November 2019 Startup Funding

During November, 16 tech startups raised private funding rounds of $100 million or more, together receiving $3.42 billion.

Investors were drawn to many of the same technology fields that were popular in 2019 — automotive and mobility tech, artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity, platforms, semiconductors, and software. Analytics of multiple different types were big in November, too.

Three companies led the November rounds, each with $400 million in private funding. They were Seattle-based Convoy, a provider of a marketplace connecting truckers with shippers; Xpeng Motors, a developer of electric vehicles in China; and Frontier Car Group, an online marketplace for used cars.

Convoy’s Series D funding brought the startup’s total private funding to more than $668 million, according to Crunchbase. The on-demand trucking platform company now has a post-money valuation of $2.75 billion. Generation Investment Management and previous investor T. Rowe Price Associates co-led and were joined by Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Investments, Durable Capital Partners, CapitalG, and Lone Pine Capital.

Xpeng Motors took in $400 million in Series C funding from Xiaomi, private equity firms, and individual investors, including He Xiaopeng, the EV startup’s chairman and CEO. Alibaba Group, Foxconn Technology Group, and IDG Capital are previous investors. Xpeng also received unsecured credit lines from the likes of China Merchants Bank, China CITIC Bank, and HSBC.

Frontier Car Group of Berlin, Germany, has OLX Group investing up to $400 million in the startup. OLX is the classifieds group of Prosus, a publicly held company that is the international Internet assets division of Naspers, a multinational conglomerate headquartered in South Africa. OLX’s venture arm last year invested $89 million in FCG, which was founded in 2016. The startup used the money to expand its global reach, operating now in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, and the United States. FCG’s total private funding is $570 million. Some of the proceeds from the latest round will be used to buy out existing shareholders, which include Balderton Capital, TPG Growth, Fraser McCombs Capital, EchoVC, Frontier Ventures, Perpetual Ventures, and Autotech Ventures.

Startups offering platforms led the list of lucky ventures in November, with at least 23 funding rounds. Automotive/mobility tech firms and cybersecurity startups each boasted 20 investments during the month. Analytics companies and software startups each racked up 14 fundings, while AI and machine learning startups brought in 10 rounds.

Platforms
Tencent Holdings led $300 million in fresh funding for China’s Tuhu, which has a platform offering online car services, including repairs.

Coveo of Canada provides what it calls an intelligent search platform, which incorporates analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to bolster an enterprise software-as-a-service platform. The startup raised C$227 million (about $171 million) in new funding led by OMERS Growth Equity, with participation by Evergreen Coast Capital, FSTQ (the private equity affiliate of Elliott Management), and Investissement Quebec (IQ). The Canadian startup is now a “unicorn,” valued at more than $1 billion.

SoftBank Vision Fund is leading a round of $150 million for EquipmentShare, a construction equipment rental platform, valuing the Missouri company at $1.5 billion. The startup’s private funding now totals at least $220 million.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Workato received $70 million in Series C funding for continued development of its workflow management automation platform. Redpoint Ventures led and was joined by Norwest Venture Partners, Geodesic Capital, and return backers Battery Ventures and Storm Ventures. The startup has more than 6,000 customers, including Broadcom, Levi’s, Panera Bread, Pixar Animation Studios, and Slack.

BigPanda of Mountain View, Calif., raised $50 million in Series C funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by return backers Sequoia Capital, Battery Ventures, and Mayfield Fund. The information technology management startup offers an autonomous operations platform with AI-based software that can diagnose and fix IT problems, such as computer applications that aren’t working, server crashes, and slow Internet service.

Automotive/Mobility
In addition to rounds for Convoy and Xpeng Motors, the automotive-related startups funded in November included Workhorse Group, TruKKer, Wayve, and Wrench. On the mobility side, more money was invested in Bounce, Voi Technology, Shuttl, and Kovi.

Cincinnati-based Workhorse Group completed a financing agreement for $41 million, in the form of a senior secured convertible note. The company designs and makes high-performance battery-based electric vehicles, notably trucks, and also aircraft.

TruKKer of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, received $23 million in Series A funding for its role as an on-demand truck aggregator. Saudi Technology Ventures, International Finance Corporation, Endeavor Catalyst Fund, and Middle East Venture Partners were involved, along with existing investors Riyad TAQNIA Fund, Oman Technology Fund, Iliad Partners, and Shorooq Ventures. The startup was established in 2016.

Wayve of the United Kingdom raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Eclipse Ventures, joined by Balderton Capital, Compound Ventures, Fly Ventures, and First Minute Capital. Angel investors Zoubin Ghahramani and Pieter Abbeel, among others, also participated. Wayve is developing AI to make self-driving cars smarter.

