Dynamic Business brings you the key startup fundraising rounds from this week:
Edtech Forage raises $35 million in series B
Forage, a skills training firm, has secured $35 million in a series B round. Blackbird Ventures led the round, which also included Telstra Ventures, Citi Ventures, Gaingels, Cap Table Coalition, ETF@JFFLabs, and current investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and FundersClub.
The funding comes less than a year after the four-year-old Y Combinator graduate, formerly known as InsideSherpa, received a $9.3 million series A round.
Forage collaborates with employers to develop open access online training courses for college students known as “Virtual Experience Programs.”
The programmes imitate real-world work that employees would do, allowing tertiary students to develop the skills and confidence needed to secure their first job.
Agtech Regrow raises $23.5 million in series A
Regrow, an agtech startup, has secured $23.5 million in a series A round for its carbon measuring software for the agri-food supply chain. The round was headed by Ajax Strategies, Tenacious Ventures, and Cargill, three new US climate change-focused venture capital firms.
Existing investors such as Microsoft’s venture fund M12, the Jeremey and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust’s Neglected Climate Opportunities fund, Main Sequence, AirTree Ventures, and others have continued to support the company’s newest round.
The money will be used to speed the global implementation of Regrow’s monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) platform, which is designed to customise, optimise, and monetise carbon impact strategies across the whole supply chain, from buyers to sellers, producers, and verifiers.
Hireup secures $40 million series A led by Seek
Seek Investments, managed by Andrew Bassat, has led a $40 million series A round for Hireup, an online disability services marketplace.
Hireup assists people with disabilities in locating, hiring, and managing their own support workers.
Hireup, which was founded in 2015, is an online platform that empowers around 10,000 Australians with disabilities each year to recruit and manage their own support workers.
The platform differs from other service-based websites in that it directly employs the workers listed on the website rather than treating them as contractors.
Indian ecommerce enabler UpScalio raises US$42.5 million
UpScalio, an Indian ecommerce enabler, has emerged from stealth mode, revealing that it has raised US$42.5 million in a series A transaction.
Presight Capital and an undisclosed global hedge fund led the deal, with participation from Heliad Equity Partners, MPGI, 468 Capital, and Whiteboard Capital.
It also received pledges from a group of lenders that included OfBusiness, InnoVen Capital, and Alteria Capital.
Digital lending startup MoneyTap raises US$70 million in series B
MoneyTap, an India consumer lending firm, announced that it has raised US$70 million in a series B fundraising round led by Aquiline Technology Growth (ATG), RTP Global, and Sequoia Capital India, as well as Japanese and Korean institutions.
The new capital was obtained through a combination of equity and loan channels, with Vivriti Capital and Credit Saison contributing to the debt fund.
This round was also attended by existing investors such as Prime Venture Partners and MegaDelta. Prior to this round, the company had stated that it had raised a total of US$1.23 million.
Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
