Welcome to Seeking Alpha’s Venture Capital Deals of the Week. Follow this account and turn on the e-mail alert to receive VCDeals in your inbox on Friday afternoons.
- Alphabet’s (GOOG,GOOGL) CapitalG joined and T. Rowe Price (TROW) co-led the $400M Series D for Uber Freight (UBER) competitor Convoy at a $2.75B valuation. Convoy connects truckers and shippers with its tech platform doing all of the matching. The startup has gone from hundreds of loads per week in 2016 to tens of thousands and now has about 100 routes. Convoy wants to use the new funds to continue expanding the platform.
- Xiaomi (XI) became a strategic investor in Chinese EV startup XPeng Motors, which also raised $400M in a Series C round from a group of unidentified strategic and institutional investors. XPeng will launch its electric P7 sedan in spring 2020 with shipments starting in Q2. The company’s first production model, the G3 2019 SUV, launched last December and had sold 10K units by June. XPeng has IPO plans but hasn’t provided a timeline.
- Slack Fund (WORK) joined the Accel-led $200M Series A for 1Password, an online password manager. The round marks 1Password’s first external funding in its fourteen years of existence. The startup plans to use the funds to help build out its sales, marketing, and finance teams.
- Workday Ventures (WDAY) and Salesforce Ventures (CRM) participated in the $157M Series D for Guild Education at a $1B valuation. General Catalyst led the round. Guild is an education benefits platform for Fortune 1000 companies, helping employees obtain the degrees and credentials needed for higher-paying jobs. The funding will help with expanding its employer and university partnerships, growing its team, and exploring acquisitions.
- CapitalG participated in the $150M Series H funding for Freshworks at a $3.5B valuation. The startup makes a range of enterprise software tools, including CRM and help-desk software. Part of the investment will go towards R&D to continue building a SaaS platform that bundles tools. Freshworks has almost 2,500 employees and 250K customers worldwide, with nearly 40K paying customers. The client list includes Cisco, Toshiba, and Honda.
- Goldman Sachs (GS) participated in the $37M Series B for Eigen Technologies, which has a machine learning engine that helps banks and businesses pull important data from complex documents. Lakestar and Dawn Capital led the round. The funding will help expand Eigen’s platform to additional verticals, including insurance and healthcare. The startup says its client base currently includes 25% of G-SIB institutions.
