- SimpliContract is a Bengaluru, India-based AI and SaaS-based contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform. - The company raised $1.8M in seed funding. - The round was led by Kalaari Capital with participation from Picus Capital, Arka Ventures, and Digital Sparrow Capital. - The new investment will be used to expand the company's engineering, AI research, and marketing efforts.

- Immersive Labs from Bristol is a company provider of a platform for organizations to measure and improve cybersecurity skills across technical and non-technical teams. - The company closed $75m Series C funding round led by new investors Insight Partners alongside Menlo Ventures, Citi Ventures and existing investor Goldman Sachs Asset Management. - The investment will be used to expand the company's international presence, tripling global headcount to 600 over the next two years and establishing operations in new regions throughout APAC and Europe.

- TicketSwap, an Amsterdam-based online marketplace for buying and selling tickets, raised $10m in funding. - The round was led by Million Monkeys. - The company intends to use the funds to accelerate growth, add new features for its users, and expand to new markets.

- Cirona Labs, a Geneva, NY based premier innovator in cannabinoids and other functional botanical ingredient manufacturing, closed a $1.5m seed funding round. - The round was led by LiDestri Food & Drink, BevSource, and Sweetener Supply. - The company intends to use the funds to further expand research and development, facilities, and team, grow its business reach and build relationships with existing brands.

- Actimed Therapeutics Ltd, a London, UK-based clinical stage company focused on bringing innovation to the treatment of muscle wasting disorders, with a focus on cachexia, closed its extended Seed B financing round. - The proceeds will allow the company to further advance the development of its lead compound, S-pindolol (ACM-001.1), for cancer cachexia, by performing a Pharmacokinetic (PK) and Pharmacodynamic (PD) study due to start later this year.

- Framework, a NYC-based platform designed to help health and wellness businesses create branded virtual wellness programs, emerged from stealth with $3m in seed funding. - The round was led by True Ventures with participation from Uprising, Clay Point Investors, and LookingGlass. - The company intends to use the funds expand operations, its development efforts, business reach, supporting health and wellness experts in scaling their impact.

- Popmenu announced a $65m Series C funding round. - The round was led by Tiger Global Management and includes participation from new investor Salesforce Ventures and existing investors Bedrock Capital, Base10, and Felicis Ventures. - Popmenu plans to use the funding to accelerate development of its all-in-one solution, Popmenu Max, that builds on patented menu technology and includes A.I.-powered features to help restaurants around the world attract, engage, transact with, and re-market to guests more efficiently than ever before.

- Heartseed, a Tokyo-based biotechnology company developing iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes for heart failure (HF), announced it has raised 4 Billion-yen (approx. $37 Million) at Series C round, bringing its total financial backing to 8.2 Billion yen (approx. $75 Million) since its foundation in 2015. - New investors are UTokyo Innovation Platform Co. (UTokyo IPC), Medical Incubator Japan, Keio Innovation Initiative (KII), and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment. Among the existing investors, SBI Group, Nissay Capital, SMBC Capital, Medipal Holdings, and Itochu Chemical Frontier participated in this round.

- Time is Ltd. is a productivity analytics startup. - The company has raised $5.6m in funding. - The round was led by Chalfen Ventures, with participation from Illuminate Financial Management, Accel, Acequia Capital, Paul Sallaberry, and Ulf Zetterberg.

- Fresha announced a $100m Series C investment led by General Atlantic with strategic participation from Huda Kattan of HB Investments and the founder of Huda Beauty, as well as Michael Zeisser of FMZ Ventures, former Chairman Investments at Alibaba Group, and Jonathan Green of Lugard Road Capital. - Fresha’s existing global investors Partech, Target Global and FJ Labs also participated in the round, bringing the company’s total fundraising to $132m to date. - Fresha will leverage the new funds to further broaden its global community of partner salons and spas, scale product development, deepen its marketplace bookings and pursue strategic M&A.

- Smarkets is a London UK-based provider of a betting exchange and prediction market platform. - The company raised $30m in Series B funding. - The round was led by Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE), which joined existing investors Passion Capital and Deutsche Telekom. - The new investment will be used to bolster SBK’s position in the UK mainstream betting market after its launch in August 2019, expand its reach in European countries, and accelerate its rollout in the US.

- Forkast, a Hong Kong-based blockchain-focused multimedia platform, raised $1.7M in seed funding. - The round was led by AMTD Group, Fenbushi Capital, Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, Animoca Brands, Longling Capital, CMCC Global and Sora Ventures. - The company intends to use the funds to enhance its digital story-telling capabilities led by video, expand its current team and invest in innovative content creation technologies that deepen engagement with a global audience.

