Tag Archives: VEN

PR Newswire

Thentia Closes Series A With BDC to Bring Advanced Tech to Regulation

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TORONTO, Aug. 7, 2020 — Thentia, a global leader in regulatory software, has closed Series A equity financing from the Business Development Bank of Canada’s Industrial, Clean and Energy Venture Fund. Thentia, which has a major presence in the regulatory and licensure market, will use this equity financing to expand its sales and marketing activities worldwide and further innovate its Thentia Cloud platform for its rapidly growing number of clients.

"Thentia’s mission is to bring best-in-class technological capabilities, such as internet-scale, high-performance records management, predictive analytics, machine learning, data science and graph-based data exploration to its customers," said Julian Cardarelli, CEO of Thentia. "The regulatory industry is strongly rooted in academics with many visionary leaders working tirelessly to protect the public. Thentia is equally tirelessly focused on providing the technology platform and tools needed to fully realize this vision."

Founded in Canada with clients all-across North America, Thentia was created by technology experts with a strong alignment on the principles and values associated with public protection. Because of this alignment, Thentia has become a leader in providing B2B software-as-a-service solutions to the regulatory industry in support of this mission. Regulatory bodies, licensees, and registrants have come to rely on Thentia for its innovative software technology, its highly knowledgeable and sympathetic on-boarding and success teams, and its unrivaled ability to streamline regulatory operations for its clients in accordance with best-in-class methodologies such as Right Touch Regulation. 

"Thentia has established itself as a leading provider of cloud software solutions for regulated industries," said Sean Brownlee. "We were impressed by the team’s ability to develop innovative solutions which solve customer challenges while increasing productivity. Our investment will help to propel Thentia to the next level as it continues to deliver world class solutions."

The equity financing from BDC will help Thentia continue to develop Thentia Cloud, which is Thentia’s software-as-a-service platform. Thentia Cloud provides a comprehensive collection of regulatory modules. These include modules to track licensing or registration issuance and renewals, continuing education, public complaints, investigation and enforcement, auditing, data analytics, governance and much more.

About Thentia:
Based in Toronto, Canada, Thentia Corporation is an industry leader in using proprietary technology to help regulatory bodies efficiently fulfill their regulatory obligations. Thentia services a wide variety of clients throughout Canada and the United States using cutting-edge software and industry-leading expertise in regulatory standards.

About BDC:
The Business Development Bank of Canada is a Crown corporation wholly owned by the government of Canada. Founded in 1944, BDC provides financing through complementary lending, equity, and venture capital, as well as advisory services to small and medium-sized businesses based in Canada. BDC is committed to supporting Canadian entrepreneurs at all stages of business development.

For more information, please contact:

Julian Cardarelli
CEO, Thentia Corporation
T: (800) 961- 1549
E: investor@thentia.com

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Thentia closed their Series A with the BDC’s Industrial, Clean and Energy Venture Fund
An image of the Business Development Bank of Canada’s headquarters.

Related Links

Read more from Thentia

About the Industrial, Clean and Energy Technology (ICE) Venture Fund

 

Related Links :

https://www.thentia.com

PR Newswire

Pudu Robotics Raised over $15M Series B Financing with Meituan as the Exclusive Investor

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SHENZHEN, China, July 9, 2020 — On July 1, 2020, Pudu Robotics, an indoor delivery robot provider, officially announced the completion of B round financing of more than $15M with Meituan as the exclusive investor. Zhang Tao, CEO of Pudu Robotics, said the fund would be mainly used to develop products, expand sales, explore new usage scenarios and expand overseas market.

Pudu Robotics is a top-notch intelligent indoor delivery robot provider in China. The company focuses on the R&D, design and production of robots and offers a number of popular delivery robots, including PuduBot (food delivery robot), BellaBot (food delivery robot), HoloBot (building delivery robot), HolaBot (dish-return robot), and GazeBot (multi-scene delivery robot). Its first mass-produced robot PuduBot has been widely used in extensive scenarios, including restaurants, hotels, office buildings, hospitals, Internet cafes and Karaoke, with customers in 200+ cities in more than 20 countries. In 2019, Pudu Robotics maintained rapid business growth and remained the leading food delivery robot provider.

Pudu Robotics all series of products.
Pudu Robotics all series of products.

