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Bi-monthly Highlights

Global Trends

App Annie predicts worldwide app downloads to hit over 280 billion by 2020.
In 2015, worldwide app downloads stood at 112 billion, with Asia accounting for around 50 percent of the tally
according to App Annie data revealed by AI. This year, the intelligence platform forecasts downloads to go up
to 149 billion, and Asia will make up 81 billion or more than half of that. The figures are projected to go even
higher by 2020 downloads by then will total 288 billion and Asias share will be 165 billion or almost 60
percent. Time spent in communication apps has grown by over 100 percent. Time spent in social apps, by
120 percent, and time spent in media and video apps has grown by over 200 percent, said Al Campa, chief
marketing officer of App Annie. percent. Furthermore, Al claims that apps are evolving into new use areas,
with companies initially using apps for sales and marketing, are now moving to other verticals such as ticket
buying, media streaming, and support services.

Chinas US$285B social security funds will soon be using Blockchain tech.
Chinas National Council for Social Security Funds is adopting Blockchain tech for the first time to keep down
transaction costs. Blockchain technology will be used in social security system because of its valuable
applications in the investment and management of social security funds. Wang Zhongmon, Vice chairman of
the council told state newspaper China Daily. The National Council for SSF (Social Security Fund) managed
around 1.9 trillion Yuan, ($285 billion USD) as of the end of 2015. Chinas biggest state banks, China
Merchants Bank, revealed they were working with finance innovation firm R3 to build the ledger-style
technology used for large-scale Blockchain operations. Although China has had a Terse relationship with
Blockchain technologies in the past, Bitcoin mining for personal gain has continued to flourish in China
however, fueling innovation in related technologies.

IBM to pour $200 million into Watson Internet of Things A.I. business in Munich
IBM will invest $200 million in a new global headquarters for its Watson Internet of Things business in Munich
Germany. The move is part of the strategy of combining Watson - the supercomputer that beat the worlds
best human Jeopardy player - with the Internet of Things (IoT), or using sensors to make everyday objects
smart and connected. Its also part of a global plan to invest $3 billion to bring Watsons cognitive computing to
IoT. The investment in Munich is one of the companys largest ever in Europe, and its in response to growing
demand from customers who want to transform their operations with A.I. and IoT. IBM said it has 6,000 global
clients using its Watson IoT solutions and services, up from 4,000 eight months ago.

SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in


Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul.
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Asia Pacific
China

Chinas answer to GoPro raises $90m funding.


Chinas answer to GoPro, a startup called Yi Technology, has raised US$90 million in funding. Gadget maker
Xiaomi is among the investors, just as it did for the startups series A round. Yi, which is largely unkown
outside China, recently received praise for its newest action camera, the Yi 4K, which offers features and
specifications comparable to a GoPro costing double its price tag. Yi has currently sold 1.5 million action
cameras and 3 million home security cameras in the past two years, claimed by Chief Executive Sean Da.The
Shanghai-based startup opened in 2013, and is called Xiaoyi in Chinese. The Chinese smartphone maker
tapped Yi to make its first action camera back in 2015.

Xiaomi announces its first VR headset but you cant buy it yet
Xiaomi announced the Mi VR Play, an entry-level virtual reality headset that it hopes can open this new
exciting medium to new audiences because not everyone has thousands of dollars needed to set up an
Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. This new device recalls Googles super-cheap and super-simple Cardboard VR
headset. you pop a smartphone into the lycra-built body then open Xiaomis Mi VR app, which contains VR
content from selected partners that include Conde Nast Traveler and YouKu, Chinas YouTube. Xiaomi
pledged to invest $1 billion in video content, including VR, last year, so that library is sure to get bigger over
time. Xiaomi is making it available to a limited number of beta test users, who signed up on August 1 when
Xiaomi put out a call for volunteers. One million users signed up in just eight hours, the company said, but
Xiaomi has selected just a fraction of those. For those lucky ones accepted into the test program, the Mi VR
Play will cost just RMB 1 ($0.15).