- Prefect Technologies Inc. from Washington DC-based dataflow automation company. - Series B $32m round led by Tiger Global with participation from new investor Bessemer Venture Partners, existing investor Positive Sum and others. - The company plans to use the funds to further develop its dataflow automation platform, build out its team, and proactively execute its product-led growth strategy.

- Proxifile is a San Francisco CA-based service platform for businesses and individuals to navigate financial and property recovery claims. - The company raised $2.3m in funding. - The round was led by Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn), Andy Cohen (SVP of Sales from Bill.com), Matt Humphrey (CEO of LendingHome), Harvey Golub (former CEO of American Express), Lloyd Lobo (founder of Boast.ai), and Launchpad Capital (Founder, Ryan Gilbert). - The company intends to use the funds to grow its bankruptcy claims offering from Beta into a nationwide rollout and begin its expansion into property claims for individual owners and managers.

- Pathrise, a San Francisco, CA-based online mentorship and job placement platform for tech professionals, secured $9m in Series A Funding. - The round was led by Learn Capital and also included Western Technology Investment and Day One Ventures and existing investors K50 Ventures, Y Combinator, and GoAhead Ventures. - The new investment will be used to develop its proprietary platform which manages mentor matching, job searching and resource recommendation, recruitment and onboarding of mentors, refine scholarship systems, create affordable income share agreements and other financial innovations to improve accessibility of the program.

- Phase Four announced a $26m Series B investment round. - The round was led by New Science Ventures LLC. - The new capital follows a year of significant growth for Phase Four. - NSV is a leading venture capital firm focused on building companies that leverage breakthrough science to create extraordinary value.

- Hopin from London develops a virtual and hybrid experiences platform. - The company received an investment from LinkedIn via a Series C secondary round. - The amount of the deal was not disclosed. - The company will use this capital to continue investing in the development of its platform technologies in areas such as video and mobile.

- Lofti, a London, UK-based property management platform for tenants, homeowners and landlords, raised $1.5m in seed funding. - Taiwanese family office fund WoodJC made the investment. - The company intends to use the funds to expand its services across the UK, further grow its team and develop its community hub.

- Blue Oceans Barns, a Kailua Kona, HI-based producer of red seaweed, raised $5M in seed funding. - The round was led by Valor Siren Ventures. - The company intends to use the funds to expand its farming operations as it readies for commercial sale of its seaweed-based cattle supplement.

- Owl Peak Lab is a Charlottesville VA-based company focused on developing screening solutions to detect colorectal cancer. - The company raised $1.5M in seed funding. - The round was led by undisclosed investors. - The new investment will be used to further develop novel imaging technology to detect anomalies of the gastrointestinal tract at the earliest stage and to invest in its Artificial Intelligence platform to aid in early detection.

- Komodor announced a $21m Series A funding round led by Accel, with follow-up angel investments from Jason Warner, CTO of GitHub; Sri Viswanath, CTO of Atlassian; Danny Grander, Co-Founder of Snyk; Tomer Levy, CEO of Logz.io; Amir Jerbi, Co-Founder of Aqua Security and others. - The company previously raised $4m in seed funding from NFX Capital, Pitango First, and OldSlip Group. - Komodor is the first platform to streamline Kubernetes troubleshooting by offering a unified view of all events across the entire Kubernetes stack, providing developers, operations, and on-call teams with the context and the actionable insights they need to solve issues efficiently and independently.

- European fintech giant Klarna raised $639m funding. - The round was led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 and joined by existing investors Adit Ventures, Honeycomb Asset Management and WestCap Group. - The company has a post-money valuation of $45.6 billion. - It plans to use the new capital to continue to grow in the U.S. and globally.

- Ledger announced a $380m Series C round. - The round was led by 10T Holdings with strong support from existing investors including Cathay Innovation, Draper Esprit, Draper Associates, Draper Dragon, DCG, Korelya Capital, and Wicklow Capital and other newcomers including Tekne Capital, Uphold Ventures, Felix Capital, Inherent, Financière Agache (Groupe Arnault), and iAngels Technologies. - Ledger has an implied valuation of more than $1.5bn, marking its rapid and accelerating growth. - Ledger is the market leading secure gateway for investors looking to access the world of digital assets securely.

