The Crunchbase News Briefing: Fri., Sept. 25

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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Apple veterans’ chip startup raises $240M

Nuvia, a silicon-design company started by former chip executives at Apple, said Thursday that it has raised $240 million in a Series B funding round led by Mithril Capital.

Marvell Technology co-founders Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai also joined in the round, as did funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Management and Research Company and Temasek, as well as Atlantic Bridge, Redline Capital, Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield, Nepenthe LLC and WRVI Capital.

Nuvia was founded in early 2019 by CEO Gerard Williams, and SVPs John Bruno and Manu Gulati, and targets the data-center chip market. The startup has now raised $293 million from 13 investors, according to Crunchbase data.

Palantir eyes $22B valuation post-IPO

Data and analytics software company Palantir is reportedly expecting to fetch a market valuation of around $22 billion after it completes a public market debut planned for next week. [Read more here.]

Funding rounds

• Revol Greens secures $68M for greenhouse: Revol Greens announced $68 million in new funding to build its third lettuce greenhouse facility. Equilibrium Capital led the round, which brings the Minnesota-based startup’s total financing to $215 million. The planned facility will be in Texas and is part of a five-year strategy to have five greenhouses that will initially supply 33 million pounds of greens annually.
• Palladio Biosciences raises $20M to develop kidney drugs: Biopharmaceutical company Palladio Biosciences raised $20 million in Series B financing to develop medicines for orphan diseases of the kidney. New investor Samsara BioCapital led the round, which included existing investors Medicxi and Osage University Partners.
• China’s Showmac raises $15M: Chinese communications infrastructure startup Showmac Tech raised $12 million in a Series A+ round led by Addor Capital.
• Yummy lands $12M for cloud kitchens: Indonesian cloud kitchen startup Yummy has raised $12 million in a Series B round led by SoftBank Ventures Asia.  The company says it currently has more than 70 outlets operating across Indonesia, Singapore, Shanghai and Dubai.
• Impress inks $5.8M for orthodontics: Spain-based orthodontics company Impress raised a $5.8 million seed round to provide affordable, invisible orthodontics. Within one year, the startup is providing its treatments in more than 40 cities in Spain, Portugal and Italy, and is now planning to introduce the model to other world regions. Participating in the round were TA Ventures, Bynd VC, Sabadell VC and European angel investors.

Future of foodtech

North America and Asia have driven venture capital funding globally in the foodtech sector, attracting more than $33 billion in funding in the last three years, according to a report released this week by White Star Capital. Foodtech companies include technology-enabled food products and services across the food value chain.

There are 29 VC-backed foodtech unicorn companies around the world, according to Eric Martineau-Fortin, founder and managing partner at White Star. The firm said “conscious consumption” has driven food trends in the last 10 years and will incentivize companies to create alternative and plant-based protein and dairy, incorporating alternative ingredients such as CBD and algae, and developing free-form and cell-based food.

A hot subsector of foodtech as been pet food, which is expected to grow globally to $96 billion this year, while funding into the sector has grown 33 times since 2011 to $375 million, according to the report. It is primarily driven by changing pet owner values and preferences for things like natural and organic ingredients.

Meanwhile, in Asia, online food delivery and grocery sales are growing at a compound annual growth rate of 24.4 percent, accounting for a 55 percent share of the global online food delivery market.

Illustration: Dom Guzman