Tink Labs raises $125M to put its free-to-use smartphone in more hotel rooms worldwide
Hong Kong-based Tink Labs has raised a whopping $125 million to expand its idea to cover more hotels
worldwide. The new financing was providing by existing investor and manufacturing giant Foxconn (via its FIH
Mobile unit), with participation from Sinovation Ventures, the investment firm from ex-Google China head Kaifu
Lee, and Cai Wensheng, a prolific angel investor who is Chairman of popular Chinese photo service Meitu.
Tink Labs CEO 24-year-old 1 Kwok declined to provide the companys valuation, but hinted that it is above
$500 million. Tink Labs began as a device rental service that targeted travelers at airports, but Kwok said it
pivoted when the team found that the business wasnt as scalable as hoped. It remained focused on travelers,
but moved its touch point to hotels where it has founded traction, raising over $170 million from investors to
date, working with major groups like Starwood, Accor, Shangri-la, and Melia.

Xiaomis Android set-top box to launch as soon as October for less than $100
The Mi Box was announced and demoed all the way back in May at Google I/O, but so far the company has
remained quiet on when it will go on sale. A source inside Xiaomi, however, told TechCrunch that it will be
made available to consumers in the U.S. and other selected markets in early Q4 2016. That could indeed
mean October. The price has also been kept quiet to date, but we also understand that the box will cost less
than $100. The device is very much like the Apple TV, but powered by Android. It is capable of beaming 4K
video at 60 FPS with support for Dolby Digital Plus audio playback.

Korea

500 Startups backs Koreas answer to Handy.


South Koreas WaHome is attracting more modest sums of cash for its own service. WaHome today
announced a round of seed funding worth US$1.5 million led by 500 Startups. WaHome, so far only operates
in Koreas capital, Seoul, and so far have fulfilled over 30,000 transactions since its launch in July last year.
Co-founders John Lee and Edward Hahn explain, the startup has a few local rivals, so it focuses on quality of
service and speed of bookings to win over customers from other apps and to persuade people to quit using
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brick-and-mortar agencies. Other new round investors include Daesung Private Equity, ES investor, and
Nexon co-founder Kim Sangbum.

Japan

Line invests $45 million into Snapchat clone Snow


Line, the messaging company that went public in the years highest IPO to date, is diversifying its business
and focusing on social after it invested $45 million (50 billion KRW) in Snow, a Snapchat clone focused on
Asia. The deal sees Line take 25 percent equity in Snow, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Snow made
headlines this summer for racking up downloads in Japan, Korea, China and Southeast Asia with a product
that looks very much like Snapchat. Snow features more than 30 different filters and over 700 stickers, making
it like Snapchat on steroids arguably with a cleaner interface. Neither the company nor Line has said how
many downloads Snow has received. The New York Times speculated that it had crossed 30 million in June,
and the app has taken the top download spot in Japan, Korea, China and other markets.

Spotify finally launches in Japan, the worlds second largest music market
Afters years of waiting, Spotify has finally launched its music streaming service in Japan. Spotify has had an
office in Tokyo for at last 18 months, but protracted negotiations with record labels and the music industry
have seen competitors like Apple, Line and Rakuten sneak in first with rival services. Now Spotify has joined
its ranks with its free service and the paid-for option which costs 980 yen ($9.60) a month. Japan is a hugely
lucrative market for music. Sales are estimated at nearly $3 billion per year which makes it the worlds second
largest market behind only the U.S., but Japanese consumers prefer to buy their musical physically, in the
form of CDs, than digitally right now. Streaming service providers are viewing that as an opportunity rather
than a threat, and success in Japan could give Spotify some momentum headed into 2017 when it is expected
that the firm will make efforts to go public. Spotify recently passed 40 million paying customers, and itll be
aiming to add a large chunk more to that number from Japan.

Singapore

ViSenze bags $10m for its image recognition tech powering ecommerce.
Computer vision startup ViSenze has leapt over the dreaded so-called series A gap to raise a series B round
of funding worth US$10.5 million. The round is led by existing investor Rakuten Ventures and WI Harper
Group. Previously raising US$3.5 million in a series A round, ViSenze builds visual search and image
recognition software, specializing in ecommerce and retail applications. Its tech combines computer vision,
machine learning, and artificial intelligence to provide things like image-based search and item
recommendations. With its advance technology the company says its revenue has grown more than 300
percent year on year. Furthermore, with the new funds will enable ViSenze to build up its research and
development team and potentially scale to global search volumes.