Pudu Robotics possesses the core technologies of low-speed automatic driving, robotics motor and motion control. Its R&D team has developed a number of proprietary technologies. Up to now, the company has applied for several hundreds of core patents, with key patents accounting for more than 60% of the total. Its food delivery robot PuduBot won the German Red Dot Award 2017″Best of the Best”, one of the world’s most prestigious awards in the design industry.

Meituan adheres to a corporate mission of “We help people eat better, live better.” The company focuses on local services including catering and provides a full range of services to businesses through supply-side digitization to accelerate the online transformation of the service industry. This round of investment in Pudu Robotics will allow both sides to combine their strengths in their respective fields and collaborate to promote the exploration of services to humans daily life and the delivery robot industry.

Pudu Robotics and Meituan also have future plans for cooperation and exchange in the field of robotics and catering service digitization.

Photo – https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200708/2851824-1?lang=0

PR Newswire

Beyond Ventures-led funding enables Robotics Cats to help protect forests, national parks and UNESCO World Heritage sites around the world

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“Our investment will help enable Hong Kong technologies to reduce the massive loss of life, environmental problems and financial burdens caused by wildfires”

HONG KONG, July 7, 2020 — A HK$6 million investment led by Hong Kong-based venture capital fund Beyond Ventures is enabling a Hong Kong company to help protect over 4 million hectares of forest around the world.

Robotics Cats is a global leader in detecting wildfires at an early stage and serves national parks, UNESCO World Heritage sites and private plantations with its InsightFD Early Wildfire Detection System. This is a network of InsightFD robots linked to the Insight Globe management platform in a typical wildfire control centre.

InsightFD robots constantly rotate and scan for visual and thermal signals of burning vegetation using sensors, while an image-detection system combined with an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm are able to detect wildfires within a distance of 15 kilometres.

The new Series A round funding from Beyond Ventures will be channelled into R&D, as well as sales and operational functions. It will also finance development of applications and a push into new markets in geographies as far flung as Australia, Spain, Greece, the US, Brazil and Chile.

Some of the cash will go into funding resources to support customers in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Portugal and Mexico, while enabling the company to build partnerships with private fire service contractors, woodland management service companies and telecommunications providers.

Robotics Cats CEO and Founder Andre Cheung said: “We are a team of nature lovers and techies passionate about applying the latest technologies to greatly reducing the devastating effect of wildfires. Our company is therefore thrilled to be partnering with a like-minded investor such as Beyond Ventures, which shares our devotion to promoting environment-protection technologies developed in Hong Kong.”

Locally-born Cheung explained how early wildfire detection and environmental monitoring solutions are crucial to preventing disasters such as Australia’s bushfires. Over a period of several months from mid-2019, “Black Summer” wildfires destroyed an estimated 18.6m hectares of bush and nearly 6,000 buildings. At least 34 people perished, along with what is reckoned to be 1 billion animals. If such bushfires could be detected during the early ignition stage, they could be controlled and extinguished far more effectively, thereby reducing damage to a significant degree.

Cheung added: “We were terribly saddened by this tragedy and will ramp up global adoption of our technologies to help make the world a safer place.”

He holds more than 20 years’ experience in international B2B sales and has served at director level to the benefit of Hong Kong and multinational organisations such as DYXnet, Cisco, EdgeCast and Verizon.

Lap Man, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Beyond Ventures, said: “Our investment in Robotics Cats represents a success story on several fronts. One is about bypassing the bottleneck effect on Hong Kong’s innovation ecosystem normally caused by the difficulty of commercialising technologies. But I am happy to see Robotics Cats demonstrating how Hong Kong-developed technologies can be successfully commercialised and deployed globally.”

He added: “Another success factor for us is the way Robotics Cats aligns with the Beyond Ventures mission to bring about positive impact on society.”

Highlighting the sheer magnitude of the positive impact Robotics Cats will have on the world, Lap Man explained how it will help protect more than 4 million hectares of forest – a land area 42 times larger than Hong Kong itself.

He said: “The AI-enabled wildfire detection solution developed by Robotics Cats provides an automated 24/7 monitoring system that vastly improves accuracy and response times – all to help reduce the massive loss of life, myriad environmental problems and financial burdens caused by wildfires globally.”