- Transcarent, a new and different consumer-directed health and care experience for employees of self-insured employers and their families, announced a $58m Series B investment led by General Catalyst and 7wireVentures, with participation from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Leaps by Bayer, GreatPoint Ventures, and Threshold Ventures along with existing investors Alta Partners and Jove Equity Partners. - This round brings Transcarent’s total funding to $98m and will allow the company to respond to the demand for rapid expansion of its innovative risk-based offering for self-insured employers.

- Kurome Therapeutics announced the closing of a $15m Series A financing. - The round was co-led by Medicxi and Affinity Asset Advisors with participation from founding investor CincyTech, and other existing seed investors. - The funding will support the pre-clinical advancement of dual IRAK1/4 and panFLT3 inhibitors to target cancer cells that evade the effects of both targeted therapy and chemotherapy drugs via adaptive resistance mechanisms, having co-opted IRAK1/4-mediated immune signaling pathways to survive. - The biology being currently investigated was discovered by Daniel Starczynowski, PhD, who is Principal investigator and Co-Leader, Hematologic Malignancies Program at Cincinnati Children's Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute, and a leading expert in IRAK 1/4 signaling pathways in cancer.

- Onchilles Pharma announced a $7m Series A financing from LYZZ Capital and includes a $500k investment from the University of Chicago’s Startup Investment Fund. - The proceeds of the financing will be used to develop first-in-class therapeutics to activate a novel pathway of the innate immune system with potential for universal anti-cancer activity, independent of genetic mutation. - Research published in today’s issue of Cell is the first to describe this pathway where human neutrophils release catalytically active neutrophil elastase, called ELANE, to selectively kill many cancer cell types while sparing non-cancer cells. - ELANE is an entirely new treatment paradigm with the potential to have broad and selective cancer killing activity regardless of genetic mutation or anatomical origin.

- AI-powered accounting platform Osome announced that it raised $16 million in a series A funding round. - The company plans to put the proceeds, which bring its total raised to over $24 million, toward expanding its footprint internationally and building new product integrations. - Studies show that the vast majority of day-to-day accounting tasks can be automated with software. - That may be why over 50% of respondents in a survey conducted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants said they anticipate the development of intelligent systems will have a significant impact on accounting businesses over the next 30 years. - Another report found that 96% of accountants are positive about the role that automation will play in their day-to-day processes, with 89% viewing automating data entry and reporting as a way to create more value-add service for clients.

- Circulor, the leading provider of supply chain traceability and dynamic CO2 tracking, announced it has closed $14m in Series A funding to accelerate the company’s rapid growth. - The Westly Group led the round with participation from Salesforce Ventures, BHP Ventures, Future Positive Capital, 24Haymarket and Sky Ocean Ventures. - Existing investors in the company include Boeing HorizonX, Volvo Cars Technology Fund, Jaguar Land Rover's CVC arm, InMotion Ventures, SYSTEMIQ, Plug and Play and TotalEnergies Ventures. - Steve Westly, Founder and Managing Partner of The Westly Group, will join the Circulor board. - Circulor will use the investment to drive ongoing innovation and extend its presence in North America and Asia.

- Owl Peak Labs announced the fully subscribed closure of its seed round of $1.5 million. - The funding will be used to further develop innovative diagnostic solutions using Owl Peak Labs’ novel imaging technology to detect anomalies of the gastrointestinal tract at the earliest stage. - Owl Peak Labs will also continue to invest in its Artificial Intelligence platform to aid in early detection. - Colorectal cancer is known as the least prevented, though most preventable, cancer, accounting for 10% of cancer cases but second overall in cancer deaths. - Only 64% of Americans undergo recommended routine screening, well below the CDC’s 80% goal, contributing to over 53,000 deaths in the United States each year.

- Ringle, a South Korea-based English tutoring platform, raised $18m in Series A funding. - The round was led by returning investor Must Asset Management and joined by One Asset Management, MoCA Ventures, and Xolon Invest. - The company plans to launch a program for school kids later this year, and also has plans to open offline educational spaces in South Korea and the United States. - Ringle currently has 700 tutors, who are pre-screened by the company, and 100,000 users.

- 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.

- TestBox, a new startup, wants to change that by providing a fully working package with pre-populated data to give the team a way to test and collaborate on the product before making a buying decision. - The company announced it was making the product widely available; they also announced a $2.7m seed round from SignalFire and Firstminute Capital along with several other investors and industry angels. - Company co-founder Sam Senior says he and his co-founder Peter Holland recognized that it was challenging for companies buying software to test it in a realistic way. - TestBox comes pre-populated with data generated by GPT-3 OpenAI to test how the software behaves and lets participants grade different features on a simple star rating system and provide comments as needed.

