Sectors

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

Q&A with Christopher Park, investment director, UL Ventures

Eat Just’s cultured meat subsidiary secured the funding from new and returning backers four months after a $170m tranche of the round.

Payment technology provider Airwallex was valued at $4bn in its series E round, following earlier funding from Salesforce, ANZ Bank, Tencent and Mastercard.

SoftBank has divested 57 million of its 625 million shares in the NYSE-listed e-commerce marketplace, having invested $3bn between 2015 and 2018.

Jabbar Internet Group-backed flexible rental property provider Blueground has pulled in $140m of equity funding and $40m of debt through its latest funding round.

The Mastercard-backed payment software provider has raised over $1.2bn pre-IPO and has opted to float on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

Illumina has anchored the second fund to be closed by the venture firm it sponsors, with Ireland Strategic Investment Fund among the limited partners.

The cancer treatment developer is set to go public in an offering which would represent exits for Pfizer Ventures, Leaps by Bayer and Ipsen.

The content creation tool developer was valued at $1.8bn through a series D round featuring Access Industries’ ClalTech unit, Harel Insurance and Finance and Migdal Insurance.

Investec has returned to provide the first tranche of the PayPal and Avios-backed banking platform developer’s series C round, taking its total funding to $162m.