Transport

Ubike, the third Chinese bike sharing startup to launch in the past year, has secured backing in a series A round led by Jiangsu Huaxicun subsidiary Yicun Capital.

Existing investor SoftBank will reportedly participate and could lead the round, which would lift the ride hailing company's overall funding to more than $1.8bn.

Cuna Mutual Group's CMFG Ventures unit has led a round that will help the car repair insurance marketplace extend its offering.

Toyota-backed fund Mirai Creation Investment supplied the funding as part of a strategic partnership agreed by the carmaker and car sharing platform Getaround.

Unity Biotechnology, which raised $116m last week, is the fourth Arch Venture Partners-launched startup to be backed by WuXi PharmaTech.

Motorcycle manufacturer Hero MotoCorp has committed $31m to electric bike producer Ather Energy in return for a stake of up to 30%.

UPS, Mercedes-Benz and Yamaha are among the corporates using venture activity to assess technology in the transport space.

University of California, Riverside is set to open an incubator today dubbed Epic as it gears up to raise a VC fund to provide seed capital.

Brazil's innovation capital ecosystem is developing at a rapid pace.