Daily Digest - November 12, 2019
The VC world today saw announcement of a new $400m investment fund and the crowning of a new unicorn, this time in Nigeria. What’s more? An AI-based timekeeping app is changing the game for lawyers. Read on for your daily dose on all the latest happenings in the startup world.
Workato raises $70 million in Series C funding
Workato, an enterprise automation platform based out of Mountain View, California, has raised $70 million in Series C funding. The company focuses on work automation and has served over 21,000 organizations across 57 countries.
The round was led by Redpoint Ventures and saw participation from Norwest Venture Partners, Geodesic Capital, and earlier investors Battery Ventures and Storm Ventures.
Balderton Capital launches a new $400 million fund for European early-stage startups
London based venture capital firm Balderton Capital announced the launch of a $400million investment fund for European startups. The firm will use this fund to invest in early-stage startups that are seeking Series A financing.
Balderton Capital plans to make roughly 12 investments per year. The latest launch puts total capital under management at $3 billion across eight separate funds.
Nigerian digital payments firm Interswitch confirms Unicorn status
After Visa acquired a minority equity stake in the firm, Interswitch, a Nigerian integrated digital payments firm confirmed its unicorn status. “The investment makes Interswitch one of the most valuable African fintech businesses with a valuation of $1 billion,” Interswitch said in a statement.
Interswitch is present in 23 African countries and the company plans to go public in 2020.
Timekeeping app Ping raises $13M in Series A funding
Ping aims to solve a huge pain-point of lawyers, time-keeping. The AI-based timekeeping app tracks lawyers’ work and fills out the timesheet for them. The round was led by Upfront Ventures, along with BoxGroup, First Round, Initialized, and Ulu Ventures.
“I’ve experienced first-hand the grind of filling out timesheets,” writes Initialized partner and former attorney Alda Leu Dennis. “Ping takes away the drudgery of manual timekeeping and gives lawyers back all those precious hours.” Lawyers are required to manually keep track of their time, in six-minute increments and Ping helps solve this problem while also assisting with billable activity management and timesheet reviews.