About Beyond Ventures

Beyond Ventures is a Hong Kong-based venture capital fund established by eGarden Ventures in partnership with locally-grown serial entrepreneurs in 2017. eGarden Ventures is a venture capital fund focused on technology, media and telecoms (TMT) and holds nearly 20 years investment track record in Mainland China. The fund is also supported by leading investment company, Hony Capital, which manages more than US$10 billion in assets.

Since 2018, Beyond Ventures has appointed Co-investment Partner to the Innovation and Technology Venture Fund (ITVF), which was formed to spur private investment in local innovation and technology (I&T) start-ups.

Adopting the slogan “From Hong Kong. For Hong Kong”, Beyond Ventures seeks to revitalise Hong Kong’s innovation ecosystem by bringing experienced venture and private equity funds together with successful entrepreneurs able to provide start-ups with mentoring support.

Beyond Ventures focuses on early stages investments on artificial intelligence, biotechnology, chips, consumer electronics and platform business. For more information about Beyond Ventures, please visit the official website at www.beyondventures.hk

About Robotics Cats

Robotics Cats Limited is a technology company headquartered in Hong Kong. It focuses on computer vision, AI, and robotics technologies. It develops and provides early wildfire detection and environmental monitoring solutions to international customers. Its solutions help national parks/forestry, wildfire services, world heritages, private plantations, and infrastructure companies around the world to mitigate wildfire risks and damages. For more information about Robotics Cats, please visit the official website at www.roboticscats.com

Related Links :

http://www.beyondventures.hk

PR Newswire

Indonesia Focused East Ventures Raises New Seed Fund for Tech Startups in Aftermath of Pandemic

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The new vehicle will be East Ventures’ eighth fund, as the firm remains bullish on the ASEAN’s digital economy and predicts that innovative startups will transform the region’s post-lockdown landscape for the better.

Quick Facts:

  • Southeast Asia’s most active early-stage tech investor has reached a first close on its latest seed fund, designed for Southeast Asian innovation in a post-COVID-19 era.
  • The new fund will be East Ventures’ eighth tech investment vehicle to date, with the firm aiming to raise US$88 million from limited partners.
  • The capital is being raised from institutional investors, global funds, and family offices.
  • East Ventures was recently named the most consistent top performing VC fund globally by Preqin.
  • In addition to funding new startups in Southeast Asia, the firm is also working closely with existing portfolio companies and advising on how best to implement wartime leadership.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, June 26, 2020 — Earlier today, Southeast Asia’s most active early-stage tech investment firm East Ventures announced that it has reached the first close on a new venture fund for innovative startups in the region. The new seed fund is designed for digital companies emerging in the post-lockdown aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Willson Cuaca, Co-founder and Managing Partner East Ventures.
Willson Cuaca, Co-founder and Managing Partner East Ventures.

The fund is East Ventures’ eighth investment vehicle to date, and the firm aims to raise no more than US$88 million from limited partners.

As the world has slowed down in the time of COVID-19, businesses in the region continue to struggle and lives have been changed forever. Local entrepreneurs are forced to rethink how they operate, understand what is truly essential, and learn how to live with less physical contact. As a result, many are now accelerating to the point where they’re leap-frogging into digital transformation and bypassing years of the usual adoption process.

East Ventures’ latest fund is attracting global and regional institutional investors.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with East Ventures. The firm is well-positioned in Southeast Asia to guide entrepreneurs to achieve their full potential,” said Tow Heng Tan, CEO of Pavilion Capital.

Sunil Mishra, Partner of Adams Street Partners added, “Adams Street is pleased to be committing to the new East Ventures fund. We are impressed with the track record of the team, their local market reputation, ability to work with young founders to guide them and hope that they will continue to generate strong returns.”

Crisis Brings Clarity

East Ventures’ management team believes new global conditions have provided unprecedented clarity for startup decision-makers.

“The pandemic has created a chance for a new breed of entrepreneurs to think about new problems and how to solve them in efficient ways via technology,” says East Ventures’ Managing Partner Willson Cuaca. “We remain optimistic about the future of Southeast Asia’s digital economy, and we’re particularly bullish on the Indonesian market. We feel the current situation proves our core hypothesis that great founders will find a way to make their companies thrive, even in times of crisis. Great people withstand the test of time.”