Seattle-based Wrench provides mobile vehicle maintenance and repair services. The startup received $20 million in Series C funding led by Vulcan Capital, with participation from Madrona Venture Group, Tenaya Capital, and Marubeni Corporation.

Bounce of Bangalore, India, raised about $150 million in Series D funding from B Capital and Accel Partners India, TechCrunch reports. The startup, formerly known as Metro Bikes, rents electric scooters and gasoline-powered scooters in three dozen cities in India, with a fleet of more than 17,000 scooters. The company is reportedly valued at more than $500 million now.

Sweden’s Voi Technology received $85 million in Series B funding from Balderton Capital, Creandum, Project A, JME Ventures, Raine Ventures, Kreos Capital, Inbox Capital, Rider Global, and Black Ice Capital. Voi rents e-scooters. It had Series A funding of $50 million a year ago.

Shuttl raised $36 million in Series C funding from Toyota Tsusho, Sparx Group, and unnamed investors. Based in Gurgaon, India, the startup offers an application-based bus aggregator service. It operates about 2,000 buses.

Brazil’s Kovi received $30 million in Series A funding led by Global Founders Capital. Quona Capital, a new investor, joined existing investors Monashees, Maya Capital, Accel partner Kevin Efrusy, Y Combinator, Broadhaven Ventures, Tinder founder Justin Maveen, and ONEVC. The mobility startup, founded in 2018, has raised a total of $40.6 million in private funding. Kovi rents vehicles to drivers involved in ride-hailing services.

Cybersecurity
Among the 20 cybersecurity startups funded in November are SheerID, Immersive Labs, Abnormal Security, Detectify, and CyCognito.

Portland, Ore.-based SheerID raised $64 million in new equity funding led by CVC Growth Partners, joined by existing investors Centana Growth Partners and Voyager Capital. The startup, founded in 2011, provides marketing identification verification. Its 200-plus customers include Amazon, Google, Target, and T-Mobile.

The U.K.’s Immersive Labs received $40 million in Series B funding; the cybersecurity skills platform startup raised $8 million in Series A funding last January. Summit Partners led the new round, with participation by Goldman Sachs, a customer of the company. CEO James Hadley was a cybersecurity instructor at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which provides signals intelligence and intelligence assurance to the government and armed forces of the U.K. Immersive Labs was established in 2017 and makes its North American headquarters in Boston. Its customers include Bank of Montreal, BT Group, Citigroup, the National Health Service, and the Metropolitan Police of London.

San Francisco-based Abnormal Security raised $24 million in Series A funding led by Greylock Partners. The cloud e-mail security startup was founded in 2018. The Abnormal Security platform is said to protect enterprises from targeted e-mail attacks. The firm developed what it calls Abnormal Behavior Technology. The company’s platform combines the Abnormal Identity Model, the Abnormal Relationship Graph, and Abnormal Content Analysis.

Detectify of Stockholm, Sweden, received €21.5 million (about $23.7 million) in Series B funding led by Balderton Capital, with participation by return backers Paua Ventures, Inventure, and Insight Partners. Founded in 2013 by ethical hackers, the startup provides Detectify Crowdsource for securing Web applications. The company raised €5 million (around $5.5 million) in Series A funding in 2018. Its software customers include King.com Ltd., Spotify, and Trello (an Atlassian subsidiary).

Palo Alto, Calif.-based CyCognito raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation by John Thompson, the chairman of Microsoft and a Lightspeed venture partner, and Sorenson Ventures. The startup offers a cybersecurity SaaS platform.

Software
Fourteen software startups were funded in November.

Automation Anywhere of San Jose, Calif., a provider of robotic process automation software, received $290 million in Series B funding led by Salesforce Ventures, joined by SoftBank Investment Advisers, Goldman Sachs, and other existing investors. In 2018, the software startup got Series A funding of $550 million. The new funding gives the company a post-money valuation of $6.8 billion. Automation Anywhere has more than 3,500 customers, many of them blue-chip enterprises.

San Francisco-based Docker sold its enterprise business to Mirantis and raised $35 million from existing investors Benchmark Capital and Insight Partners. It offers a software container platform. Docker is refocusing on its software developer business in the restructuring and recapitalization.

Aerospike of Mountain View, Calif., received $32 million in Series D funding led by Triangle Peak Partners and joined by return backers NewView Capital Partners, Alsop Louie Partners, and Eastward Capital Partners. The software startup’s total private funding is now $78 million. It provides Aerospike DB, a hardware-optimized, in-memory NoSQL database.

Cambridge, Mass.-based LogRocket raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures. The startup has received more than $30 million in private funding, including $11 million in its Series A round. The firm specializes in identifying and fixing software bugs; it announced the new LogRocket Metrics tool, which helps developers understand how widespread a particular problem may be.

