Fundings Friday: Nuro, Fountain, and Kitman Labs
Self-Driving Delivery Vehicle Startup Raises $600 Million
Nuro, the self-driving delivery vehicle startup, raised $600 million in a Series D round of venture funding. The fundraising, which was led by Tiger Global Management and included participation from Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google and Toyota Motors (TM), gives Nuro a valuation of $8.6 billion. Prior to the capital raise, Nuro was valued at around $5 billion.
Nuro is among a handful of self-driving startups to amass a huge amount of money to develop their technology and bring it to the marketplace. Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet, raised $2.5 billion this past summer. Nuro said proceeds will go to support the development and testing on Nuro’s self-driving delivery vehicles in communities across the country.
Startup Helping Businesses Find Workers Raises $85 Million
Fountain, a startup which helps businesses hire hourly workers, raised $85 million in venture funding. The Series C round was led by SoftBank (SFTBY) and included participation from B Capital Group and Mirae Asset Venture Investment. The fundraising comes at a time when Fountain’s business is booming. So far in 2021, revenue is up 220% year-over-year. The company now counts Chipotle (CMG) and Just Eat Takeaway (GRUB) among its over 250 customers.
With the Series C round complete, Fountain has raised a total of $119 million. The company plans to use the money to invest in its hiring platform, boost its sales and engineering teams, and expand its presence in EMEA and APAC regions.
Sports Data Startup Raises $52 Million
Kitman Labs, a startup which helps sports organizations use and analyze data, raised $52 million in venture funding. The fundraising round was led by Guggenheim Investments, bringing the total amount the startup raised to $82 million.
Kitman is trying to capitalize on the huge amount of data being collected by sports leagues and teams from wearable tracking systems which players wear. According to Kitman, this year alone, 2.5 million data points per athlete will be collected. In 2025 the startup expects that to reach 230 million data points per player. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to develop its platform further, grow its global team, and continue to churn out research to help the sports industry better understand how to leverage data.
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