Cuaca adds that East Ventures’ eighth fund will remain sector agnostic, as exceptional founders exist across the board, in a multitude of industries.

According to East Ventures, the team intentionally seeks to keep its latest fund under US$100 million, as this makes it easier to deploy money into early-stage companies. In turn, the fund is designed to help East Ventures more quickly achieve its key objective of being the best asset class for its limited partners.

Investment Focus

East Ventures’ management team believes the main objective in early-stage investing is to find product-market fit as quickly as possible. As such, it makes a point of working with fledgling founders to navigate the market and neutralize biases.

By having full teams in multiple cities and understanding both Singapore and Indonesia deeply, East Ventures is able to bridge geographic and cultural biases. This is useful for Singapore-based startups looking to expand to Indonesia. It’s also useful for Indonesia-based startups that need to use global practices to become locally dominant.

The same principle can also extend beyond Southeast Asia. Over the past 11 years, East Ventures has formed a knowledge-base and playbook for tech investment success, born from one of the most advanced emerging markets for digital innovation.

East Ventures has developed a concise theory of Indonesia having a “flywheel effect.” The firm works closely with all stakeholders — local industry players, family offices, entrepreneurs, early-stage startups, and growth companies — to build a frictionless flywheel. It has formed a complete startup life cycle from investing at the early-stage, finding product-market fit, creating value and scaling, and finally exits and re-investing.

COVID-19 Response

“We realized that the majority of our CEOs have never been in crisis before,” explains Cuaca. “Because of this, we are doing health checks with our portfolio companies. Instead of immediately advising on tactical business plans, we first try to help the founder understand the crisis and how severely it is impacting their company. Only after founders understand these things can they begin to cultivate their own strategy and implement it tactically. In this respect, we’re trying to convey the importance of wartime leadership.”

The Bigger the Market, the Bigger the Flywheel

Representing approximately 40% of the region’s economy, Indonesia’s internet economy has progressed rapidly — starting as a humble e-commerce-based game and blooming into an everyday staple that touches all industries.

Regionally, venture capital has become a relatively new asset class for investors. East Ventures has established an outstanding track record as one of the first movers. The firm has grown its portfolio value significantly and assisted in the successful exits of multiple companies.

Some of the firm’s deals have reached 1,000x in terms of Multiple on Invested Capital (MOIC). East Ventures claims a Distributions to Paid-in Capital (DPI) rate as high as 7x, with notable exits including Grab’s acquisition of Kudo in 2017, as well as GoJek’s more recent purchases of Loket and Moka POS. Two out of four East Ventures funds have returned beyond the amount of capital invested by limited partners.

About East Ventures

Founded in 2009, East Ventures is an early-stage sector-agnostic venture capital firm. The firm has supported more than 170 companies in the Southeast Asian region that are present across Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

An early believer in the startup ecosystem in Indonesia, East Ventures is the first investor of Indonesia’s unicorn companies, namely Tokopedia and Traveloka. Other notable companies in the portfolio include Mercari, Ruangguru, Warung Pintar, Fore Coffee, Kudo (acquired by Grab), Loket (acquired by Gojek), Tech in Asia, Xendit, IDN Media, MokaPOS, ShopBack, CoHive, Koinworks, Waresix, and Sociolla.

In 2019, East Ventures remains the most active startup investor in Southeast Asia and the firm was recently named the most consistent top performing VC fund globally by Preqin.

Photo – https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200626/2841728-1?lang=0

PR Newswire

Planful Raises Equity Round to Meet Increasing Demand for Its Cloud-Based FP&A Solution

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Additional Funds from Majority Shareholder Vector Capital and Other Leading Investment Firms Position Planful to Seize Market Opportunities, Invest in Product, and Drive Go-to-Market Initiatives

REDWOOD CITY, California, June 25, 2020 — Planful Inc. (formerly Host Analytics), a leading financial planning and analysis (FP&A) cloud platform provider, today announced that the company has raised an equity round led by Vector Capital, a leading global private equity firm that specializes in transformational investments in established technology businesses. The equity round also included existing investors StarVest Partners and Monroe Capital. Planful expects to use the proceeds to meet growing global demand for its cloud-based FP&A solution and interest in its Continuous Planning vision.

