Financial

Consumer goods crowdfunding site raises $7.5m from Google Ventures and Union Square Ventures.

Victory Park also provided a $25m credit facility to AvantCredit, which wrote its first loans this year and now has a loan portfolio of more than $4m.

Victory Park Capital leads lenders giving a $75m credit facility to Kabbage, a start-up online provider of small business financing.

Foreign exchange trading technology firm brings in new chief operating officer to replace Robert Bloom in the role.

This is our first quarterly look at the European corporate venturing market.

Wider corporate venturing activity continued to be robust, although the month was down on prior periods. In April there were 64 investments worth $885m, 93 investments worth $1.6bn in the same period last year, and 78 investments worth $905m in March.

My trip to the Munich Network in March painted an interesting portrait of an innovative region.

In February, On Deck raised $42m in its D round, to take its then-total since launch to $80m, from a consortium including SAP Ventures.

In February last year, Dwolla secured $5m in its B round from a pool of investors including BetterWorks and its chief executive Paige Craig.

The company priced 12.5 million American depository shares at $17 each, after having filed to sell 12 million shares at between $16 and $18 each.