Consumer

Smithfield Foods provided $25m of the cash for the ingredient delivery service's latest round, investing alongside Campbell Soup Company and Fresh Direct.

Birchbox, the beauty product subscription service that has raised $87m in financing from backers such as Comcast, has reportedly begun talks with retailers including Walmart over an acquisition.

Access Technology Ventures has invested $100m to lead a $300m round for smartphone maker Essential Products that included Tencent and Amazon Alexa Fund.

The fund has invested an amount reported to be at least $2.5bn in e-commerce marketplace Flipkart as part of a round already sized at $1.4bn.

SoftBank and its Vision Fund are reportedly set to combine for a $1bn investment in Fanatics that will value the sporting merchandise seller at $4.5bn.

The pharmaceutical company's acquisition of Novartis-backed IFM Therapeutics, consisting of $300m upfront and up to $2bn in milestone payments, is its fourth purchase of a CVC-backed company in under four years.

More value and focus should be on the investors scaling up the business rather than those coming up with the idea and helping the entrepreneur set up a business.

Corporate-focused food ordering platform Meican, which counts Nokia and Meituan-Dianping as investors, has raised cash in a Goldman Sachs-led round.

Revolution Growth led the item location technology developer's series B round, which included corporate venturing units Amazon Alexa Fund and Docomo Capital.