Services

The advertising services provider’s first fund is raising up to $14.5m and will operate on a geography-agnostic basis, targeting startups in the health, beauty and food sectors.

The company priced an upsized IPO nearly doubling its valuation six months ago. It is part of a the food delivery space which was given a boost by the pandemic.

Coloridoh, Ellie, Hakken, Greenspoon, TechMagic and Lyxis will all join the five-month programme overseen by Ajinomoto Group Accelerator powered by 01Booster.

The Alphabet-backed accommodation marketplace priced its initial public offering well above its range in the second huge flotation this week, to secure a $47bn valuation.

YJ Capital, Sansei Capital, Kiraboshi Capital, Nanto CVC and Shinsei Corporate Investment were among the investors that helped the holiday booking app developer close a $12.5m round.

JIC Venture Growth Investments has injected $19.2m into the IoT technology developer, which is already backed by Dentsu, NEC, NGK, Mikasa Shoji, Mitsui, Salesforce, SoftBank and Toyoda Gosei.

JIC has provided $28.8m for the digital consulting company, whose corporate backers include Dentsu, Digital Garage, Japan Post, Pasona, San-In Chuo, Serverworks and Yahoo Japan.

Alphabet unit CapitalG supplied $5m in a round representing the second time it has backed the online maths tutorial provider.

The ByteDance-backed learning software and tutoring services provider priced its shares in the middle of their range as it went public in the US.

Cloud-based enterprise software producer Salesforce agreed to acquire Slack, the US-based publicly listed communication platform which previously counted telecoms firm SoftBank, internet conglomerate Alphabet and media group Comcast among its backers.

Eight Roads Ventures Japan has led a $12.5m round for the employee performance management software provider, investing alongside AG Capital, Dai-ichi Life, SCSK and SMBC Venture Capital.