 Value of global funding rounds with CVC participation In the last 10-year period ending 2021, corporate venture capital firms (CVCs) increased their participation in global venture rounds by 462.5%. In line with the overall trend observed across global venture funding this year, CVCs have also slowed down the pace of their investments. The number of fundraising rounds in which CVCs participated fell by 18.9% in Q2 of this year, almost twice as much as the 10.9% contraction seen by traditional VCs. More: - Per Pitchbook data, CVCs participated in 2,167 deals in Q2.
- Deal aggregate value in Q2 dropped 33% QoQ to $53.1B.
- Coinbase Ventures and Google's GV made the most VC investments in recent times.
- Initially, corporations established their venture arms with the intent to invest in companies that were aligned with the parent organization's interest.
- CVCs would also make investments with the goal of preventing IPOs or acquisitions by rival companies.
- Now, however, CVCs are investing in startups with the aim of maximizing their returns on investment while still providing a strategic benefit.
- Since the bulk of corporate-backed funds are evergreen funds, CVCs have a significant amount of dry powder at their disposal.
- Nonetheless, a drop in parent organizations' businesses may slow CVCs' pace of investing even further over the next few months.
In related news: - Cybersecurity training and awareness platform KnowBe4 Inc established its venture arm today, dubbed KnowBe4 Ventures, to focus on investing in cybersecurity startups.
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Top Tier Capital Partners has raised $925M for its Top Tier Venture Velocity Fund 4 and other funds. The firm plans to invest in venture capital firms, secondary markets, and direct co-investments. Some notable investments from the firm include fantasy sports company DraftKings and mobile therapy provider Talkspace. More: - Managing Director Garth Timoll said the firm wants to back enterprise software, security, cloud, and data analytics companies that generate $5M to $15M in revenue.
- Top Tier is also looking to co-invest in late-stage climate technology companies.
- Top Tier has over $8.1B in assets under management, including this latest capital raise.
- The firm recently opened a new office in Boston.
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 A message from WIND RIVER Can the VxWorks real-time operating system fill your embedded system needs? A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system with two key features: predictability and determinism. In an RTOS, repeated tasks are performed within a tight time boundary, while in a general-purpose operating system, this is not necessarily so. Predictability and determinism, in this case, go hand in hand: We know how long a task will take, and that it will always produce the same result. - Determinism: Repeating an input will result in the same output.
- High performance: RTOS systems are fast and responsive, often executing actions within a small fraction of the time needed by a general OS.
- Safety and security: As RTOSes are frequently used in critical systems, such as robotics or flight controllers, they must have higher security standards and more reliable safety features.
- Priority-based scheduling: Actions are scheduled according to their assigned priority; the most important tasks come first.
- Small footprint: Versus their hefty general OS counterparts, RTOSes weigh in at just a fraction of the size: Windows 10, with post-install updates, takes up approximately 20 GB. VxWorks, on the other hand, is measured in the low single-digit megabytes.
In this webinar, we'll go through some of the features of real-time operating systems that can revolutionize your embedded development process, and make sure that an RTOS is the right solution for your use-case. Watch Now
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San Francisco, Calif.-based payments infrastructure provider Plastiq Inc. is set to go public via SPAC merger at a $480M valuation. The company will merge with Joseph Sambuco's blank check entity Colonnade Acquisition Corp. II. More: - Plastiq was founded in 2012 and provides payment services to SMEs.
- To date, the firm has raised $141.8M in funding, per Crunchbase data.
- Its last fundraise came in the form of an undisclosed Series E round in Nov. 2021.
- Prior to that, the firm raised $75M through its B Capital Group-led Series D funding round in March 2020.
- Other notable existing backers include Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Atlas Ventures, and Top Tier Capital Partners.
- In late 2019, the firm's valuation was $495M.
- Plastiq is on track to generate $75M in net revenue this year and $105M in net revenue in 2023.
- The firm expects to add $320M to its balance sheet from the resulting business combination.
