– Kavak, a Mexico City-based startup that operates a pre-owned car marketplace in Latin America, announced that it has raised a massive $700 million in a Series E round that more than doubles the company’s valuation to $8.7 billion.
– Cambridge, Massachusetts-based General Catalyst led Kavak’s Series E, which brings the company’s total raised to over $1.5 billion since its 2016 inception.
– Tiger Global, Spruce House, D1, SEA, Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital, SoftBank and others also participated in the latest financing.

– Hexagon Bio, a biopharmaceutical company pioneering the discovery of medicines encoded in the global metagenome, announced that it has raised $61 million to fuel the continued development of its platform to design and develop new therapeutics mined from microbial genomes.
– Nextech Invest led the financing, with participation from new investors SoftBank Vision Fund 2* and Casdin Capital, as well as existing investors The Column Group, 8VC, and Two Sigma Ventures.
– Hexagon’s interdisciplinary platform combines technological advances and proprietary insights across machine learning, genomics, synthetic biology and automation to systematically discover new chemical compounds linked to known protein targets.
– Hexagon has built a database of microbial genomes that is more than twice the size of all public databases and is adding thousands of additional genomes per month.

– Blockdaemon closed a Series B funding round of USD $155m with a valuation of $1.255b, making it the world’s largest blockchain infrastructure company for node management and staking.
– The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Matrix Capital Management, Sapphire Ventures, and Morgan Creek Digital.
– This follows the company’s Series A Round in June 2021 of $28m, as well as previous strategic investments, bringing the total to just under $190m.
– Over the last 90 days, Blockdaemon has significantly accelerated its growth and increased its managed node count from 8,000 to 18,000, more than doubling its operational footprint.

– Sendoso, a gifting platform, raised $100m funding.
– The round was led by SoftBank via its Vision Fund 2.
– Previous investors Oak HC/FT, Struck Capital, Stage 2 Capital, Craft Ventures, Signia Venture Partners and Felicis Ventures also participated.
– The company has more than 20,000 businesses signed up and using its services.

– Misfits Market has closed a $225M Series C-1 round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and with participation from Accel.
– The investment brings the company’s valuation to $2B and the overall funding raised by Misfits Market to $526.5M.
– The additional capital will be used to fuel nationwide expansion and increase the selection of items available to customers as Misfits Market builds a complete online grocery platform.
– On the heels of Misfits Market’s Series C round in April 2021 and during a pivotal period of change in the broader grocery industry, the company has experienced sustained growth as it makes headway on its mission to eradicate food deserts in America by 2025.

– Peak, a U.K.-headquartered company offering AI-powered enterprise decision support software, announced that it closed a $75 million series C.
– The tranche, which was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from MMC Ventures, Oxx, Praetura Ventures, Arete, and Octopus Ventures, brings Peak’s total raised to date $119 million.
– The growth potential of AI has become increasingly clear as companies embrace automation and analytics.
– The global AI market value is expected to reach $267 billion by 2027, according to one source, and PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that 25% of companies have adopted AI compared with 18% in 2020.

– Eight Sleep, the world’s first sleep fitness company, announced it has closed $86M in Series C funding led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from other funds, including SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, and General Catalyst.
– Antonio Gracias, Valor’s Founder, CEO, and CIO, joined the Eight Sleep Board. Mr. Gracias sits on the boards of Tesla, SpaceX, and K Health and has led investments in other highly disruptive companies, including Bird, Reddit, and Uber.

– Picsart announced it has raised $130m in Series C funding.
– The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from G Squared and Tribe Capital, as well as existing investors Sequoia, DCM, Graph Ventures, and Siguler Guf & Company.
– With over $100m in annual revenue run rate, Picsart is now valued at over $1bn.
– The company has raised a total of $195m in capital since its founding.
– With users in 180 countries, Picsart’s base of more than 150 million monthly active users produce more than 1bn edits each month, making it the largest community for Gen Z creators.

– Chinese-backed and Africa-focused fintech company OPay raised $400m funding.
– The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and joined by existing investors Sequoia Capital China, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asia.
– Other investors, including DragonBall Capital and 3W Capital, also took part in the new financing round.

– Adverity has closed a $120m Series D financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
– The round also includes participation from the company’s existing investor Sapphire Ventures.
– The company is the rapidly growing marketing analytics platform.
– Adverity’s mission is to transform marketing performance through intelligent data-driven insights.
– Adverity has seen a 120% client uplift in the last 12 months amid an expanding portfolio of global brands and agencies that include IKEA, Red Bull, Unilever, MediaCom, and Vodafone.
– This follows the best quarter in company history, a compound annual growth rate of 105% in the past four years, and a rapidly growing global team that has increased in size by 300% since 2019.

