Classera raises $40 million Series A round led by Sanabil – Classera, a global edtech e-learning company focused on emerging markets, has successfully raised $40 million in a Series A round, the largest in edtech globally for a company with no prior funding. The round also mark’s the largest funding round ever in edtech, in Mena and most of Africa.
The round was led by Sanabil Investments, a wholly owned company by Public Investment Fund (“PIF”), accompanied by Global Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, 500 Global, Sukna Venture, and Seedra Ventures. The round additionally included a diverse set of investors from Silicon Valley, emerging markets, and global family offices.
Cruz Foam Secures $18M in Series A Funding Led by Helena – Cruz Foam, a circular materials company providing bio-based, regenerative replacements for single-use plastic in the multi-billion dollar packaging industry, today announced an $18M Series A funding round led by the problem-solving group, Helena. The round was joined by One Small Planet, Regeneration.VC, At One Ventures, and SoundWaves.
Cruz Foam is scaling the production of circular materials with existing industries catalyzing the transition of global supply chains away from harmful single-use materials for protective packaging and other uses. The first line of products targets plastic foam. The company was founded in 2017 by John Felts, CEO, and Marco Rolandi, Chief Science Officer, with a mission to replace single-use, petroleum-based plastics starting with replacements for EPS and EPE and moving into new spaces such as cold chain and primary packaging for consumer packaged goods. The sustainable packaging market is expected to grow to $358B by 2028.
Edtech firm Classera raises $40 mln in round led by PIF’s Sanabil – Classera, an education technology company headquartered in San Francisco, said on Thursday it had raised $40 million from investors, which it said was the sector’s largest funding round for a company with no prior funding.
The Series A round was led by Sanabil Investments, fully owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF). Other investors were Global Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, 500 Global, Sukna Venture and Seedra Ventures.
AgroSpheres raises $22m in Series B funding round – AgroSpheres, a company developing the next generation of environmentally-friendly crop protection products, has raised £22 million in a Series B funding round led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Ospraie Ag Science.
Other participants also included Bidra Innovation Ventures and its existing investor, Cavallo Ventures.
The company will use the funds to accelerate product commercialisation, expand manufacturing capacity and “seed broader applications of the AgroSpheres AgriCell platform technology”.
Sevetri Wilson Defies Odds As Black Woman Startup Founder, Leads Resilia To $35 Million Capital Raise – Sevetri Wilson is not your average tech company founder. She’s a Black woman, she has no coding experience, no cofounders and she’s primarily based in Louisiana, a state that venture capitalists evidently have a hard time finding on a map.
Most folks with such a profile have very long odds of raising meaningful venture capital money as VC investors have long struggled to invest in diverse leaders. Black founders raised $187 million in venture capital in the third quarter, which is just 0.43% of the total $43 billion deployed in the three months that ended in September, according to TechCrunch. The annual trend is down. Year to date, funding is slightly more than $2 billion for Black founders, compared with the $4.72 billion they raised in the record-setting year of 2021.
Drive My Way Closes $4.4M Series A Financing Round – Drive My Way, a Cleveland, OH-based Software-as-a-Service personalized recruiting marketplace for the trucking industry, closed a $4.4m Series A financing.
The round was led by First Analysis with participation from existing investors JumpStart Ventures and JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund, in addition to M7 Holdings.
Navina Raises $22M Series B Round to Advance Its Rapid Transformation of Primary Care With AI – Navina, the healthcare technology company that is using data to transform every provider-patient interaction, today announced a $22 million Series B funding round, doubling the total investment to date to $44M. The financing was led by ALIVE Israel HealthTech Fund, with participation from existing investors: Grove Ventures, Vertex Ventures Israel, and Schusterman Family Investments. The company has added thousands of new users in the primary care market in 2022 through relationships with sophisticated value-based care and multi-state physician groups across the US. This rapid adoption drove a 10x increase in revenue for Navina, over just the last six months.
BluSapphire raises $9.2mn in Series A Funding from Barings PE India, Dallas Venture Capital – Full-stack cybersecurity platform BluSapphire Cyber Systems has raised $9.2 million as part of its Series A round. The round was led by Barings Private Equity India with participation from cross border VC firm Dallas Venture Capital, Binny Bansal backed xto10x, RPG Ventures & Merisis Venture Partners. ValueBridge Capital was the sole advisor for this transaction.
Finexio raises USD 35 million in Series B funding – US-based B2B accounts payables (AP) Payments-as-a-Service company Finexio has raised USD 35 million in Series B funding at a USD 100 million pre-money valuation.
The oversubscribed Series B funding round was co-led by Mendon Venture Partners and National Bank Holdings Corporation with J.P. Morgan being the largest investor. Other participants included existing fintech investor Patriot Financial Partners, as well as Discover Financial Services, Trogg Hawley Capital LLC and Valley Bank, all of which are new investors.