Analytics
Fourteen startups specializing in analytics were funded in November

Celonis of Berlin, Germany, received $290 million in Series C funding led by Arena Holdings, joined by Ryan Smith (Qualtrics), Tooey Courtemanche (Procore), and return backers Accel and 83North, valuing the data mining software supplier at $2.5 billion. Celonis specializes in business process analytics. The startup’s total private funding in $370 million.

San Francisco-based CyberCube Analytics raised $35 million in Series B funding led by HSCM Bermuda and ForgePoint Capital. The startup provides cyber-risk analytics for the insurance industry.

Starburst of Boston received $22 million in Series A funding led by Index Venture Partners. The data analytics modernization startup aims to monetize the open-source Presto distributed SQL query engine.

Chicago-based Apervita raised $22 million in new funding. The investors included Optum Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Baird Capital, Math Ventures, Levy Family Partners, Illinois Venture, and Wintrust Financial. The startup offers a health-care analytics platform.

Semiconductors
Vayyar Imaging of Tel Aviv, Israel, received $109 million in Series D funding led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, joined by Regal Four and all existing investors, including Battery Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, ICV, ITI, WRVI Capital, and Claltech. The 4D radar imaging sensor startup’s total private funding is $188 million.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based NUVIA raised $53 million in Series A funding co-led by Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield Fund, and WRVI Capital, with participation by Nepenthe LLC. The chip design startup aims at applications in the data center. Established in early 2019, NUVIA boasts a trio of founders who have worked in chip design and engineering at Advanced Micro Devices, Apple, Arm, Broadcom, and Google.

Innovium of Seattle, which has a European headquarters in London and another office in New York, received $50 million in Series E funding. Its previous investors include Walden Riverwood, Redline Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, Greylock Partners, and S-Cubed Capital. The data-center chip startup was founded five years ago.

Odds and ends
San Jose, Calif.-based Clumio raised $135 million in Series C funding led by existing investor Sutter Hill Ventures and new investor Altimeter Capital. The startup’s total private funding is $186 million. Clumio provides enterprise data backup services. The startup came out of stealth mode in August. It was established in 2017.

Moveworks of Mountain View, Calif., received $75 million in Series B funding led by ICONIQ Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Sapphire Ventures, joined by return backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, and Comerica Bank. The startup’s total private funding is $105 million. Moveworks offers automated employee IT support services, aiding to resolve help-desk tickets in an automated way, through AI technology.

Boston-based Whoop raised $55 million in Series D equity and debt funding led by Foundry Group, with participation by Two Sigma Ventures, Accomplice, Thursday Ventures, Promus Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and individual investors. The startup markets wearable fitness trackers.

Volterra came out of two years in stealth mode with more than $50 million in private funding from Khosla Ventures, Mayfield Fund, and M12, the venture arm of Microsoft. Itochu Technology Ventures and Samsung NEXT served as strategic investors and partners. The startup offers distributed cloud services.

Fundraising
A quick compendium of fundraising initiated or completed during November: KKR, $15 billion; BC Partners, about $9.37 billion; Insight Partners, $7.25 billion; China Reform Holdings, $7 billion; Primavera Capital Group, $3.4 billion; Harbourvest Partners, $3.23 billion; Norwest Venture Partners, $2 billion; Newbury Partners, $1.75 billion; CVC Capital Partners, $1.6 billion; Sightway Capital, $1.2 billion; Alpine Investors, $1 billion; and Ant Financial, $1 billion. Other private equity and venture capital firms raised billions more in November.

Large $ fundings Nov 2019

Prior 2019 Funding Reports
October ’19 Startup Funding: Mega Harvest
Seventeen startups took in mega-rounds of $100 million or more during October, with a cumulative total of just over $3.2 billion.
Over $7 Billion Raised In Mega-Rounds By 27 Firms
September was spectacular for startups, as 27 tech companies raised $100 million or more, taking in a total of $7.1 billion during the month.
August 2019 Startup Funding Report
18 firms received more than $100 million.
July19 Startup Funding
Twenty-one startups raised mega-rounds.
June’19 Startup Funding
Fifteen startups raised mega-rounds in June.
May’19 Startup Funding: Mega-Funding Rounds Continue
Startups revel in investments of billions of dollars.
April’19 Startup Funding: Corporate Gushers
Money pours into startups with more big investments on the way.
March’19 Startup Funding: Money Springs Forth
The SoftBank Vision Fund figures in some of the biggest rounds in the month.
February’19 Startup Funding: Big Cash Keeps Rolling In
A month with a trio of billion-dollar rounds.
January’19 Startup Funding: $100M+ Rounds Abound