Uber rival Grab raises $750M led by SoftBank at a $3B valuation


Grab, the largest company rivaling Uber in Southeast Asia, has confirmed that it has raised $750 million in
fresh capital. This is the companys Series F round, and it was led by existing investor SoftBank with
participation from undisclosed existing and new backers, Grab said. A source close to the company confirmed
that the round gives Grab a $3 billion post-money valuation. Grab operates in six countries in Southeast Asia
and its previous raise was $350 million in August 2015. This new financing has been some time coming, and it
was reported that Grab was raising upwards of $600 million in August, with some media suggesting the total
could reach $1 billion. That hasnt happened but Singapore-headquartered Grab did claim that it has over $1
billion on its balance sheet courtesy of this new raise. Grab said it 400,000 drivers on its platforms and it has
seen over 21 million app downloads to date. In an announcement, the company added that it sees up to 1.5
million daily bookings, which a Grab spokesperson confirmed means ride requests not completed rides.

SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in


Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul.
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India

Naspers-owned PayU buys Indian fintech startup for $130M.


Naspers-owned PayU confirmed its acquisition of Indian payment gateway Citrus Pay. The deal was closed
for US$130 million, making it one of the largest M&As in Indian fintech history and one of the largest in the
Indian internet world. Until this deal, Citrus Pay was veritably its competition a small incumbent that
threatened to shake up the financial giants plan in India. With this new agreement there will be a shuffle in
senior management, as Citrus Pay current CEO, Amirsh Rau, will head PayU in India. Previously Citrus Pay
has raised US325 million across three rounds. Sequoia Capital participating in all three rounds of investments.
Other investors include Ascent Capital and Beenos Asia.

4 Rising Startups in India Sept. 14, 2016.


Quikr
Classified startup Quikr, fresh off its acquisition of a car service company, has made another acquisition on
demand beauty service StayGlad. As part of the deal, StayGlads 100-member team, including its founders,
will join AtHomeDvia. StaGlad was founded in May last year and offers over 100 different kinds of services
and claims to have served tens of thousands of customers over the last three months.
Findow
Fashion discovery app Findow has secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Net Media Works
director Raj Singh Bhandal. The investment follows a trail of fashion startup investments in India over the past
few weeks. Findow helps users fund shops, boutiques, retailers, designers, and stylist. It was founded in July
this year by Zarine Ahmad Bajaj and Himanshu Kumar. The startup plans on focusing its expansion in first and
second-tier cities.
Stoodnt
Edtech firm Stoodnt has bagged US$300,000 in seed funding led by Google India managing director Rajan
Anandan. The startup, based in California, entered India last year and has an office in Coimbatore. It helps
students gain admission to universities in the US and Canada. It connects students to college and college
counselors, and claims to have helped over 1000 students so far.
Inux
Adtech firm Fork Media has acquired a majority stake (51 percent) in Adgebra (Inuxu). The cash and equity
deal went through for US $3 million. Rohit Bagad founded Pune-based Inuxu in March 2013.

Indias most funded Edtech startup gets money from Sequoia and Zuckerbergs personal fund
Indian edtech startup Byjus announced a series D round of US$50 million today. The round was led by
existing investor Sequoia Capital and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which makes it the Chan Zuckerbergs
first investment in Asia. Other investors include Sofina, Lightspeed Ventures, and Times Internet. Byju creates
learning programs for K-12 students as well as for competitive exams, like the GMAT and the JEE. Byju
launched in 2015 and lcaims to be profitable in India with a monthly growth of 15 percent. Students spend an
average of 40 minutes a day on the app. IT also claims more than 5.5 million downloads with 250,000 paid
yearly subscribers. However, with the new funds, Byju will strive for international expansion including the
United States and the United Kingdom, as well as more support for its existing presence in the Middle East.

