Monsanto had bought 3.3 million shares in Ceres's E round last year at $6.50 per share following a $137m collaboration signed in 2002 applying genomics technologies to identify genes that provide improvements in corn, soybean and certain other row crops, according to its regulatory filing.

Gang Yu, co-founder and chairman of Yihaodian, said: "Walmart brings its global vision into our business. In addition, its supply chain excellence will help us gain a competitive edge in the e-commerce industry in China."

On Wednesday, Yahoo told the US regulator that Alibaba transferred its ownership of payments system Alipay to a new company controlled by Alibaba chief executive and co-founder Jack Ma.

Devyani runs KFC, Pizza Hut and Costa Coffee franchises in India (and recently in Nepal, pictured,) and news provider Economic Times said it planned to float by 2013, although these plans had been mooted five years earlier.

In addition to providing $62.5m, Softbank is providing Gilt Groupe Japan, which started in March 2009 and has more than 600,000 members, with cash, services and intangible property to establish a joint venture between the two companies in return for a 50% stake.

BP Alternative Energy Ventures, part of oil major BP's renewable energy sources division set up in November 2005 to invest $8bn by 2015, and DSM Venturing, which has Netherlands-based industrial group DSM as parent, were the two new investors in Verdezyne.

News provider VCCircle said, outside of Biyani subsidiaries, Pantaloon Retail (India) was the largest shareholder of Future Ventures with 18% that will fall to 9.5-10% post issue.

Other investors included venture capital firms Sequoia, DCM and Highland Capital.

Alongside IDG in the $10m round for Fclub was Zero2IPO Ventures, the venturing unit of China-based data researcher and investment manager Zero2IPO.

News provider PEDaily said venture capital firms Trust Bridge Partners, Sequoia Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners provided the C round, without Google.