Here’s a round-up of the most important deals in venture capital from the past week.
Elon Musk’s Boring Company raised $113 million in new venture funding. Founded in 2012, The Boring Company digs tunnels for mass transit and freight transport. It is currently seeking to develop four regional projects including plans for the East and West Coast, a loop connecting D.C. and Baltimore, and a loop between downtown Chicago and the O’Hare airport. Boring Company co-founder Elon Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, provided $100 million of the round.
An online reviews site for plastic surgeons and cosmetic treatments, RealSelf, raised $40 million from Elephant VC. Earlier, the Seattle-based company was backed by Expedia and Zillow founder Rich Barton, and early Amazon investor Nick Hanauer. RealSelf features more than 2 million patient-generated, anonymous reviews the company said in a statement.
Singapore-based Zimplistic, a start-up that makes smart kitchen appliances, has raised $30 million in new funding from Credence Partners and a startup fund that is part of Singapore’s Economic Development Board. The company told Tech In Asia it plans to use the capital, in part, to popularize its Rotimatic, an appliance which makes fresh Indian flatbreads at home.
Tiger Global, the investment firm that poured money into Facebook, Warby Parker and Flipkart, is now betting on a cannabis, alongside Casa Verde Capital, the fund of hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg. The firms have invested $17 million into a cannabis compliance software company, Green Bits.The investment brings Green Bits’s total funding to-date to $19.3 million.
BMW iVentures, Samsung Catalyst Fund and other investors are pouring $15 million into Mapillary, an independent provider of street-level imagery and map data to cities, transportation and mobility businesses.
A peer-to-peer car rental company called Turo (previously known as RelayRides) raised $10 million in series D funding from American Express and Sumitomo. The funding brings the total capital raised by Turo to $104 million. Turo is best-known for connecting renters to luxury and sports cars, and even some rare vehicles for daily rentals.
An enterprise health tech company, PokitDok, raised $4 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing on Friday. The San Mateo, Calif.-based start-up uses APIs and blockchains to enable a secure flow of data between different healthcare businesses facing stringent regulations.
