Friday Fundings: Slice, Waymo, and Quizlet

$42 Million in Funding for Pizza Delivery App

Slice, a delivery app that partners with over 12,000 local, independent pizzerias in all 50 states, just raised $43 million. The Series C round was led by private equity firm, KKR& Co Inc (KKR ), and brings the food-delivery company’s total funding to $82 million.

While many pizza shops across the country remain shuttered, customers and restaurants are turning to Slice. The app could be crucial in helping local establishments weather this storm and stay competitive with pizza powerhouses like Domino’s (DPZ ) and Pizza Hut (YUM ). Jake Heller, Co-Head of KKR’s Technology Growth team in North America explained , “Slice comes at it from a foundational perspective providing services to allow independent pizza stores to compete with the big four pizza corporations.”

The KKR funding comes from the company’s Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II, which raked in $2.2 billion from investors in January. Slice plans to use the money to improve its online ordering, payment services, and other features.

Autonomous Car Project Rounds Up $750 Million in Funding

Waymo LLC, the self-driving car project owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL ), announced that it has added $750 million from investors. Over the past two months, the company has announced a total of $3 billion in outside investment.

The coronavirus pandemic has raised questions for the driverless car industry, but investor interest remains strong. Recently, most money has been going to larger, established companies, as opposed to lesser known startups. General Motors’ self-driving unit, for example, has raised $7 billion. Five years ago there was more interest in startups, but now larger companies are taking the lead. People expected driverless car technology to take hold fairly quickly, but logistics have proven more challenging than expected.

Quizlet, the Online Flashcard Company Now Valued at $1 Billion

Millions of students, teachers, and parents across the country are finishing another week of remote learning. Quizlet, a flashcard-making platform has been helping them through, with study guides about everything from Shakespeare to the Periodic Table. As demand for Quizlet soars, the company just raised $30 million in a Series C round led by General Atlantic. The company is now valued at $ 1 billion.

Quizlet, which was founded by a 15-year-old in 2005, now has an enormous user base. Over two-thirds of American high school students have studied on the platform, which allows users to make and share custom quizzes and flashcard sets. Students and teachers have made over 400 million study guides on the platform, and that number is increasing every day.

Quizlet will use the new funding to invest in its AI-powered tutoring capabilities. The company’s new investor General Atlantic has put money into a number of edtech companies recently, including OpenClassrooms, Unacademy, and Duolingo. General Atlantic sees massive growth opportunities for these companies and for Quizlet, during this period of remote learning and beyond.

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