Twitter lays off around 20, shuts down engineering in Bangalore, India
Twitter is shutting down its engineering operations out of Bangalore, India, and it is laying off around 20
engineers in the process. As part of our normal business review, we have decided to stop the global
engineering work at the Bangalore development center, a company spokesperson said. We thank the
impacted individuals, less than 20 persons, for their valuable contributions and are doing as much as we can
to provide them a respectful exit from our company. Twitter took a big plunge into India when it acquired a
startup called ZipDial in January 2015. That startup was co-founded by Valerie Wagoner, a U.S. expat who
was based in India.
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Taiwan

The beautiful kit that turns food waste into fertilizer, and is perfect for urban homes
Imagine youre cooking a delicious meal, one with all kinds of fresh vegetables and fruits. You go to chop
everything up and find you have some leftovers maybe a portion of your onion has turned black and you
have plenty of carrot tops left over. Majority of people would throw it away into a plastic bag, cloth bag, or
piece of newspaper. Taiwan-based startup Bionicraft thinks the solution can be a lot simpler. Bionicrafts
product is called Biovessel, which they advertise on their Kickstarter page as an ecosystem powered by food
waste. Their key secret ingredients are earthworms, which decompose the leftover food leaving behind soil
with added nutrients. Biovessel has raised US$20,331 of its US$30,000 goal from 141 backers. Kickstarter
has deemed it one of its Projects We Love. Biovessels campaign ends on October 29, leaving less than 50
days. Once funded, the page sets the estimated delivery date at Feburary 2017, and will cost US$200 in retail
price.

iStaging raises $5M to bring VR & AR to furniture-makers and real estate industry
Asian AR/VR startup iStaging has raised $5 million in a pre-series A funding round led by WI Harper, and
other participate Taya Venture Capital. iStaging caters specifically to the furniture and real estate industries,
offering platform-specific apps for mobile devices and VR headsets to help end users visualize and experience
an environment without physically being there. With its new investment, iStaging plans to expand further in the
markets its already serves with sales offices, namely Redwood City in California, and Paris. VR and AR are
among the biggest breakout trends of 2016, with the hype surrounding the burgeoning mediums almost
palpable at Mobile World Congress this year.

Indonesia

Financial comparison site Cermati raises $1.9M from existing investors


Cermati, an online portal for finding and comparing financial products in Indonesia, announced today its
raised a series A round of investment worth US $1.9 million. The money came from Cermatis existing
investors, East Ventures and Japanese based Beenos Plaza. The site aggregates financial products such as
loans from roughly 14 banks and multi-finance institutions. IT lets credit-seekers apply for these online.
Cermati gets rewards for successful conversions. Since their launch in 2015, Cermati has helped facilitate
over US $4.5 million worth of consumer loans. Although Cermati competes with very similar companies like
CekAja, Halo Money, and others. They claim to possess a local competitive advantage and wants to focus
only on Indonesia.

SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in


Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul.
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United States

Blockchain payments startup Ripple raises $55 million


San Francisco Blockchain payment company Riiple has raised $55M in their Series B round, from a host of
major financials. The major funding injection was led by Standard Chartered, Accenture, SCB Digital Ventures,
the venture arm of Siam Commercial Bank, and also existing investors Santander Innoventures and CME
Group. Riiple is seen as one of the most exciting startups in Blockchain, a new kind of database technology
first developed to underpin digital currency bitcoin. Ripple has developed a protocol to let banks use
Blockchain tech for international money transfers, benefiting from the speed and security of the technology.
Ripple is also developing a new inter-ledger tool that will let Blockchains to connect with each other, allowing
the financial system to become more linked. Ripple already announced 9 more banks that have signed up to
test its technology and are shifting their core strategy to developing closed Blockchains and closed ledgers to
create the internet for exchanging values.

This Startup is raising $10 million to solve one of video productions most vexing problems
Frame.io is a new video production collaborative tool, that are looking to rectify the problem of video project
collaborations. Frame.io allows users to create a project, upload all the materials, and share it with all the
participants in the project. Users can leave time-stamped comments on the video, add annotations, and even
draw directly on the video. Frame.io recently launched both a web application and an iPhone app which won
an Apple Design Award last June. Now with noteworthy clients such as Tesla to Yale University to NASA,
Frame.io is closing a $10 million Series A round. The round is led by Accel Partners with other participates
such as SignalFire, FirstMark Capital, and Shasta Ventures. The company is also adding strategic investors
from the production industry. Actor Jared LEto is returning as an investor and joing the companys advisory
board, and IHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman, Warner Bros. President Greg Silverman, and actor Kevin Spacey
are also investors.

