NBC bought stakes in not one, but two high-profile, VC-funded digital media startups. The Jessica Alba-founded online baby goods retailer Honest Company is gearing up for an IPO. And there’s still more funding news. Here’s what went down:
Capital Gains: NBC’s Big Bet on Digital Media, Jessica Alba’s $1.7 Billion Diapers and More
Gene-editing startups, “smart” windows and more funding news.
Todd Bernard
- To bolster its brick-and-mortar presence, Alibaba is investing $4.6 billion in the Chinese electronics retailer Suning Commerce Group, securing a roughly 20 percent stake.
- NBCUniversal is investing $200 million in both Vox Media and BuzzFeed. The deals value Vox’s worth at just more than $1 billion and BuzzFeed around $1.5 billion. Re/code is owned by Vox Media.
- View, a company that makes “smart” windows, has landed $150 million in new investment, half of it from a fund set up by the government of New Zealand (Fortune).
- Editas, a startup focusing on editing genes for medical research, raised $120 million from Boris Nikolic of Bng0, Bill Gates and other investors. Other companies in the field, like Juno Therapeutics and Moderna Therapeutics, have already raised hundreds of millions of dollars this year (MIT Technology Review).
- Baby products retailer Honest Company raised $100 million at a $1.7 billion valuation as the company prepares for an eventual IPO (Wall Street Journal).
- DoubleDutch, which specializes in collecting and analyzing data from live events and conferences, raised $45 million in Series E funding. The round was led by KKR, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures and others contributing (Silicon Valley Business Journal).
- Massdrop, a group buying site, raised $40 million in a funding round led by August Capital (Fortune).
- Medical-related cloud technology maker PokitDok raised a $34 million Series B round, giving it more than $46 million in total funding (Silicon Valley Business Journal).
- Game maker Super Evil Mega Corp, whose game Vainglory is a big online multiplayer hit on tablets, raised $26 million from Index Ventures, which has previously backed successful gaming companies like Supercell (New York Times).
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
