mission, vision and strategy,” said Alexis Borisy, Chairman of Relay Therapeutics and Partner at Third Rock Ventures.

SoftBank Vision Fund, according to its latest amended SEC filing, raised a total of approximately $98.58 billion from 14 investors since its first sale on May 20, 2017. The fund has become one of the primary funding vehicles for technology companies around the world. Saudi Arabia provided $45 billion for the fund. – AsiaPEVC.com

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Lightspeed Venture Raising $560 Million For Two Chinese Funds

Lightspeed Venture Raising $560 Million For Two Chinese Funds

Lighstpeed Venture Partners, an American venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in the enterprise technology and consumer space, is raising a total of $560 million for VC funds focused on China.

In its pair of filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Lightspeed Venture said it is raising $360 million for a fourth Chinese venture capital fund and $200 million for a Chinese select fund.

The two funds – Lightspeed China Partners IV and Lightspeed China Partners Select I GP – add to Lightspeed’s 15 funds that have raised a combined $7.6 billion, according to Crunchbase data.

For this year, the firm raised $3.8 billion for its four funds – Lightspeed Venture Partners Select III, Lightspeed India Partners II, Lightspeed Venture Partners XII, and Lightspeed Venture Partners Select III.

Founded in 2000, Lightspeed Venture Partners invests in various sectors: enterprise, consumer, big data, bitcoin, enterprise technology, cleantech, mobile, internet, financial technology, cloud solutions, e-commerce, storage, media, networking, energy, and software, software-as-a-service, information technology, biotechnology, and social.

It mainly invests in countries such as the United States, Europe, Israel, China, and India.

Since its inception, the firm has made 678 investments, with 203 of them as lead investor. Its most recent investment was on December 14, 2018, when it invested $60 million Faire, a startup that helps retailers fund and buy wholesale merchandise for their stores.

Lightspeed-backed companies have held 17 initial public offerings in the last five years, about half of which have occurred since the start of 2017, including messaging app Snap, personal stylist company Stitch Fix Inc, and data storage provider Nutanix Inc.

It also reaped windfalls when Cisco Systems Inc acquired AppDynamics Inc and when Salesforce.com Inc bought MuleSoft for multiple billions of dollars.

According to a Reuters report, Lightspeed is eyeing a business expansion to Southeast Asia and wants to add investments in cryptocurrency, biotechnology, new TV streaming services and even cosmetics companies. – AsiaPEVC.com 

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Singapore Proptech Startup Propseller Raises $731K in Seed Funding

Singaporean startup Propseller has closed a S$1-million ($731,000) seed funding round from industry entrepreneurs and senior executives, the company said in a statement.

Propseller helps prospective property sellers and landlords find and compare the best property agents. It will use the fresh funds to accelerate its growth and further develop its technology focused on a “transparent approach” to select an agent using
independent reviews and agents’ track records.

The startup’s model and progress have attracted investments from prestigious business angels. Local entrepreneurs Yang Bin Kwok and Erwan Mace, founders of two of Singapore’s most successful startups, Zopim and Muslim Pro respectively, were in the round.

They were joined by some industry senior executives. Most notably PJ Vandepitte (global COO of Foodpanda), and real estate industry veteran Yvan de Rham (former Chairman of Sotheby’s International Realty for Switzerland) who commented “Propseller is doing at scale something that the industry needed for a long time: to make agents accountable for their work, from the very first phone call until after the contract is signed.”

Only 12 months after its launch, Propseller said owners using the platform have already put up for sale or rent S$500 million in combined property value. On the agent side, the traction is just as high, with 500 handpicked agents – from estate agencies such as PropNex, ERA and Sotheby’s – embracing the transparency route, joining Propseller and allowing client to rate their services.

“We invite only the best agents to join, then we have a very clear game play with them: delivering the highest level of service is the only way for them to build and maintain a reputation on Propseller,” the startup said.

The startup sees its service as “complementary” to the property listing portals. “PropertyGuru or 99.co are presenting properties to buyers and tenants. – AsiaPEVC.com

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SoftBank Ventures Korea Co-Leads $20M Series C in Gauss Surgical

SoftBank Ventures Korea, the global early-stage venture capital arm of SoftBank Group, has co-led the $20-million Series C funding round in Silicon Valley-based AI healthcare technology firm Gauss Surgical.

Also co-leading the round is Northwell Health, with LS Polaris Innovation Fund and seven other leading US health systems chipping in.

The proceeds of the round will be used to accelerate the adoption of its Triton platform in hospitals and to develop new AI-driven applications for the operating room.

The company’s flagship product, Triton, monitors surgical blood loss in real time using digital imaging and machine learning on the iPad.

It has received de novo approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a European CE mark. It is in increasingly widespread use in hospitals across the United States; so far, Triton has been adopted by 50 hospitals which perform more than 200,000 infant deliveries each year.

Over the last 15 years, preventable maternal deaths and harmful postpartum health complications for mothers have increased precipitously in the U.S. due to undetected hemorrhaging, particularly in cesarean deliveries.

