Zenefits, which offers human resources software, has raised $500 million in venture funding, tagging a $4.5 billion valuation to the company. Fidelity Management and Research Company and TPG Growth led the round, with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Sound Ventures and previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, Institutional Venture Partners, and actor Jared Leto. Zenefits offers its core services for free, and makes money by collecting fees from insurance company when it refers its clients to them. The company is targeting $100 million in annual recurring revenue by January 2016, a spokesman told Reuters.
Credit platform Affirm has raised $275 million in equity and debt funding. The company allows consumers to split online purchases into smaller monthly payments and was launched in 2012 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin. The Series B investment was led by Spark Capital Growth and included Andreessen Horowitz, Jefferies and previous backers Khosla Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Affirm will use the new funds to increase its loan distribution capacity. The company’s credit offering allows shoppers to split the purchase price of a product and a small amount of interest into payments over three, six, nine or twelve months. “The simple interest, term loan (not compounding or revolving) is underwritten in real time and only requires most customers to provide top of mind information such as name, DOB, phone number and last four of social security number,” Levchin explains. “Affirm settles with merchants within a day, guarantees all payments, and takes on all the repayment and fraud risk.”
Beijing-based driver reservation company eDaijia has secured $100 million in Series D financing led by Warburg Pincus. Previous backers Matrix Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participation in the round, which puts an $800 million valuation on the startup. The company previously raised $25 million in October 2012.
India-based logistics company Delhivery has raised $85 million in Series D funding. Tiger Global Management led the round, with participation from Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Nexus Venture Partners, and Times Internet Limited. The company previously raised $35 million in a Series C round eight months ago.