Ford paid more than $65 for shuttle-van startup Chariot


Ford has bought shuttle-van startup Chariot in an all-cash deal. Business Insider has since learned that the
automaker paid $65 million plus earn-outs to make employees with stock options whole. The startup has
raised only one round of $3 million after emerging from startup factory Y Combinator in 2015. Chariot offers
beleaguered Bay Area commuters an alternative to the overloaded mass-transit system. The startup uses 100
Ford transit 15 seat vans to serve 28 crowd sourced routes, according to Ford. Currently, the routes are based
on demand from riders, but after the Ford acquisition, data algorithms will take over and Ford says, allow trips
to be scheduled in real time. Ford has been making aggressive moves in the transportation-tech space, also
investing $500 million in Lyft and buying autonomous-car startup Cruise this year.

A pair of former Warby Parker execs ave raised $8.5 million to create the perfect suitcase
Often top-notch suitcases are either too expensive or too difficult to find. Thats why two former Warby Parker
execs Jen Rubio, the companys former head of social media, and Steph Korey, former head of supply chain
has teamed up to create Away, a travel brand aiming to create products that combine high-quality materials
and innovative technology at an affordable price. After launching its first piece of luggage a carry-on bag
priced at $255 the startup is now announcing it has raised a $8.5 million Series A funding round led by
Global Founders Capital, and other investors include, Forerunner Ventures, Accel Partners, Comcast
Ventures, and Starwood Hotel founder Barry Sternlicht. Away says it is on track for $10 million in sales this
year, or about 50,000 suitcases.

Lucid Software raises $36 million to grow its enterprise-focused design and diagramming tools
Visual design software startup Lucid Software has raised $36 million in a Series B round from Spectrum
Equity. Founded in 2010, Lucid serves up two core cloud-based enterprise products Lucidchart, a Microsoft
Viso-style diagramming app thats used for wire-framing, UI prototyping, and Lucidpress, a drag-and-drop
program for creating print and digital publications. The company says that its products have been adopted by
more than 8 million users including some big-name customers such as Netflix, Uber, Ford, Box and Spotify.

SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in


Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul.
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The new cash injection will be used to expedite the growth of Lucids respective products within the enterprise,
and Spectrum Equitys manging director, Ben Spero and vice president Ethan Choi, will join the Lucid board.

Bill Gates joins $14 million round for Renmatixs sugar-based alternative fuel
Alternative energy startup Renmatix has raised $14 million from Bill Gates and global energy firm Total to
make fuel from non-food organic sugars. Total has agreed to use Renmatixs Plantrose process to create biorefineries that can make up to 1 million tons of cellulosic sugar for alternatives to fossil fuel. Mike Hamilton
states that the new investment in commercializing Plantrose will help drive the first wave of Renmatix
licensees building Plantrose-enabled bio-refineries in diverse global markets like Candia, India, Malaysia, and
the US. At the same time, that activity will facilitate further market development in downstream bio-product
applications. The company currently has 85 employees, and Hamilton said engineering designs for bio-mass
facilities are expected to be created in 2017.

Cato Network raises $30 million for its network security as a service platform
Datorama, a marketing startup that wants to tame your business data, announced that it scored a $32 million
investment led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and other participates Marker LLC and Innovation Endeavors,
closing the round to a total of $50 million. The New York-based startup aims to use the new capital to
accelerate the companys research and development in the artificial intelligence field; which will further
elevate its machine learning capabilities. Datorama CEO and co-founder Ran Sarig further states, in this next
stage were going to focus on the further development of our best-in-breed solution, and were going to
continue to push the boundaries of machine learning and how its applied in the marketing analytics capacity.

