Capital Gains: Andreessen Horowitz raises another $1.5 billion fund and Didi finds yet another huge backer

Source: www.recode.net --- Sunday, June 12, 2016
Also: “The Vine of gaming.” Venture capital firms had a big week, raising several new substantial funds. Uber rival Didi swallowed a bunch more money as well, on the heels of the Uber-saudiarabia deal. Here’s what happened on the funding front in Silicon Valley: Three major VC firm funding announcements: Andreessen Horowitz raised a new $1.5 billion fund for seed to mid-stage startups, and Sherpa Capital announced a $470 million raise and two new funds. Didi Chuxing scored another $500 million in funding ( Wall Street Journal ) from insurer ChinaLife. Uber recently got more than $3 billion from the saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, and Didi has said that it’s in the middle of raising a round of a comparable size. SoftTech VC (which backed Fitbit and Postmates) also raised $150 million in new funding for startups ( Bloomberg ). Microsoft, Salesforce, Intel Capital, True Ventures and others invested $36.2 million of Series B funding in customer service software startup Helpshift ( Business Insider ). Business travel booking startup TravelPerk raised a $7 million Series A funding round led by Spark Capital, with cash from Sunstone Capital and LocalGlobe ( TechCrunch ). Freenome, a startup researching cancer diagnostics, raised a $5.5 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Data Collective and Third Kind Venture Capital ( TechCrunch ). Forge, which aims to be “the Vine of gaming," raised $4.5 mill ...