Chris Witkowsky
Frontier Capital, a growth equity firm, has led a $16 million Series B funding of Simpli.fi, an advertising technology company. The company will use the funding to expand its sales and marketing efforts and to continue to develop its proprietary advertising technology platform.
Pritzker Group Private Capital has acquired Milestone AV Technologies, a global designer, marketer and distributor of branded audio-visual products for consumer and commercial use. Milestone was purchased for an undisclosed price from The Duchossois Group, which will retain a significant interest in the business.
Calysta Energy has completed a $3 million Series A funding round. The financing was led by Pangaea Ventures, and included current Calysta officers and directors. Purnesh Seegopaul, general partner at Pangaea, will join Calysta's board of directors. Calysta will use the funding to advance development of biological routes to high value industrial chemicals and fuels based on methane.
Stonehaven, a global placement agent focused on hedge funds, private equity, real estate, venture capital, private placements and long-only strategies, has brought on four sales professionals and one associate. New hires on the alternatives team include Gerald Brant, who joins as director. He was formerly managing director of Tangent Capital Partners. Matthew Mlinarich, director on alternative investments team, joins from FCE Group. Joseph Azzaro joins as vice president from Deutsche Bank and Timothy Boardman joins as vice president from MatlinPatterson, where he worked on business development. Brittany Parisi joins as an associate from Barclays.
nWay, a San Francisco-based gaming startup, has raised a $5 million Series A funding round led by TransLink Capital, with participation from Baseline Ventures' Steven Anderson, Cowboy Ventures' Aileen Lee, Harrison Metal's Michael Dearing and Lightspeed Venture Partners' Jeremy Liew. Jay Eum, managing director at TransLink Capital joins Steve Anderson, founder of Baseline Ventures, on nWay's board of directors.
Noble Investment Group has acquired the Q Hotel located in the historic Westport District of Kansas City, Missouri. The 123 room hotel will undergo a renovation and conversion to become one of the first AC Hotels by Marriott properties located in the U.S. AC Hotels by Marriott is an urban lifestyle hotel brand with 79 properties in Spain, Italy, Portugal and France and will be unveiled soon in the U.S.
To finish up your 'hump day' in style, Second Opinion brings you news that Hilton Worldwide has priced its IPO at $20, the House is set to vote on the bipartisan budget proposal Thursday and Snapchat has raised $50 million from a single investor.
The Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana has formed a separate account with Hamilton Lane to target the top-tier venture managers to which access has been traditionally tough for many public systems.
The Center for Innovative Technology's CIT GAP Funds has closed an investment in ADR Software, a tech-based company based in Virginia that provides a solution for construction general contractors and project owners to collect, document and evaluate labor information real-time. Since its 2005 launch, CIT GAP Funds has invested in more than 90 companies across Virginia, deploying more than $10 million of public funds and attracting over $135 million more in private funding.
The Riverside Company has added Hytec Gerӓtebau GmbH (Hytec) to its KEYMILE platform. KEYMILE is a maker of data transmission systems, principally serving utility companies, oil and gas operators and others. Hytec, based in Mannheim, Germany, makes products that cover low-data rate modem technologies like small Ethernet managed and unmanaged switches, analog modem technology and power line communications.