Chris Witkowsky
Refinery29, a lifestyle media content provider, has raised $20 million in Series C funding from growth equity firm Stripes Group, bringing total funding since inception to $30.4 million. The company raised $5.6 million in Series B funding in January 2013 from Floodgate, Lead Edge Capital, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures and Hearst Corporation.
SimplyInsured, which allows small businesses to purchase health insurance online, has closed a $750,000 financing round from investors including Y Combinator, Altair Capital, Jake Gibson & Tim Chen (founders of NerdWallet.com), Waseem Deher, Jeff Arnold, Amee & Adil Chaudry, Sam Melamed and Matt Huang. SimplyInsured was launched as part of the Y-Combinator startup accelerator, and has grown revenues by 500 percent in the last six months.
Opsona Therapeutics, a drug development company, has raised €3 million ($4 million) in a second closing of its previously announced Series C financing from new investor Omnes Capital. The additional capital brings the total raised in the funding round to €36 million. Investors in the Series C round on April 25, 2013 included Novartis Venture Fund, Fountain Healthcare Partners, Roche Venture Fund, Seroba-Kernel Life Sciences, BB Biotech Ventures, Sunstone Capital, Baxter Ventures, Amgen Ventures and EMBL Ventures.
Intel Capital has made a "significant" investment in Recon Instruments, the technology company that developed Head's-up Displays for sports. The funding will be used to support Recon's product development, marketing and global sales expansion.
MakeSpace, a startup in New York City, has launched with $1.3 million in funding from Upfront Ventures (the former GRP Partners), Lowercase Capital, High Peaks Venture Partners and Collaborative Fund. The company, which provides on demand storage for people moving, traveling or who simply need more space, plans to raise another $200,000 through Angel List.
BetterCloud, a developer of cloud management and security software for Google apps, has raised $6 million in a Series B funding round from existing investors, led by Flybridge Capital Partners, with participation from Greycroft Partners, TriBeCa Ventures Partners, Bear Creek Capital, Hallett Capital and BLH Venture Partners.
RANOVUS Inc. has closed an $11 million round of financing from investors including Azure Capital Partners, OMERS Ventures, T-Venture, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund and BDC Venture Capital. RANOVUS, which provides interconnect solutions for the telecom and information technology industries, was launched last year.
The San Francisco pension system has hired two new firms as consultants on alternative investments
Cinegif, which specializes in GIF-based marketing, has received $500,000 from Texas angel investors, including Baylor Angel Network and Houston Angel Network and its related Halo Fund. Cinegif will use the funding to accelerate sales and marketing efforts for its cloud-based GIF marketing platform.
Rakuten has agreed to acquire global video streaming service Viki, which raised $20 million in 2011 from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Charles River Ventures, BBC Worldwide and SK Planet.