Planful has seen a marked increase in the use of its platform by existing customers, including Bose, the Boston Red Sox, and Del Monte, as businesses rapidly analyze various factors affecting performance and run more frequent forecasting scenarios using Planful’s intuitive platform. With a Continuous Planning approach, Planful customers can compress cycle times and facilitate faster collaboration with increased process and data connectivity throughout every corner of the organization, increasing agility and enabling faster, more confident planning and decision-making.

“We live in an increasingly dynamic world and the traditional planning process with spreadsheets and annual budgets no longer works for modern businesses,” said Luis Martinez Luna, Senior Financial & Business Analyst at Bose, a manufacturing company that predominantly sells audio equipment. “With Planful, we’re able to ensure there is connectedness across the business throughout the planning process, giving us a single source of truth that is flexible enough to serve all units of our business, regardless of the economic climate.”

Planful CEO Grant Halloran said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark realization for many businesses that the need to modernize the back office is critical. We’ve seen a significant increase in demand for our platform over the past several months and have the capital backing to expand our team and go-to-market capabilities, as well as accelerate our product roadmap. Our recently announced Planful Now offering enables businesses to be up and running in 30 days or less, realizing the value of our solution more quickly than ever before.”

About Planful
Planful is a leading financial planning and analysis (FP&A) cloud platform. Planful delivers a vision of Continuous Planning by accelerating the end-to-end FP&A process and fostering business-wide participation in agile planning and decision-making. More than 800 customers including Bose, Boston Red Sox, Del Monte, TGI Friday’s, and 23andMe rely on Planful for financial planning and budgeting, dynamic operational planning, financial consolidations, reporting, and visual analytics. Planful is a private company backed by Vector Capital, a leading global private equity firm specializing in transformational investments in established technology businesses. Learn more at www.planful.com.

Additional Resources
View on-demand content from the Planful Virtual Tour
View FP&A resources to navigate an uncertain world
Learn more about Planful customers
Join the conversation on social media: LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

Contact
press@planful.com

PR Newswire

Moovaz goes global with $7mil Series A funding & acquires SPH’s The Finder

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SINGAPORE, June 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Once a demographic dominated by affluent professionals, the face of the expat has dramatically shifted to welcome almost everyone, including a new generation of free-spirited, tech-savvy, globally-mobile adventurers keen to experience the world — and Moovaz is helping them live the dream. Powered by smart technology, Moovaz is reimagining logistics with simple, efficient moving services for a new generation of expat, and has secured a Series A round totalling USD 7 million, including previous convertibles, to do it.

Moovaz goes global with $7mil Series A funding & acquires SPH’s The Finder
Moovaz goes global with $7mil Series A funding & acquires SPH’s The Finder

An international relocation services platform headquartered in Singapore, Moovaz was founded in 2018 by Lee Junxian and 2 other Co-founders. The vision was simple: to promote a life well moved, for today’s global citizens. With the ease of travel and rise in flexible work, more people are choosing to forgo their home bases in pursuit of the digital nomad lifestyle. But the process is typically headache-inducing and comes with many roadblocks, from extremely high costs to slow shipping times and storage container issues. Moovaz turns the traditional logistics industry upside down, providing a smart, curated platform connecting customers with the right services at the right time.

“Relocating from one country to another is a huge logistic undertaking. You have to uproot everything, manage accommodation and travel plans, apply for visas, open new bank accounts. Basically move your entire life,” says Lee Junxian, Co-Founder and CEO of Moovaz. “Despite all the tech innovations out there, relocation services remain notoriously slow, expensive and inefficient. As the world opens up, these challenges need to be addressed. Our goal is to use innovation to provide a complete moving solution for global citizens, and eliminate the headache that comes with moving your life.”

On the Moovaz platform, customers can get instant shipping prices and track their belongings. Using automation and data, Moovaz captures customer information and profiles their needs before connecting them with their global network of contractors. However, Moovaz goes beyond the expectations of a relocation services company; instead harnessing technology and automation to provide a seamless moving process for customers.

Dubbing themselves “Life Movers”, Moovaz helps global citizens move their lives, while also connecting them to their future communities. During the process, Moovaz provides tailored recommendations for essential extra services to ensure as smooth a move  as possible, from connecting utilities to buying insurance or setting up the all-important Wi-Fi.