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LiveEO, a satellite analytics platform, has raised €19M ($19.5M) in a Series B funding round. The Berlin-based start-up was founded in 2017. It helps businesses in the transportation and energy infrastructure sectors make sense of geospatial and mapping data from satellites. More: - LiveEO has raised $28.2M to date; it raised a €5.25M Series A in 2021.
- The company has doubled its count to about 100 and tripled its revenue with customers in five continents.
- About half of LiveEO's staff are engineers and data scientists.
- LiveEO's platform helps bridge the gap between space tech and enterprise data.
- Investors include MMC Ventures, the European Commission, Investitionsbank Berlin, Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures (DvH Ventures), Helen Ventures, Matterwave, Segenia Capital, and Hannover Digital Investments (HDInv).
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Swiss venture firm Swisscom Ventured led a $17.4M (€17M) Series B funding round into agtech startup xFarm Technologies. xFarm's SaaS farm management information system leverages AI, IoT sensors, and data analytics to digitize agri-food operations. The Swiss-Italian firm intends to use the funds to develop additional features for its platform, including new AI tools; grow its team; and expand its business reach. More: - xFarm Technologies intends to venture into other European countries before eventually expanding into North America.
- xFarm Technologies was formed as a result of the merger between Switzerland-based xFarm and Italian digital agtech company Farm Technologies in 2021.
- The merger helped expand the platform's features.
- The firm has 30 agri-food chain clients that use the platform to manage 110,000 farms across 100 countries.
- The Series B fundraising brings the firm's total funding secured to date to $20.7M.
- It last raised ~$3.1M (€3M) in financing through its Series A funding round in Dec. 2019.
- TiVentures and United Ventures led the previous fundraiser.
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YC and Andreessen Horowitz are backing VR startup Gym Class. The basketball virtual reality app just raised an $8M seed round. The free app is available on Meta's App Lab storefront and has about 1 million downloads. Other investors include Founders, Inc., Todd and Rahul's Angel Fund, and Balaji Srinivasan. More: - Gym Class is referred to as a VR pure-play, meaning the experiences rely on hardware and the mechanics only make sense in VR.
- Product head Paul Katsen said the startup aims to be more of a social hub where users can join a virtual space and bond over the sport and culture of basketball.
- The company is currently focused on basketball for now and doesn't have any near-term plans to build out other sports offerings.
- The company is planning to launch officially on Meta's Quest Store later this year.
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- Luxembourg-based McWin received $508M (€500M) in capital commitments towards its Restaurant Fund, which will focus on backing food service and food tech startups. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's subsidiary joined the fundraiser as a limited partner. McWin also intends to close its other funds, namely Ecosystem Fund and Food Tech Fund, at $305M (€300M) and $254M (€250M) later this year.
- Lattice Capital raised $60M in capital for its second crypto-focused fund. The firm intends to back between 40 to 50 startups, with individual check sizes ranging from $500,000 to $1.5M.
- Andreessen Horowitz-backed Databricks reported $1B in annualized revenue. The firm, which has secured $3.5B in total funding to date, is on the lookout for potential startups for M&A.
- Canadian payroll technology platform ZayZoon closed $25.5M in funding. The round consists of $12.M in equity funding led by Carpae Investments and Alpenglow Capital, along with $13M in debt facility provided by ATB Financial.
- Austin, Texas-based application security company Ghost Security emerged from stealth with a $15M funding round backed by 468 Capital, DNX Ventures, and Munich Re Ventures.
- Atropos Health closed a $14M Series A funding round led by Breyer Capital. Emerson Collective participated in the funding along with Boston Millennia Partners.
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. Vanessa Omeokachie is a Researcher at Inside. Her interests include finance, tech, and startups. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending music festivals, and traveling. | | | | 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. | |
For nearly 35 years, VxWorks has been used to ensure the security, safety, and reliability you need to design and build mission-critical embedded systems that simply must work.
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