According to a recent study of 2,781 caesarean section patients published in the American Journal of Perinatology, implementing Triton was associated with significant increases in recognition of maternal hemorrhage and significant decreases in blood product transfusions and hospital length of stay.

“The practical application of AI in hospitals will be a major growth driver in the medical technology industry, especially in addressing high-cost, high-impact unmet clinical needs,” said Siddarth Satish, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Gauss. “We are pleased to be strategically aligned with investors who bring significant operational experience both in AI-enabled services and in healthcare as we scale our platform.”

Also Read: SoftBank’s Vision Fund Leads $121m Funding in Camera Firm Light

The investors contributing to the Series C funding include the LS Polaris Innovation Fund of Polaris Partners, a Boston-based venture capital firm with more than $4.3 billion under management. It also includes the strategic venture arms of several leading healthcare systems including UNC/REX Healthcare, OSF Healthcare, Providence Healthcare, Orlando Health, Spectrum Health, Mount Sinai Health System, and the Memorial Hermann Health System.

“As a leader in the AI-driven healthcare technology field, Gauss is profoundly altering the delivery model for medical devices and services in hospitals. We are excited to back the company and its founder’s vision to fundamentally transform the way operating and delivery rooms work,” said J.P. Lee, CEO and managing director of SoftBank Ventures Korea. – AsiaPEVC.com

Singapore: Cloud Inventory Firm TradeGecko Secures $10M

TradeGecko, a global SaaS inventory and order management platform for small-medium businesses (SMBs), today announced a Series B investment of $10 million, led by TNB Aura Fund 1 and Aura Venture Fund, with Perle Ventures, and 33 Capital participating in the round.

This increases the total capital invested to date to over USD 20M. The proceeds raised will be used to grow TradeGecko’s product suite, providing a seamless commerce platform to thousands of commerce brands, and expanding to empower more commerce businesses around the world.

“In terms of feature-density, user experience, and quality of integrations, TradeGecko is the best-in-class B2B software-as-a-service provider in the inventory and order management space”, said Vicknesh R Pillay, Managing Partner of TNB Ventures and TNB Aura Fund 1. “We are pleased to back this standout player.”

“We see a massive opportunity to provide the back-end systems of SMB commerce on a global scale”, said Cameron Priest, CEO of TradeGecko. “With the rapid growth of SMBs around the world, partnering with Aura enables us to leverage their market knowledge and extensive network. With the latest funding, we will continue to invest in solving our customers most challenging operational challenges.”

TradeGecko was built with the vision of empowering millions of entrepreneurs to build the business of their dreams by providing a back-end platform to run the entire business operations of a growing commerce brand.

With global HQ based in Singapore and North American HQ in Toronto, the company powers the operational back-ends of leading SMB commerce brands including memobottle, Dead Studios, Brooklyn Bicycle Company, Maui and Sons, and Paula’s Choice Skincare.

Also Read: Singapore VC Amasia Backs Skillshare’s $28m Series C

TradeGecko aims to free business owners from the operational complexity of running their business to spend more time building a brand their customers will love.

“The investment into TradeGecko is a great deal for our fund” commented Calvin Ng, Managing Director of Aura Group. “We are confident in the long-term prospects of the company and the team’s ability to continue executing strong and consistent growth of their revenues and unit economics.”

Singapore VC Amasia Backs Skillshare’s $28m Series C

New York-headquartered online learning portal Skillshare has raised $28 million in Series C funding round backed by Singapore and San Francisco-based venture capital firm Amasia.

The new round includes $20 million in equity funding as well as $8 million in venture debt. Union Square Ventures, who previously participated in Skillshare’s earlier funding rounds, led the equity portion of the financing. Also participating were Burda Principal Investments and Spero Ventures.

Skillshare said it will use the financing to accelerate growth and expand its learning ecosystem, which serves the growing independent workforce.

“This round comes at a time in our company’s history where we’re seeing a lot of momentum,” said Matt Cooper, CEO of Skillshare. “Over the last twelve months we’ve experienced greater than 100% revenue growth, much of which was driven by what we call the ‘Independent Class’”.

Currently, Skillshare’s platform boasts over 5 million users and over 20,000 classes taught by a network of 6,000 experts across dozens of fields.

“Skillshare’s subscription model and affordable price make its ever-growing catalog of classes broadly accessible,” said Albert Wenger, managing partner at Union Square Ventures. “That’s a powerful model as it keeps the price of marginal usage at zero, allowing members to try classes risk-free and explore new paths of learning across a wide number of disciplines. In that regard, it’s like a Netflix for learning”.

Also Read: Israel: AI Vision Firm AnyVision Raises $28m in Bosch-led Series A

Matt Cooper, CEO, Skillshare

Of late, that thriving online community has become increasingly global as well, the startup said. Asia, particularly, has shown huge potential, with paid members from the region growing by more than 400 per cent over the last eighteen months.

Skillshare raised its Series B round in May of 2016. To date, the company has raised a total of $42 million in equity financing.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund Leads $121m Funding in Camera Firm Light

Advanced computational imaging firm Light has secured $121 million in Series D funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund and backed by consumer camera giant Leica Cambera AG.