- Hokodo, the fast-growth European fintech enabling B2B merchants to offer their customers payment terms in real time, announced its $12.5 million Series A. - The funding round is led by Mosaic Ventures, with participation from Notion Capital and several prominent angel investors including Taavet Hinrikus, founder of TransferWise (now Wise), Thijn Lamers, former EVP, Global Sales of Adyen, Max Bittner, CEO of Vestiaire Collective and founder of Lazada and Rich Laxer, ex-Chairman and CEO of GE Capital. - Hokodo’s earliest investor Anthemis also joins the round and reaffirms its conviction in the company’s vision.

- PostHog announced $15m in fresh funding and major new free features for users of data warehouses. - The company’s Series B was led by existing investors Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, with participation from GV (formerly Google Ventures), and takes PostHog’s total funding to over $27M. - Ali Rowghani, Managing Partner at YC Continuity, and former COO at Twitter and CFO at Pixar, will join the PostHog board. - PostHog’s mission is to increase the number of successful products in the world. Their open-source platform lets developers track product usage, understand the impact of new features on user behavior, and integrate product and user data with data warehouses - all without sending any data to a 3rd party.

- Bright Peak Therapeutics announced a $107m Series B financing round. - RA Capital led the round with participation from founding investor Versant Ventures and new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company, Invus, Qatar Investment Authority, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Alexandria Venture Investments and an undisclosed leading healthcare investment fund. - Bright Peak uses a novel technology to chemically synthesize therapeutic cytokines by ligating together customized peptide segments. - Bright Peak's platform also allows for the conjugation of its enhanced cytokines as payloads to certain antibodies, creating novel and proprietary “Bright Peak Immunocytokines.” - Bright Peak Immunocytokines will allow tissue- and cell-specific targeting of the cytokine payload with the added potential for synergistic efficacy through potency-enhancing avidity effects.

- TreasurySpring, a fintech startup, raised $10m in Series A funding. - The round was co-led by MMC Ventures and Anthemis Group. - Existing investors, including ETFS Capital, participated. - The company plans to use the funding to expand its platform.

- Blue Ocean Barns announced the closure of a new, $5m seed round of capital, bringing the sustainable agriculture company’s total raised to date to $6.6m. - The funding round, led by Valor Siren Ventures, will support a significant expansion of Blue Ocean Barns’ farming operations as it readies for commercial sale of its seaweed-based cattle supplement. - This week, Blue Ocean Barns signed a lease for 10 additional acres of growing space near its existing operations on the Big Island of Hawai’i. - Blue Ocean Barns produces a cattle supplement made with a specific type of seaweed, Asparagopsis, that has been proved in multiple university studies to reduce methane output from cattle by more than 80%, eliminating a greenhouse gas that is at least 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

- Slintel, a startup providing that kind of data, announced a $20m Series A. - The company has attracted some big-name investors, with GGV leading the round and Accel, Sequoia and Stellaris also participating. - The investment brings the total raised to over $24m, including a $4.2m seed round from last November. - The company plans to grow faster again.

- Data Sentinel announced the close of a $3.6m funding round. - The financing was led by Brightspark Ventures, with participation from Sentiero Ventures, Delbridge Capital Partners, and other high value angel investors. - Data Sentinel is a data trust and compliance platform that helps businesses persistently manage their data privacy compliance, governance, and quality in real time. - Data Sentinel’s proprietary deep learning discovery technology illuminates the true nature of an organizations data across all sources and systems, monitoring and measuring the data to ensure compliance with company policies and evolving regulations. - Led by industry veterans with extensive real-world experience, Data Sentinel has been built to help businesses produce trusted, correct, compliant, and well governed data.

- Faire, the online wholesale marketplace connecting more than 200,000 retailers across North America and Europe with 20,000 brands from over 80 countries, announced the closing of $260 million in a Series F investment round led by Sequoia Capital. - The funding, which includes all existing investors as well as new global investors Baillie Gifford and Wellington Management, values Faire at $7 billion, nearly tripling its previous valuation of $2.5 billion announced just over six months ago. - This funding and vote of confidence from world-class investors comes just weeks after Faire’s expansion into Europe, which brings the platform’s powerful cross-border network effects to the $1 trillion European market. - Across North America and Europe, independent retailers are doing more than twice the revenue of Walmart and Amazon combined.

