Real Estate, Payroll And Fintech Companies Lead – Crunchbase News

This is a new weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s entry here.

A big corporate round in real estate led the way in this week’s top U.S. fundings, but venture capitalists seemed most interested in ways to find, pay and train new employees, as well as fintech and adtech platforms.

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1) Greystone, $500M, real estate: New York-based commercial real estate finance company Greystone entered into a strategic joint venture with real estate titan Cushman & Wakefield that will put $500 million into its coffers for a 40 percent stake of the company. The commercial lender said it intends to use the capital to create product offerings for future expansion.

2) Deel, $425M, payroll and compliance: With companies now searching globally for talent, San Francisco-based Deel raised a $425 million Series D to help businesses pay those international employees. The company’s payroll and compliance platform allows companies to hire remote employees more easily. The new round, led by Coatue, gives the company a $5.5 billion valuation. Founded in 2018, Deel has now raised approximately $630 million—including a $156 million Series C round in April—according to Crunchbase data.

3) Brex, $300M, fintech: San Francisco-based fintech company Brex reportedly has raised a $300 million round that values the company as a decacorn, according to TechCrunch. The company had just raised a $425 million Series D led by Tiger Global Management in April that valued it at $7.4 billion. Brex, which offers credit cards and cash management solutions, now has raised $1.5 billion, according to Crunchbase data.

4) VideoAmp, $275M, adtech: Advertisers always want to know which campaigns work and which don’t. Los Angeles-based media measurement platform VideoAmp closed a $275 million Series F to help them figure out just that. The company’s platform helps advertisers target and measure their campaigns across a variety of media such as television and media. The new round—which values the company at $1.4 billion—included investment from The Spruce House Partnership, D1 Capital Partners, Tiger Global, EPIQ Capital Group and Ankona Capital Partners. Founded in 2014, the company has now raised more than $450 million, according to Crunchbase data.

5) Rippling, $250M, payroll and benefits: Another human resource platform that manages employees’ payroll, benefits and devices saw interest from investors. San Francisco-based Rippling raised a $250 million Series C led by Sequoia Capital Global Equities and Global Growth. The round values the company at $6.5 billion. Founded in 2016, Rippling has raised nearly $450 million to date, according to Crunchbase data.

6) Flock Freight, $215M, supply chain logistics: Companies continue to contend with a crumbling supply chain. Encinitas, California-based Flock Freight, a provider of a service to ship freight in shared truckloads, raised a fresh $215 million in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 this week to help with that. Founded in 2015, the company now has raised almost $400 million, per Crunchbase data. The company plans to invest the new cash into enhancing its algorithm and machine-learning technology to help it process shipments.

7) Aura, $200M, consumer cybersecurity: Burlington, Massachusetts-based digital consumer security provider Aura closed a $200 million Series F led by Madrone Capital Partners. The round values Aura at $2.5 billion post money and the company says it has raised a total of $650 million to date.

8) 360Learning, $200M, corporate learning: Another employee-help-related technology saw a big round this week, with New York-based 360Learning raising a $200 million funding round from Sumeru, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and Silver Lake Waterman. Designed to be an easy to use corporate learning platform, the company hopes to eventually build out a vast learning library for businesses. Founded in 2013, 360Learning has now raised more than $240 million, according to Crunchbase data.

9) Endpoint, $150M, title and settlement services: El Segundo, California-based digital title and settlement services company Endpoint took in a corporate round of $150 million in funding from its parent company, First American Financial Corp. The new investment brings the total capital raised by the company to $220 million.

10) Republic, $150M, digital securities marketplace: New York-based investment firm Republic raised a $150 million Series B funding round led by Valor Equity Partners. Republic has a variety of offerings, including a multi-asset retail investment platform, a private capital division and a blockchain consultancy arm. The company, which just raised its $36 million Series A in March, has now raised $214 million, according to Crunchbase.

Big global deals

Although the venture capital market in the U.S. remains hot—as the rounds above illustrate—the three top rounds of the week were all outside the country.

• Germany-based mobile banking solution N26 raised approximately $901 million in a Series E.
• Belgium-based securities transaction provider Euroclear raised $824 million in funding.
• China-based vacuum-maker Dreame Technology closed a $564 million round in a Series C.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Oct. 16-22. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman