Debt
LiveOps, which operates in the cloud contact and customer service space, has raised a $30 million debt funding round from Comerica Bank. The Redwood City, CA company has also launched two distinct subsidiaries: LiveOps Cloud Platform, LLC and LiveOps Agent Services LLC. According to the company, bookings have increased by 240 percent, and the last two years have seen revenues escalate at an average rate of 55 percent. Reports put LiveOps’ total funding at $81 million.
Series B
Enterprise messaging company TigerText has raised $21 million in a Series B funding round led by Shasta Ventures. OrbiMedi, Reed Elsevier Ventures, TELUS Ventures and prior backers Easton Capital, New Science Ventures and New Leaf Venture Partners participated. Sales growth at the Santa Monica company, which serves 7 percent of the Fortune 500, has surged by triple digits for three years running. A 2011 report by ABI Research predicts that in 2015, enterprises worldwide will send 643 billion messages.
Series C
Redwood City, CA-based AutoGrid Systems, which delivers big data analytics and cloud computing services to the energy sector, has gained $12.75 million in a Series C funding round. The investment came from a coalition of investors including Voyager Capital, E.ON, and Foundation Capital. IDC forecasted in December that the big data technology and services market will expand to $32.4 billion through 2017, and that cloud infrastructure will land the highest compound annual growth rate at 49 percent through the same year.
Funding
Price comparison engine PricePanda has received $3 million from Tengelmann Group. The company is headquartered in Berlin but has launched its online presence in Southeast Asian markets like Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as in Mexico. Among PricePanda’s famous backers is Rocket Internet, the same investor behind The Iconic and Zalora.
M&A
The world’s biggest broadband operator outside of China, Liberty Global, has scooped up the remainder of Netherlands cable company Ziggo for €6.9 billion ($9.4 billion). The deal, by which Liberty Global bought out other shareholders for €11 per share, valued Ziggo at €10.0 billion. Together, Liberty Global and Ziggo’s services now hit more than 90 percent of Dutch homes.
Google has reportedly spent $400 million on artificial intelligence experts DeepMind. Much about the London-based company remains under wraps, though its website states DeepMind’s “first commercial applications are in simulations, e-commerce and games.” The buy is the latest to indicate Google’s interest in robotics and artificial intelligence; the company bought robot developer Boston Dynamics in 2013.