Plus, Vianova raises $6.4M.
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Philadelphia, Pa.-based artificial intelligence and robotics startup Exyn raised $35M in Series B funding at an undisclosed valuation. Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries’ subsidiary Reliance Strategic Business Ventures contributed $25M of the funding in the round, in return for which it acquired a 23.3% stake in the firm. More: - The firm is developing autonomous aerial robots to access inaccessible environments with no GPS signal.
- Reliance’s investment in the firm is strategic as it intends to leverage the company’s technology and support its product development.
- Crunchbase data shows that Exyn has raised $45.2M in total funding since its inception in 2014.
- Notable backers of the company include In-Q-Tel, Centricus, and Red & Blue Ventures.
- Exyn reported $4.32M and $1.82M in revenue in 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Zoom out: - Exyn is Reliance’s third major investment this year after backing Indian delivery startup Dunzo and Google-backed Glance.
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Australia and U.S.-based digital twin startup Willow announced it is letting go 20% of its staff, or 99 employees. The news comes 10 days after the company raised $28.8M in fresh funding. The firm’s valuation at the recent funding was lower than at its previous pre-Series B round last year. More: - The firm creates digital twins of infrastructure assets that help the stakeholders make data-driven decisions.
- Notable existing institutional backers of the firm include Perennial Value Management, VGI Partners, and In-Q-Tel.
- The firm raised a $40M Series A round in 2019, followed by a $43M bridge financing round in Aug. 2021.
- The reason behind the job cuts was not disclosed.
- The firm has recently reevaluated its strategy to focus on growth in the real estate and smart facilities domain.
- The job cuts have impacted 72 full-time employees and 27 contractors.
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Curb management startup Automotus raised $9M at an undisclosed valuation. Automotus places cameras that have its computer vision technology across cities to enforce curb violations and automatically distributes tickets to violators More: - CityRock Venture Partners, Quake Capital, Bridge Investments, Unbridled Ventures, and Keiki Capital are some of the venture firms that participated in the round.
- Automotus' cameras have been deployed in multiple cities, including Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.
- The funds will be used to expand into 15 unnamed cities next year, according to CEO Jordan Justus.
- Automotus claims its cameras enable municipalities to lower congestion by 10% and boost parking revenue by over 500% and parking turnover by 26%.
- The company didn't share information about its revenue and profits or losses.
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Vianova, a French location data platform for shared mobility, secured $6.4M (€6M) in Series A funding. The firm intends to use the proceeds to expand its international presence, accelerate product development, and grow its workforce. More: - The funding round was led by Baloise VC, the venture capital division of insurer Baloise Holding AG.
- New investor XAnge backed the funding, joined by existing backers RATP Capital Innovation and Ponooc.
- Vianova's platform currently tracks over one million connected vehicles.
- While the majority of its customers are companies that are tracking their fleets, some of its customers are governmental organizations that are leveraging the platform to discover trends that can help alleviate traffic and improve infrastructure.
- Notable corporate clients include Bolt, Voi, RATP, and Aéroports de Paris.
- The platform is also used by 60 municipalities, including Zurich, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Marseille.
- The latest funding brings the firm's total raised to date to $9.3M.
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Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart ended its stake in payments firm PhonePe. PhonePe is looking to secure $1.5B at a pre-money valuation of $12B. More: - PhonePe plans to use some of the money from the valuation towards buying back shares.
- Both firms currently have Walmart as their majority shareholder.
- As part of the separation transaction, Flipkart employees with stock options will get a "one-time discretionary cash payout."
- TechCrunch notes that Flipkart has ruled out re-entering the consumer payments market.
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Venture firm Tribe Capital slashed the internal valuation of Canadian-British startup Invenia by 95%. Invenia CEO Matthew Hudson was removed after a board-led investigation found he systemically inflated the startup's profitability. More: - Tribe is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, and its CEO Arjun Sethi previously worked at Chamath Palihapitiya’s venture fund, Social Capital.
- Tribe originally invested $30M in Invenia.
- The slash in valuation comes as venture investors are scaling back after years of aggressive investing, which have brought major losses.
- As a result, VC firms have reduced their investments, are requiring stingier terms, and demand greater transparency and rigor during due diligence.
- This trend has strengthened during recent months to try and avoid additional fallout.
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- Former Meta executive Claudiu Bulai has joined Bellevue, Wash.-based startup Quantarium as its chief innovation officer. The startup provides an AI-powered real estate analytics platform.
- Rain Enhancement Technologies, a startup that develops rainfall-boosting technology, is set to go public via a SPAC merger with dMY Technology Group VI at a $200M valuation.
- Archangel Ventures led a $1.3M seed funding round into Aerotruth, a startup that facilitates B2B partnerships for fintech and banks.
- Investables, a fractional investment platform startup, is opening up its platform to international investors. It launched the platform for U.S. residents a week ago.
- Nine startups joined the Global Insurance Accelerator program. Each is set to receive a $50,000 equity investment.
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot.
Martin Ruiz-Cantu is a Business Researcher at Inside.com. He has a Master's in Global Business and Finance from Georgetown University. He previously worked at HSBC and the World Bank. He is passionate about finance, startups and tech.
| | | | Editor | Jigney Pathak is a Business Researcher at Inside who loves technology, finance & sports. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration with a finance specialization & has previously worked at Salesforce. | |
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