While the lion’s share of its customers hail from the Asia-Pacfic, Moovaz plans to scale rapidly and expand its partnership base. Now, backed by the likes of Quest Ventures, who are backed by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Supply chain conglomerate YCH Group and deep-tech investors SGInnovate, it can do that and more — and has its sights firmly set on strengthening its services and facilities to become an industry leader in the relocation field.

This means launching go-to market campaigns in new countries, raising capital, expanding their team, and welcoming new partners to optimize each customers life journey, at a functional level and an emotional one.

About Moovaz

Moovaz is an all-encompassing relocation service for globalised mobile citizens. Its all-in-one digital platform is revolutionising the logistics and international relocation industry by enabling a seamless and truly moving experience for everyone. Using smart technology and a global network of over 2,000 certified partners, Moovaz offers customers an unprecedented level of transparency and open access to mobility services worldwide. With our dedicated team, Moovaz is committed to delivering convenience and excellence, first time, every time.

For more information, please visit https://www.moovaz.com/about-us/

Information about the latest acquisition of SPH’s The Finder could be found here – https://moovaz.com/press/

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PR Newswire

Bespin Global Raises $75M in Series-C Funding

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SEOUL, South Korea, June 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Mr. John Hanjoo Lee, the CEO of the global cloud management company Bespin Global, announced on May 27th that the company had signed a $75M Series-C funding contract through its holding company, Newberry Global.

Bespin Global has raised $177M so far, including $14M Series-A and $90M Series-B.

SK Telecom participated in this funding round through SK Telecom China. Other investors include DY Holdings.

SK Telecom expects to accelerate its own cloud business with the help of Bespin Global’s leading multi-cloud management capability.

Bespin Global will join forces with SK Telecom, SK C&C, and SK Infosec to develop a 5G cloud-integrated and multi-hybrid management platform based on OpsNow which is Bespin Global’s proprietary cloud management platform.

Bespin Global is the first East Asian company to be positioned in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Professional and Managed Services for four consecutive years and is the first Korean company to be placed in the Leaders quadrant this year. The company supports all major public cloud platforms and offers cloud managed service globally through its proprietary platform, OpsNow. Recognized for its skills and growth, Bespin Global China has a significant presence in the Chinese MSP market. Bespin Global is also quickly expanding in the Middle East & Africa region through its MEA arm.

“The combination of 5G and cloud will accelerate innovation across industries and allow companies to improve their service value,” said Yoo Yeong-Sang, the head of MNO business at SK Telecom, “We will lead innovation in 5G by joining hands with software developers, device manufacturers, and global mobile carriers.”

John Hanjoo Lee, CEO of Bespin Global, said, “the future of cloud will be shaped by 5G cloud. By collaborating with SK Telecom, we will develop and offer a 5G cloud management platform for the global market. This is a good example of a collaboration between an enterprise and a startup.” He added, “we will take this funding as an opportunity to establish this company as a leading player in the cloud industry. We also plan to expand to North America in the second half of this year.”

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PR Newswire

NS8 Raises $123 Million Series A, Now Among Fastest Growing Fraud Prevention Platforms in the World

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Latest Raise Led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and AXA Venture Partners

LAS VEGAS, June 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — NS8, an online fraud prevention company, announced the company has successfully closed $123 million in venture funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and AXA Venture Partners (AVP).

With this investment, NS8 will accelerate product development and expand its global reach with an increased focus on growing its vast partner network. The company has grown from 50 to over 200 employees within the last year, and hiring continues across sales, engineering, marketing, and infrastructure.

Lightspeed’s investment provides NS8 with access to the firm’s expansive global network, as well as a team of operators and advisors to help navigate challenges, build world-class teams, and support the company’s continued growth at all stages. 

“Online fraud prevention has grown rapidly due to the acceleration of ecommerce adoption by merchants and, with it, an increased threat of those seeking to attack online stores. Merchants of all sizes need to invest in security products to ensure a safe and secure online experience,” said Bradley Twohig, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “NS8’s platform allows its partners and their merchants to stand up a full-service fraud prevention hub, in a matter of a day, across almost every ecommerce platform. The time to value is simply best in class.”

AVP has significant experience helping scale companies that leverage differentiated technology and efficient business models to drive innovation in enterprise software, fintech, consumer and digital health. With offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, AVP can also help NS8 accelerate its global expansion.