Fluent City raises $2.5 million to teach Brooklyn hipsters about French culture
Flient City, announced today that it scored a $2.5 million investment led by Lerner Investments and also
followed by Learn Capital, New Ground Ventures, and 1776 Ventures. Fluent City started as a service offering
language classes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. However, with the new funding, the startup wants to expand to
other courses, including mixology and French culture. Fluent City CEO James Rohrbach states, With this
additional capital and first batch of new courses, were building the first ever cross-disciplinary hub for this kind
of social learning and exploration. Currently language classes are available in NYC, Boston, Washington, and
Philadelphia.

OfferUp raises $119 million to help people buy and sell stuff locally
OfferUp, a platform that helps people buy and sell things locally, has raised a whopping $119 million in funding
led by Warburg Pincus, with participation from new investors GGV capital and Altimeter Capital. OfferUp is an
eBay-style mobile-focused platform designed to make it easy for people to get rid of unwanted stuff such as
clothes, bags, laptops etc., and make some money by finding interested buyers nearby. OfferUp has now
raised more than $210 million in funding, and the company says it will use this money to enhance its popular
user experience and expand to new markets, according to the company. Online marketplaces have emerged
as key drivers in the digital economy. From eBay to Airbnb and beyond, matching buyers with sellers is big
business, and there have been quite a few notable startup investments in this space recently.

Ex-Destiny, Halo devs bag $3.5 million seed round for VR startup Polyarc
A new Seattle VR startup from three people who helped make the hit online shooter Destiny has received a
$3.5 million seed round of investment from several overseas backers. The investment was led by Chinese
investment firm UCCVR and with follow-on investments from Colopls VR fund, and Vulcan Capital. Polyarc
will focus primarily on virtual reality gaming content, but it hasnt announced what its first game is yet. Cofounder Alderson wrote that at Polyarc, Our immediate goal is to make full use of the immersion and physical
interaction made possible only with VR to create thoughtfully designed, appealing, and accessible games with
high player vale.

SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in


Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul.
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Europe

These founders raised $10M to bring robot brains online


Rapyuta Robotics announced a series A of funding today for US$10 million. The round was led by SBI, and
also recently received US$500,000 from the Swiss government for its joint work with the Institute of Applied
Information Technology Cloud Computing Lab at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Rapyuta is putting
robot brains into the cloud to offset the high price and computational power robotics need to function. The
team is currently working on drones that can be used for infrastructure inspections and plans to release its first
product in mid-2017. The team has expanded to 27 full-time employees across India, Switzerland, and Japan.
In addition to outdoor applications, Rapyuta has developed an indoor positioning system that allows its drones
to achieve less than 10-centimeter accuracy the amount needed to get through doors without any cameras
or motion capture equipment.

OurCrowd raises another $72M to build out its equity crowdfunding platform
OurCrowd, the crowdfunding platform that gives backers equity in the companies they support, today
announced that it has raised $72 million in a Series C round of funding, and expects the final figure to be
closer to $100 million. Half of the capital will be used to build out its offices globally and develop its platform;
and half will be used to match investments made on OurCrowd, according to OurCrowds CEO Jon Medved.
One half of the round will be invested in the expansion of our 7 global offices, and further developing our
technology platform. The other half of the Series C funding will be used to make sure that each and every
company which raises funding on our platform receives participating investment from the General Partner on
the same terms as the crowd, he said in a statement. This new capital will help us hit our goal of investing $1
billion annually by 2020.

Aircall raised $8 million for its cloud phone system for teams
Aircall announced that it had raised another $8 million dollars in funding for its call center software-as-aservice. Balderton Capital is leading this Series A round, with New York-based VC firm FJLabs and existing
investors also investing. The company started in 2014 and was a simple software-as-a-service for support
teams. You could create virtual phone numbers in many different countries and manage calls with different
people answering a sort of modern call center for small support teams. The company raised $800,000 from
eFounders and business angels at the time. The company also raised $2.75 million from Balderton Capital,
FundersClub and business angels in January 2016. Following this round, the French company plans to
expand in the U.S. with a new office in New York. Co-founder and CEO Olivier Pailhes plans to move there.
The team of 30 will double over the next twelve months. Aircall now has 2,000 customers.

