Here’s what you need to know today in startup and venture news, updated by the Crunchbase News staff throughout the day to keep you in the know.
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Air taxi startup Lilium to go public via SPAC
Lilium, a German aviation startup developing an electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle for regional travel, announced it is planning to go public in the U.S. through a merger with a blank-check acquirer, Qell Acquisition Corp. The special purpose acquisition company was founded by former General Motors executive Barry Engle. The proposed transaction values the combined company at an approximately $3.3 billion pro forma equity value.
Founded in 2015, Lilium has previously raised at least $376 million in known venture funding, per Crunchbase data.
— Joanna Glasner
New $300M Series C values HighRadius at $3.1B
HighRadius, a Houston-based fintech enterprise SaaS company, closed a $300 million Series C round of funding, which now values it at $3.1 billion, the company said Tuesday.
D1 Capital and Tiger Global led the round, with participation from existing investors ICONIQ Growth and Susquehanna Growth Equity, as well as a group of individual investors. The new capital gives HighRadius a total of $475 million in known funding since the company was founded in 2006, according to Crunchbase data.
HighRadius develops artificial intelligence-driven order-to-cash and treasury management software for CFOs. The new capital will go toward product development and its global go-to-market strategy.
— Christine Hall
Funding rounds
Staffbase raises $145M for communication tools: Germany’s Staffbase, provider of a platform for companies to quickly communicate with employees, raised $145 million in a funding round led by General Atlantic. Founded in 2014, Staffbase offers a suite of tools around internal communications.
— Joanna Glasner
Cameo Raises $100M Series C: Cameo, the startup that lets users request personalized videos from celebrities, announced Tuesday it raised a $100 million Series C. The new round brings Cameo’s valuation to more than $1 billion, according to the company. Cameo works in what it calls the “connection economy,” by helping bring fans closer to creators and celebrities by letting them buy video shout-outs from well-known figures like Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Rodman and Caitlyn Jenner. The company is backed by investors including Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
— Sophia Kunthara
HYCU lands $87.5M for cloud backup: Boston-based HYCU, a provider of multicloud data backup and recovery tools, raised $87.5 million in a Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Founded in 2017, HYCU says it currently serves over 2,000 customers in more than 75 countries.
— Joanna Glasner
Substack Raising $65M: Newsletter publishing platform Substack is raising $65 million at a valuation of around $650 million, Axios reported Monday. The round, led by existing investor Andreessen Horowitz, comes as the platform (and newsletters in general) has seen a rise in popularity in the past year.
— Sophia Kunthara
Health care
- BrightInsight lands $101M for digital health: San Jose-based BrightInsight closed on a Series C financing of $101 million led by General Catalyst to bring its total raise to $166 million since being founded in 2017, according to Crunchbase data. The funding will go toward expanding its team, as well as technology and product development. BrightInsight’s platform leverages data to lead to better outcomes, develop more personalized therapies, improve provider-patient engagement, and enable speedier development of treatments. In the past year, the company launched three digital health products that include a Software-as-a-Medical-Device algorithm.
- Rightway gets its horn: Rightway, a New York-based health technology company, raised $100 million in Series C funding to value the company at $1.1 billion. The company focuses on care navigation and pharmacy services tools. Khosla Ventures led the Series C, which gives Rightway $130 million in total known venture capital since its founding in 2017, according to Crunchbase data. The funds will go toward development of RightwayRx, its new pharmacy benefits model, as well as customer and health plan expansion.
- Ecovative snags $60M for mushroom technology: Ecovative, a New York-based biotechnology company focused on commercializing mycelium technology, announced a $60 million Series D round of financing led by Viking Global Investors. The new round brings Ecovative’s total capital raised to $100 million since the company was founded in 2007. Mycelium is the root structure of mushrooms and can be leveraged to grow materials that self-assemble into complex, fully-formed structures for areas such as textiles, packaging and food. The new funding will be used for Ecovative’s Mycelium Foundry and to support another 10x boost in production.
- Cleo inks $40M for family health care: Family benefits platform Cleo brought in a $40 million Series C toward growth and scaling for new Fortune 500 employer customers. Transformation Capital led the round, which brings San Francisco-based Cleo’s total funding to $83 million since it was founded in 2016, the company said. Cleo is currently working with more than 100 employers to drive better health outcomes for working parents in over 55 countries. In the last year, the company saw an 8x membership growth and more than 100 percent increase in revenue.
- SteadyMD raises $25M for telehealth: St. Louis-based telehealth provider SteadyMD raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Lux Capital. Founded in 2016, the company provides an on-demand physician workforce, legal and regulatory guidance, as well as customized technology to support primary care, behavioral health, digital pharmacy, medical device, at-home lab and other telehealth operations. The new funding gives SteadyMD a total of $35 million in venture-backed investments to date, according to Crunchbase data.
— Christine Hall
Enterprise software
6sense hits $2.1B valuation: San Francisco-based 6sense closed a $125 million Series D valuing the company at $2.1 billion. D1 Capital Partners led the round with participation from Sapphire Ventures and Tiger Global. Existing investor Insight Partners also participated in the round.
The company’s account engagement platform helps companies with personalized, multichannel, campaigns to help complete more deals, increase the size of those deals, and generate new opportunities, and has realized 100 percent-plus revenue growth the last three years. It has raised $226 million to date since being founded in 2013, according to Crunchbase.
— Chris Metinko
Cybersecurity
Living Security raises $14M: Austin-based Living Security raised a $14 million Series B led by Updata Partners and includes previous investors Silverton Partners, Active Capital, Rain Capital and SaaS Venture Partners. The company provides cybersecurity awareness training, helping to teach employees to be aware and alert to possible attacks. The company’s platform also uses behavioral data and analytics to measure and manage human risk.
Founded in 2017, the company says it tripled its revenue and more than doubled its customer count last year. The company has now raised $20.3 million to date, according to Crunchbase.
— Chris Metinko
New fund
Canvas Ventures raises third fund: Portola Valley, California’s boutique venture capital firm Canvas Ventures said it closed its third fund, CV3, after raising $350 million to lead Series A investments in the areas of early-stage B2B and B2C fintech, digital health, marketplaces and logistics companies. Founded in 2013, the firm has raised a total of $835 million and backed companies, including Luminar Technologies, an automotive lidar technology company that went public via SPAC in December 2020.
— Christine Hall
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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