Business Insider is close to terms with a buyer, Derek Jeter joined a funding round led by NEA for a videoconferencing service and a bunch of other startups raised money this week. Here are the details:
Capital Gains: Old-Media Money for New Media, Derek Jeter Invests in Videoconferencing and More
Insurance shopping, e-sports and cyber security also raised significant money.
Todd Bernard
- Axel Springer is close to finalizing a deal to buy Business Insider for $560 million. The German publishing giant led a $25 million funding round for the company in January and narrowly missed out on buying the Financial Times from Pearson earlier this year.
- Auris Surgical Robotics, which makes technology for eye treatments and surgery, raised $150 million from Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management, Lux Capital, NaviMed Capital and others. Last year, the company raised a $34 million Series A (MedCity News).
- Cyber security and networking company CloudFlare raised $110 million in a round led by Fidelity Investments, with participation from Google Capital, Baidu, Microsoft and Qualcomm Ventures. The company now has $182 million total funding, but probably won’t go public in the next year and a half (Fortune).
- Onshape, which uses cloud technology to run computer-aided design software on any type of device, raised $80 million in a new funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company has raised $144 million in total (Wired).
- Blue Jeans Network, a widely used videoconferencing platform, raised $76.5 million from a group of investors led by NEA, whose other contributors include former baseball player Derek Jeter, Accel Partners, Battery Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners. In 2013, the company was valued at $500 million (Forbes).
- Boston-area pharmaceutical startup Deciphera raised $75 million to advance two cancer-treatment drugs through clinical trials. Investors in the Series B round include New Leaf Venture Partners, a “high net worth individual” from the Midwest, and other undisclosed names (Boston Globe).
- Data-analysis startup Premise, which scrapes economic data from around the globe and sells it to governments and financial institutions, raised $50 million in a round led by Valor Equity Partners. Valor’s CEO (a Solar City and Tesla board member), Antonio Garcias, is joining the Premise board.
- CoverHound, an insurance-shopping service, raised $33 million at a $103 million valuation in a round led by ACE Group. Oher investors include RRE Ventures, Blumberg Capital and others (Silicon Valley Business Journal).
- Magazine and newspaper publisher Hearst invested $21 million in the pop-culture website network Complex, which was last valued at $174 million in 2013, when it took in $25 million from Iconic Brand Group.
- Skillz, an e-sports software company that powers tournaments for video game makers, raised a $15 million Series B funding round led by Wildcat Management Group, with participation from New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft and Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry (Forbes).
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