– Eruditus, a Mumbai-based edtech startup, raised $650m funding.
– The round was led by Accel and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
– The company is valued at $3.2 billion.

– Trendyol, an e-commerce platform based in Turkey, raised $1.5bn funding.
– The round was led by General Atlantic, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Princeville Capital and sovereign wealth funds, ADQ (UAE) and Qatar Investment Authority.
– The company plans to continue investing in nationwide infrastructure, technology and logistics and toward accelerating digitalization of Turkish SMEs.

– SMB 401(k) provider Human Interest raised $200m in a round of funding.
– The round was led by Rise Fund and joined by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
– The financing included participation from new investor Crosslink Capital and existing backers.
– The company has now raised a total of $336.7m since its 2015 inception.
– It plans to IPO in 2023.

– InterVenn Biosciences announced the completion of a $201m Series C financing.
– The funding round was led by new investors SoftBank Group, Heritage Provider Network, Irving Investors, Highside Capital Management, and backed by existing investors Amplify Partners, Anzu Partners, Genoa Ventures and True Ventures.
– The proceeds from the financing will be used to accelerate development and commercialization of Dawn, the company’s liquid biopsy assay for immune checkpoint inhibitor response prediction, and to expand the network of partners on the company’s AI-driven glycoproteomics platform.
– To date, the InterVenn glycoproteomics platform has been used to develop 16 clinical use cases across oncology and other indications. Dawn is currently under development and is planned to be commercialized in 2022.

– Mindtickle, which provides a “sales readiness” platform for enterprises, announced it has closed a $100 million series E funding round led by SoftBank, with participation from Norwest Venture Partners, Canaan, NewView Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures.
– The funds, which bring the company’s total raised to $281 million at a $1.2 billion post-money valuation, will be used to expand Mindtickle’s sales enablement, revenue operations, and training teams, according to cofounder and CEO Krishna Depura.

– Rappi, a Colombian on-demand delivery startup, raised $500m funding.
– The round was led by T. Rowe Price and joined by Baillie Gifford, Third Point, Octahedron, GIC and SoftBank.
– The company has raised $2bn since its inception in 2015.

– Lula, a Miami-based insurance infrastructure startup, announced it has raised $18m in a Series A round of funding.
– The round was led by Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures co-led the round, which also included participation from SoftBank, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, Shrug Capital, Steve Pagliuca (Bain Capital co-chairman and Boston Celtics owner), Tiny Capital’s Andrew Wilkinson. Existing backers such as Nextview Ventures and Florida Funders also invested, in addition to a number of insurance and logistics groups such as Flexport.
– The startup’s self-proclaimed mission is to provide companies of all sizes — from startups to multinational corporations — with insurance infrastructure. Think of it as a “Stripe for insurance,” its founders say.

– ShipBob, a provider of cloud-based logistics solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, announced $200m in funding.
– The funding was led by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from prior investors including SoftBank, Menlo Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and Silicon Valley Bank.
– ShipBob is designed for small and medium-sized ecommerce businesses, providing them with world-class fulfillment capabilities.

– BukuWarung, a fintech focused on Indonesia’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), announced it has raised a $60 million Series A.
– The oversubscribed round was led by Valar Ventures, marking the firm’s first investment in Indonesia, and Goodwater Capital.
– The Jakarta-based startup claims this is the largest Series A round ever raised by a startup focused on services for MSMEs.
– BukuWarung did not disclose its valuation.
– Other participants included returning backers and angel investors like Aldi Haryopratomo, former chief executive officer of payment gateway GoPay, Klarna co-founder Victor Jacobsson and partners from SoftBank and Trihill Capital.

– Cameo has raised $100m in a Series C financing that values the company at over $1b.
– The financing was led by e.ventures, with participation from Origin Ventures, Softbank, Google Ventures, UTA Ventures, Amazon’s Alexa Fund, other institutional investors, and several celebrities, athletes, and entertainers including legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk.
– Previous investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, and The Chernin Group also participated.

– Plan A, a Berlin-based automated SaaS B2B startup, has raised $3m for its platform that lets companies measure, monitor, reduce and report their environmental footprint, thus improving their ESG ratings.
– French VC Demeter led the round with German VC Coparion; SoftBank joined the round as a strategic investor.
– The cash will be used to enhance Plans A’s carbon emission and ESG management software for enterprise customers in Europe, and for international expansion.
– Some estimates put the market for emission management solutions at between $10 billion and $26 billion in the next five years.
– The U.S. Green Deal and new “EU taxonomy for sustainable activities” is putting pressure on businesses to manage their carbon emissions, leading to the rise of platforms like Plan A.