Industrial

MIT spinout Ginkgo Bioworks will go public through a reverse merger with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp to list on the Nasdaq Capital Market.

The venture fund, focused on companies out of MIT, Harvard and Rochester, has collected more than $191m on its way to a $325m target.

Legend Holdings' Legend Star unit led a round for optical chip producer Turing Quantum sized above $15m while several Japanese companies also raised money.

Solid-state battery developer Solid Power secured a $130 series B round co-led by its potential customers from the automotive sector BMW and Ford Motor Company.

Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.

Tekfen Ventures, Cisco Investments and Qualcomm Ventures are set to exit the crop monitoring technology developer later this year in a deal with Valmont Industries.

A decade or more after setting up the golden age of corporate venturing units were set up with a focus on life sciences and healthcare, such as US-listed conglomerate Alphabet’s GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) and US-listed drugs company Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund (GHIF), and the returns have surpassed many expectations.

SoftBank Vision Fund led a $75m round valuing OKR platform developer WorkBoard at $800m while therapist network provider Headway hit a $750m valuation.

Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.

Solidia Technologies, Kelun Biotech and Doer Biologics all raised more than $70m while Sony added cash to a round valuing Discord at $7bn.