“NS8 has built a market-leading fraud detection and prevention platform combining advanced data analytics with real-time scoring. NS8’s rapid growth is a testament to the strength of the company’s product and the value NS8 delivers to its customers,” said Alex Scherbakovsky, General Partner at AXA Venture Partners and NS8 board member. “We are excited to partner with Adam and the NS8 team to scale the business globally.”

Throughout the recent global pandemic, NS8 continues to emerge as the fastest growing industry leader, with year-over-year revenue growth of 200 percent and a dedicated focus on aiding online vendors to make fraud decisions that protect their customers and their bottom line.

“Thanks to this investment from Lightspeed, AXA Venture Partners, and our full backing group, we can continue to scale to meet the growing demand for fraud prevention technology in the global marketplace,” said NS8 CEO Adam Rogas. “This partnership positions NS8 to empower even more businesses with enterprise-level fraud defenses, regardless of size or industry.”

About NS8
NS8 is a comprehensive fraud prevention platform that combines behavioral analytics, real-time scoring, and global monitoring to help online businesses minimize risk. Its patented scoring technology provides actionable data about the type, quality, and trustworthiness of transactions, which businesses leverage to automate fraud management workflows to suit their individual needs. NS8 is headquartered in Las Vegas, with regional offices located in San Francisco, San Ramon, Miami, Amsterdam, Singapore, and Melbourne. www.ns8.com

Crowell & Moring LLP served as legal counsel to NS8 in the fundraising transaction.

About Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 400 companies globally, including Snap, Nest, Nutanix, AppDynamics, MuleSoft, OYO, Guardant, StitchFix, and GrubHub. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage $10.5B across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, Southeast Asia, and Europe. www.lsvp.com

About AXA Venture Partners
AXA Venture Partners (AVP) is a global venture capital firm investing in high-growth, technology-enabled companies. AVP has built, in less than five years, a unique investment platform specialized in tech investments with $800 million of assets under management through three pillars of investment expertise: early stage, growth stage, and fund of funds. To date, AVP has invested in more than 45 companies and more than 15 funds. The AVP team operates globally with offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. Beyond investments, AVP provides unique access to business development opportunities helping portfolio companies to scale globally and accelerate their growth. www.axavp.com

LinkedIn: @ns8               Twitter: @ns8inc               NS8.com

Logo – https://techent.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ns8-raises-123-million-series-a-now-among-fastest-growing-fraud-prevention-platforms-in-the-world.jpg   

Source: NS8, Inc.

PR Newswire

Propzy Raises $25M Fund from Gaw Capital and Softbank Ventures Asia

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HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Propzy, a full-stack real estate platform based in Vietnam, has raised $25 million in a Series A round of funding led by Gaw Capital and Softbank Ventures, along with new and existing investors, Next Billion Ventures, RHL Ventures Breeze, FEBE Ventures, RSquare, and Insignia. 

Propzy
Propzy

With the investment, Propzy commits to simplifying real estate transactions, from beginning to end, and managing the assets or logistics to streamline the entire real estate lifecycle, such as leasing and purchasing of landed houses and high-rise condos.

The company will also continue its expansion into leasing services by leveraging the online to offline capabilities of its platform, which has recorded 50% month-over-month growth.

 As the only “firetech” (financial, insurance and real estate technology) company in Vietnam, the company pioneered the hybrid online to offline model that offers a full-stack real estate platform.

“Propzy is an example of the many macroeconomic successes in Vietnam. With its innovative breakthrough in real estate’s offline to online business models, we see the immense potential of Propzy to skyrocket,” said Gaw Capital’s Managing Partner, Humbert Pang.

Vietnam has emerged as a thriving real estate market in Southeast Asia. Despite the global crisis and coronavirus pandemic, Vietnam has reached its target of over 5% GDP growth in 2020. 

Despite this, however, the real estate industry still lags in terms of its adoption of new technology. 

“Sellers see uncovering buyers needs as a headache that slows the buying process. Therefore, we invited a group of world-class investors to provide an advanced solution. With the largest number of estate agents in Vietnam – around 400 sales staff operating in 30 locations – we have facilitated over $1 billion in property transactions since inception and anticipate another record-setting year of growth, as we continue to expand,” said Founder and CEO of Propzy, John Le.