Australia

Canva just raised $15M without evening touching the funds from its last round
Canva just announced it has raised a new round of funding worth US$15 million. The cash comes from
existing investors Blackbird Ventures and Felicis Ventures. This round values the company at US $345 million,
up from its US$165 million at the time of its series A in October 2015. However, Canva has not spent any of
the funds from their precious round, where they raised US$15 million. Canva has created a software suite of
tools that enables users to produce their own graphic designs for social media, presentation, and so on. It
offers a free consumer version for consumers and a paid service called Canva for Work. The company has
raised US$42 million in external capital to date from investors like Matrix Partners, 500 Startups Dave Mclure,
Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen and even Hollywood Actors Woody Harrelson and Own Wilson.
Canva currently has a growing team of 120 people across three offices in Sydney, San Francisco, and Manila.

AirTree has raised $250M for Australias Largest startup venture fund
AirTree Ventures has announced that it has raised $250 million to create what is called Australias largest
venture fund. The capital will be split between two purposes: an early stage fund for fresh startups that need
seed, series A or series B funding and an opportunity fund, for more mature companies that need cash for
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in
Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul.
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scaling. AirTree previously announced a $60 million fund in 2014, now supporting, 17 outstanding
businesses, including names like Canva, 90 Secounds, Xplor and Edrolo. With the new money, AirTree now
has the ability to grant cheques ranging from $250,000 to $25 million. Blair states, Our goal is to provide the
first cheque to world class Australian and Kiwi entrepreneurs. They can be based anywhere= we have a global
mandate. Airtree itself is undergoing expansion, also announcing that John Henderson from Londons White
Star Capital started today as a full partner. The company also earmarked a big-named recruit yet to be
revealed from a global tech giant.

Israel

Beyond Verbal raises $3 million to identify peoples moods from their voices.
Beyond Verbal, an Israeli startup specializing in analyzing human emotion and traits based on voices, has
raised $3 million in a round led by Hong Kong investment holding company KuangChi Science Ltd, with
participation from Winnovation and Singulariteam. This closes the Series A round at $7 million over the past
few years. Founded in 2012, Beyond Verbal features emotion analytics technology that doesnt consider the
content or context of the spoken word, but instead looks for signs of anger, anxiety, arousal, and more through
studying the intonation in a persons voice. The company has now raised a total of $10.8 million and will use
the new funds to boost their research and development in the health and wellness realm, as well as helping
commercialize the product.

Cato Network raises $30 million for its network security as a service platform.
Cato Networks, a cyber security startup that offers organizations a cloud-based network security platform has
raised $30 million in a Series B round led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Singtel Innov8, USVP,
Aspect Ventures, and the companys own founders Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz. Founded in 2015, Cato
Networks promises a totally new way to cut the cost and complexity of legacy, on premise networking, and
security solutions, according to CEO Kramer. He says that the company does this by serving up an agile
and scalable cloud-based platform, which it refers to as network security as a service, (NSaaS). Cato
Networks new funds will be used to expand its product into new markets. This raise also underscores the
growing appeal of cybersecurity services in the venture capital realm, as more companies migrate their
operations to the cloud.

Celeno Communications raises $38 million for smart Wi-Fi chips.


Celeno Communications has raised $38 million in funding to help build smart Wi-Fi chips and software. The
Raanana. Will use the money to grow its range of products based on 802.11ac wave 2 wireless networking
technology, which aims to disrupt traditional Wi-Fi networking. The companys Quicksilver tech is designed for
dense networks with lots of interference. It also does real-time spectrum analysis and software defined Wi-Fi
virtualization, using its OtimizAIR technology. The round was led by Red Dot Capital Partners, and other new
investors OurCrowd and Poalim Capital Markets, as well as existing investors. CEO of Celeno, Gilad Rozen,
states, With this new significant new investment round, combined with the caliber of investors backing us, we
are able to continue executing our strategy, building a world-class global company that will bring value to
investors and shape the industry as a market leader. Celno will use the funds to support accelerated growth
of its 802.11ac Wave 2 product line. Celeno was founded in 2005, and currently has raised $106.2 million to
date.

SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in


Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul.
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