Category: Director

Financing for social impact and climate businesses gets a billion dollar boost with new KKR fund

KKR, the multi-billion dollar, multi-strategy investment firm, has closed on over $1.3 billion for companies focused on social and environmental challenges. KKR Global Impact says its fund will focus on identifying and investing in companies worldwide where preformance and social impact are intrinsically aligned. Specifically, the fund will invest in…

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Mike Volpi on the art of board membership

Mike Volpi Contributor Mike Volpi is a general partner at Index Ventures. Before co-founding the firm’s San Francisco office with Danny Rimer, Volpi served as the chief strategy officer at Cisco Systems. Much has been made about the roles and responsibilities of board members these days. This is especially true…

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Alpha Foods raises $28 million for its vegetarian prepared foods

Alpha Foods, the vegetarian prepared food manufacturer, has raised $28 million in financing for its portfolio of vegetarian burritos, tamales, nuggets, pizzas, burgers, patties, and sausages. The Glendale, Calif.-based company was launched by Loren Wallis, the founder of the dairy substitute, Good Karma Foods, and Cole Orobetz, a former director…

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Middle East healthcare platform Vezeeta raises $40M Series D led by Gulf Capital

Vezeeta, a healthcare platform operating in the Middle East and Africa, has raised a $40 Million Series D funding round led by UAE-based Gulf Capital, alongside further investment from existing Riyadh-based investor Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), which previously led Vezeeta’s Series C round in September 2018. Vezeeta’s other investors include…

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Los Angeles-based SureSale is developing an independent certification service for used cars

Donny Hall, the chief executive and co-founder of the used car certification service, SureSale, knows used cars. The serial entrepreneur built and sold a previous business which was designed CarSure, an insurance plan for vehicle repairs. After selling that business in 2017 to Innovative Aftermarket Systems, Hall decided that his…

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Ancestry lays off 6% of staff as consumer genetic testing market continues to decline

Excitement in the consumer genetic testing market continues to show signs of slowing down. In the past two weeks layoffs have hit two of the biggest consumer genetic testing services — 23andme and Ancestry — with the latter announcing that it would slash its staff by 6% earlier today, in…

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