Vietnam’s robust economy is one of the fastest-growing in Southeast Asia. Research by the World Bank found that 70% of Vietnam’s population is considered economically secure. Propzy is now well-positioned to scale its market leadership to 70 centers and 1,300 advisors nationwide over the next 18 months.

“The security that the Vietnamese economy offers to property investors and homebuyers is ideal for Propzy to thrive. We are excited to support the company in its mission to enable a 10X consumer experience in real estate,” said Daniel Kang, Senior Partner of SoftBank Ventures Asia.

About Propzy

Founded in 2016 by Mr. John Le, Propzy is a full-stack real estate platform and integrated marketplace offering open house, closing-settlement services, and turn-key mortgage financing. The founder is a multiple exit serial entrepreneur behind numerous leading fintech companies, including LoanTrader and Portellus, with blue-chip investment from Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, GE Capital, Zurich, FBR Capital and IAC.

About SoftBank Ventures Asia

Founded in 2000, SoftBank Ventures Asia is the early-stage venture arm of SoftBank Group. Their expertise lies in ICT investments including AI, IoT, and smart robotics. They look for early to growth-stage startups that have strong business potential in the global market and assist them to be plugged into the SoftBank ecosystem by facilitating side-by-side growth.

About Gaw Capital Partners

Gaw Capital Partners is private equity fund management company that focusing on real estate markets in greater China and other high barrier-to-entry markets globally. Specializing in adding strategic value to under-utilized real estate, the firm’s investments span the entire spectrum of real estate sectors, including residential development, offices, retail malls, hospitality and logistics warehouses.

Photo – https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200609/2825006-1?lang=0

PR Newswire

Bitsensing, Radar technology startup raises $5.8mn Pre-Series A

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SEOUL, South Korea, June 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Bitsensing, a South Korean radar technology startup, has raised $5.8 million in a Pre-Series A round of funding, despite the COVID-19 impact on financial markets. This round was led by LB Investment, a leading venture capital in South Korea, and Mando Corporation, a South Korean global Tier 1 automotive supplier, participated as a strategic investor. Hansae, SB Partners also participated along with Future Play and SJ Investment Partners from a previous round.

The bitsensing team (Picture credits: bitsensing Inc.)
The bitsensing team (Picture credits: bitsensing Inc.)

Bitsensing is developing innovative radar-based sensing technology that is reliable, compact, multifunctional, and affordable to design safer everyday life, that can be available for everyone. Bitsensing’s radar sensors not only detect targets but also can track and map what is happening in any environmental setting in real-time without creating privacy issues or compromising performance in harsh weather.

Bitsensing’s radar sensors can be used in various industries, such as automotive, smart home, robotics and for autonomous driving.

“I believe receiving strategic investment from Mando Corp., a global Tier 1 automotive manufacturer, means that our technology has been recognized in the autonomous vehicle market. It will help us grow much faster” said Jae-eun Lee, CEO of bitsensing.

“Bitsensing is the best radar technology team in Korea with automotive radar development and mass production experience which makes them different. We believe their radar technology can be used not only in mobility industry but in other applications, creating a new market,” said Jason Koo, Senior Managing Director of LB Investment (Formerly known as LG Venture lnvestment).

“Bitsensing’s radar and camera sensor fusion technology will change how radar has been traditionally used. We decided to invest because we believe we can create demands from various industries such as Smart city, Smart home, Mobile robots, Future mobility or Digital healthcare,” said Yoon-ki Kim, Director, Head of Start-up Investment of Mando Corporation, Strategic Investor.

The company will use the funds to further enhance their technology, expand its offerings in key industries and grow their global presence and enhance global partnership. Bitsensing recently joined NVIDIA Inception program, Infineon Partnership, Plug and Play Japan for Mobility, Plug and Play Thailand for Smart cities.

Bitsensing had previously raised $1.2 million in seed rounds, and with the $5.8 million Pre-Series A, the total equity financing has amounted to $7 million.

About bitsensing

Bitsensing is a leading radar technology startup focused on brining safer everyday life that is available for everyone. Bitsensing was co-founded in 2018 by the core members of a Radar team at Mando Corp. including Dr. Jae-eun Lee, CEO. Bitsensing designs and develops the entire process of radar technology from signal processing to RF circuit and antenna design.

Website: www.bitsensing.com

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Source: bitsensing Inc.