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Instacart raises a $209 million Series C (regulatory filing), which values the on-demand grocery delivery company at $2 Billion according to Re/Code. The company raised a $44M Series B in June of this year. Depending on how you count, they are now the 7th or 8th “unicorn” startup to come out of startup accelerator Y Combinator.
Raising two venture rounds in the same year is pretty rare, but 18 startups pulled off raising both their Series A and Series B in 2014:
- Zenefits – HR management SaaS
- Yik Yak – local anonymous app
- Mesosphere – data center operating system
- Teespring – custom apparel crowdfunding
- Wickr – photo and video messaging app
- Jaunt – tools for creating content for virtual reality
- Secret – anonymous mobile message board
- ThreatStream – threat intelligence platform
- Clari – sales productivity platform
- MasteryConnect – tools for teachers to assess students
- Hired – professional talent marketplace
- Accompani – professional relationship intelligence
- Luminal – security and infrastructure systems
- Jack Erwin – men’s shoes e-commerce retailer
- Coin – single card for debit/credit/gift cards
- Flashnotes – academic marketplace for students
- WedPics – photosharing platform for wedding pictures
- Elevate Digital – multi-sensory advertising solutions
From The Investors
Hunter Walk of Homebrew Ventures shares his playbook and encourages investors to march to the beat of their own drum “Run Your Own Playbook, Not Someone Else’s“
True Ventures posts their 2014 year in review infographic, with $46.6 Million invested in 21 new companies including 6 stealth startups, and 13 acquisitions
Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures has raised $57 million for her second fund, as reported by the Wall Street Journal (read article)
From The Operators
Joel Andren of PressFriendly points out that the risk employee #1 takes is often underestimated “Giving Early Stage Employees the Respect They Deserve“
Beepi raised $2.7M of add-on funding to their Series B on AngelList in the largest syndicate yet raised on the platform, as reported by Re/Code (read article)