New York-headquartered global alternative investment management firm Apollo Global Management Inc. is set to expand its foothold in the life sciences sector. The firm is acquiring a minority equity interest in Sofinnova Partners for $1.04B (€1B), per a Bloomberg report. Sofinnova is a European venture capital firm that primarily focuses on backing life sciences startups. More: - The strategic partnership between the two companies will see Apollo contribute managed capital to Sofinnova's investment vehicles.
- In return, Sofinnova will have access to Apollo's investment platform and leverage the firm's experience in credit, stocks, real estate networks, and capital markets as part of the agreement.
- Neil Mehta, Partner and Global Head of Strategy at Apollo, will join Sofinnova's board of directors upon completion of the deal, which is estimated to occur in the second half of 2022, subject to approval from French authorities.
Zoom out: - Apollo forecasts life sciences as a significant growth area, a view shared by many of its peers.
- Carlyle Group Inc. finalized an agreement to acquire life sciences investment firm Abingworth in April.
- Last November, EQT AB confirmed it would acquire life sciences venture firm LSP for an upfront consideration of ~$468M (€450M).
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Infinity Ventures launched its inaugural fund with $158M in secured commitments. The firm is founded by PayPal Ventures alumni Jeremy Jonker, Jay Ganatra, and Mario Ruiz. Infinity intends to focus on fintech infrastructure and commerce enablement startups. More: - Infinity intends to back 25 companies from pre-seed to Series A-stages.
- Each investment will range between $500,000 to $8M.
- The company has already invested in 11 startups across the U.S., Asia, Latin America, and Europe with the funding.
- Invested companies include AI-powered spend intelligence platform Glean, corporate spend management startup Mendel, and R&D tax credits platform Neo.tax.
- The founders have considerable experience in investing, having backed Plaid, Divvy, and Acorns while at PayPal.
- They also oversaw M&A transactions of Venmo, Honey, Hyperwallet, and Swift Financial, amongst others.
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Optibus closed $100M in Series D funding at a $1.3B valuation. The Israeli company provides public transportation planning and operations software. With the fresh funds, the firm plans to expedite the development of its software platform, expand its product offerings, and grow its global footprint. More: - Insight Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Verizon Ventures, Pitango First & Pitango Growth, Tencent, SOMV Momentum, and others participated in the funding round.
- To date, the company has secured $260M in total venture funding.
- At its last Series C fundraise, Optibus raised $107M at a $400M-$500M valuation 14 months ago.
- Opibus' software is used by transportation organizations and operators in over 1,000 cities, including London, New York, and Rio de Janerio, to optimize their networks.
- The company claims to be the first unicorn in the public transportation sector.
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German instant grocery delivery startup Flink SE is acquiring its French counterpart Cajoo. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed officially, but TechRadar’s sources estimate the deal to be valued between $93M-$104M (€90M-€100M). French grocery chain Carrefour SA – Cajoo’s biggest investor – has provided fresh equity funding to Flink at a $5B (€4.8B) post-money valuation. Carrefour’s investment was estimated to be $62M-$73M (€60M-€70M). More: - The acquisition is scheduled to be completed Q2 of this year, after which Cajoo will be rebranded to Flink.
- Flink will take over all the 30 micro-fulfillment centers and Cajoo’s 400,000 customers in France.
- The combined entity is estimated to supersede France’s current biggest instant grocery business Getir’s reach and turnover.
- Flink last secured a $750M financing led by DoorDash at a $2.85B valuation in Dec. 2021.
- The company reported annual recurring revenues of $520M (€500M) boosted by double-digit percentage revenue growth week-on-week.
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London, U.K.-based Elwood Technologies secured $70M in Series A financing. Goldman Sachs and Dawn Capital co-led the financing. The startup is backed by Alan Howard, a billionaire fund manager, who will remain a majority stakeholder. The incoming funds will facilitate global expansion and increase its product offerings. More: - Elwood provides a cryptocurrency trading platform for institutional investors.
- Their full-stack technology platform provides institutional-grade trading, full analytics and reporting, dedicated customer service support, and quick deal execution and liquidity functionality.
- The funding saw participation from Barclays, BlockFi Ventures, Chimera Ventures, CommerzVentures, and others.
- The company received a $500M valuation, per a Financial Times report.
- Funding for the round was secured before last week’s cryptocurrency market slide.
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Kubernetes application delivery software Akuity raised $20M in a Series A funding round led by Lead Edge Capital and Decibel Partners. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup provides a tooling platform for Kubernetes, an open-source platform to deploy containerized or “microservices”-based applications for developers and enterprises. More: - The Series A brings the firm’s total funding raised to date to $25M since last raising $4.5M in seed funding six months ago.
- Incoming funds will be used to launch Akuity Platform, expand its workforce, and contribute to its open-source community.
- Akuity was co-founded by Hong Wang, Jesse Suen, and Alexander Matyushentsev.
- The trio previously founded the container-native workflow engine Argo at Applatix.
- The company will launch a fully-managed version of Argo called Akuity Platform later this year.
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- North Carolina-based biopesticides producer Vestaron raised $82M from its Series C financing round led by Ordway Selections and Cavallo Ventures. Argonautic Ventures, Fortistar, and Endeavor8 participated in the funding.
- Israeli startup Classiq secured $33M in additional Series B financing, bringing the total raised in the round to $36M. New investors HSBC, NTT Finance, and Intesa Sanpaolo joined the investment.
- Congo-based Web3 super-app Jambo raised $30M in Series A financing led by Paradigm. ParaFI Capital, Pantera Capital, Delphi Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, and others participated in the funding.
- Keelvar, an Ireland-based intelligent sourcing and automation solution provider, received $24M in Series B funding led by 83 North. Existing investors Elephant, Mosaic, and Paua joined the funding.
- Andreessen Horowitz led a $24M Series A funding round into San Francisco-based game development firm Metatheory. Pantera Capital, FTX Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, amongst others, participated in the funding.
- Marketing data platform Claravine raised $16M in a Series B round led by Five Elms Capital. The funding round saw participation from Grayhawk Capital, Next Frontier Capital, Peninsula Ventures, Kickstart Fund, and Silverton Partners.
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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