The latest funding round brings Light’s total amount raised from investors to date to $186 million. The SoftBank Vision Fund investment will be made in tranches, subject to certain conditions.

Light’s groundbreaking imaging platform enables machines to see like humans do, using sophisticated algorithms to combine images from multiple camera modules into a single high-quality image and enabling highly-accurate 3D depth extraction.

The company said the new funding will allow it expand the reach of its imaging platform beyond consumer photography and into security, robotic, automotive, aerial and industrial imaging applications.

Later this year, the first mobile phone incorporating Light’s technology will be available to consumers around the world. It will shatter the expectations of mobile photography.

“Light’s technology is a revelation, showing that several small, basic camera modules, combined with highly powerful software, can produce images that rival those produced by cameras costing and weighing orders of magnitude more,” said Dave Grannan, Light CEO and Co-founder.

Grannan added that the support of SoftBank Vision Fund as a strategic investor means “this technology will see more of the world sooner than we could have ever imagined”.

Light’s foundational technologies, including its Lux Capacitor camera control chip and its Polar Fusion Engine for multi-image processing, are licensed for use in applications like smartphones, security, automotive, robotics, drones, and more.

“Light’s highly accurate depth mapping can be used to create rich and complex environments for a wide-range of applications including augmented reality,” the company said in a statement.

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Akshay Naheta, Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers, describes Light as a world leader in computational imaging.

“By replacing mechanical complexity with digital sophistication, they have been able to drastically reduce the size, weight, and cost of traditional cameras. This has paved the way for a whole new era of intelligent imaging applications,” Naheta said.

Israel: AI Vision Firm AnyVision Raises $28m in Bosch-led Series A

Israel-based AnyVision, a developer of artificial intelligence and computer vision technology, announced that it has raised $28 million in Series A financing led by German multinational technology group Bosch.

In a statement, AnyVision said the latest funding round also saw the backing of two US private equity groups, which the company did not identify.

“The new capital will allow the company to meet global demand and enhance product innovation, research, and development,” AnyVision said in a press statement.

Founded in 2015, AnyVision has created a software technology that the company said learns on the feed, is customizable, and runs on multiple platforms, including existing CCTV infrastructure.

“We built AnyVision to be a core technology that solves fundamental problems in the computer vision industry and that can operate on any sensor, any time,” said Eylon Etshtein, AnyVision’s CEO and Co-Founder.

The team behind the company has over 20 years of experience in artificial intelligence and computer vision and has developed proprietary AI solutions for the HLS/Police, airports, sports/entertainment, smart cities, critical infrastructure, banks, transportation and retail verticals.

Its solutions are oriented around real-world applications relating to faces, bodies, and objects. Through seamless integration and plug and play technology, AnyVision enables any camera to smarter by indexing and analyzing everything the sensor sees.

“Our customers around the world are increasingly asking for ways of integrating person and object recognition software into our cameras; collaboration with AnyVision will allow us to fulfill this customer wish even better and offer an enhanced package of solutions,” Bernhard Schuster, SVP at Bosch Building Technologies, said.

Also Read: South Korea’s ProtoPie Raises $3.5m in KIP-led Series A

AnyVision has shown significant growth in the three years since it launched in 2015. Today, the company has more than 130 employees globally and recently launched its first North American office in New York City.

Later this year, AnyVision will launch three new offices globally in Los Angeles, London and Singapore. AnyVision’s global customers and world class business partners include Microsoft, Google, Johnson Controls, Telefonica and Genetec.

Goldman Sachs Backs $55m Series C in Japanese Fintech Startup Paidy

Japanese financial technology (fintech) startup Paidy Inc has announced raising $55 million in a Series C funding round backed by Goldman Sachs. The latest round raised the startup’s total capital to $80 million.

In a statement, Paidy said the Series C was led by Japanese firm ITOCHU Corporation. It will use the fresh capital to launch large merchants, expand into the offline market, and offer additional financial services.

The fintech firm expects to grow its customer base to 11,000,000 accounts by 2020.

Paidy started Japan’s first instant post-pay credit service for ecommerce consumers in October 2014. It requires no pre-registration or credit card to use; Paidy consumers purchase products online using only a mobile phone number and email address (verification is established through a four-digit code via SMS or voice pin-code) and settle a single monthly bill for all their purchases, either at a convenience store, by bank transfer or auto debit.

The startup also also supports multi-pay installments and subscriptions. There are currently over 1,400,000 Paidy accounts in use (June 2018).

“We are extremely honored that Paidy’s business concept was highly valued by one of Japan’s most prestigious business conglomerates, ITOCHU. Through this tie-up, we expect to launch new merchants in order to deliver Paidy’s frictionless and intuitive financial solution to a much broader audience,” said Russell Cummer, Founder and Executive Chairman of Paidy.

Cummer added that Paidy now aims to promote its vision of removing barriers and creating unique consumer experiences to as many people as possible.

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Paidy has proved a powerful means of persuading first time buyers to transact online. Its proprietary models and machine learning mean that transactions are underwritten in seconds, with guaranteed payment to merchants.

Paidy increases merchant revenues by reducing incomplete transactions, increasing conversion rates, boosting average order values, and facilitating easy repeat buying.