- Flyhomes announced a $150m Series C financing to fuel its growth and build upon its record-setting quarters. - The round was co-led by venture capital firms Norwest Venture Partners and Battery Ventures, with additional participation from Balyasny Asset Management, Fifth Wall, Trustbridge Partners, Camber Creek, Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff, and existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Canvas Ventures. - As part of the transaction, Lisa Wu of Norwest Venture Partners and Roger Lee of Battery Ventures will join the Flyhomes Board of Directors. - Flyhomes is a pioneer and market leader of the end-to-end homebuying model.

- Punchbowl, the Company behind the critically acclaimed technology platform for events, holidays, and meaningful life memories, announced $5.0MM in financing from SG Credit Partners, Inc. - The financing was used to acquire VidHug, a best-in-class group video platform. - Punchbowl CEO Matt Douglas has been appointed a Board Observer at Qeepsake and a Board Director at pumpspotting. - Punchbowl also launched Memento—a new platform to record, make, and preserve memories from the most important days in a family’s life.

- Clair, a social impact, embedded fintech startup transforming how America’s hourly workers get paid, announced the close of a $15m Series A funding. - The round was led by Thrive Capital and includes participation from Upfront Ventures. - Clair enables HR tech and gig companies to give hourly workers free instant cash advances on their earnings. - On-demand pay and other fintech services create value for both employers and HR tech providers, with research showing that Clair’s no-fee instant advances can dramatically bolster companies’ efforts to recruit and retain hourly workers.

- Dataflow automation startup Prefect announced it has raised $32 million in a series B funding round led by Tiger Global. - The company says it will use the capital to further develop its platform, attract talent, and support its growing community of users. - When McKinsey surveyed 1,500 executives across industries and regions in 2018, 66% said addressing skills gaps related to automation and digitization was a “top 10” priority. - Salesforce’s recent Trends in Workflow Automation report found that 95% of IT leaders are prioritizing automation and 70% of execs are seeing the equivalent of over four hours saved per employee each week. - Moreover, according to market research firm Fact.MR, the adoption of business workflow automation at scale could create a market opportunity worth over $1.6 billion between 2017 and 2026.

- French startup Yousign has raised a $36.6m Series A funding round. - Lead Edge Capital is leading the round and eFounders is investing once again in the company. - Yousign, as the name suggests, is an e-signature provider that complies with European regulation on digital signatures. - The company was originally founded in 2013, but teamed up with startup studio eFounders in 2019. - Following this deal, eFounders has become a key shareholders and a strategic partner.

- Synthekine closed an oversubscribed $107.5m Series B financing. - The round was co-led by Deerfield Management and Janus Henderson Investors, with participation from RA Capital Management, Rock Springs Capital, Omega Funds, TCG X, Lilly Asia Ventures, and an undisclosed leading healthcare investor. - Existing investors The Column Group, Samsara BioCapital, Canaan Partners, and Emerson Collective also participated in the round. - Synthekine is advancing cytokine science and creating optimized therapeutics in this important space. - Synthekine expects to move both programs into clinical investigation within the next year, with proceeds from the financing supporting clinical proof-of-concept data.

- PowerTech Water, a Lexington KY-based company focused on delivering clean water to industrial consumers, raised $6M in Series B funding. - The round was led by HG Ventures. - The company intends to use the funds to meet the demand for sustainable industrial water treatment, accelerate corporate partnerships, and expand operations.

- Aura is a digital security technology company dedicated to creating a safer internet for everyone. - The company has raised $450m to date from investors including Accel, General Catalyst and WndrCo, in addition to Warburg Pincus. - The new funding will be used to enhance the customer experience, grow the user base of the new Aura product, accelerate development of new features and implement programs to increase consumer awareness through a national advertising campaign.

- Branch Insurance from Columbus, OH provides home and auto insurance services to its customers. - The company raised $50m in Series B funding. - The round was led by Anthemis Group with participation from Acrew, Cherry Creek Holdings, and existing investors Greycroft, HSCM Bermuda, American Family Ventures, SignalFire, SCOR P&C Ventures, Foundation Capital, and Tower IV. - The new investment will be aimed at accelerating the company's rollout across the U.S. to enable more national embedded partnerships.

- Sentera from Minneapolis MN provides an AI-powered platform that fives time sensitive insights to optimize decisions and improve outcomes for stakeholders throughout the agricultural supply chain. - The company raised $25m in Series C funding. - The round was led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and S2G Ventures with participation from Akroyd LLC, KuE Capital, Continental Grain Company, iSelect Fund and Middleland Capital. - The new investment will be used to expand operations and business reach.