Top tech startup news stories you need to know this Friday, November 2

Good morning! Here are some of the top tech startup news stories for today, Friday, November 2.

Expedia acquires 2 venture-backed hospitality startups, Pillow and ApartmentJet. Expedia has acquired venture-backed hospitality startups Pillow and ApartmentJet. Employees of both companies will join Expedia. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2014 by Daniel Palumbo, Justin Miller, Mariusz Lapinski, Sean Conway, and Todd Conway, Pillow is a technology-driven hospitality company for short-term rentals. ApartmentJet is the only short-term rental platform built specifically to help multifamily owners and operators earn revenue with vacant units. It was founded in 2016 by Eric Broughton. Expedia Group owns several travel brands, including HomeAway, Travelocity, Trivago, Orbitz and Hotels.com.

Rockset, a startup founded by two ex-Facebook employees, launches out of stealth with $21.5 million investment. Two ex-Facebook employees, CEO Venkat Venkataramani and the chief technology officer Dhruba Borthakur, just raised $21.5 million in funding for their new serverless search and analytics startup called Rockset. Founded in 2015, Rockset is a next generation cloud data infrastructure. With enterprises still struggling to use complex data primarily because real world data is messy and cannot be put to use easily, Rockset is bridging the gap by changing the way data is stored, processed and accessed for making better, faster data driven decisions and data powered apps. Empowering enterprises to unleash all their data is a difficult challenge that inspires them everyday.

Healthcare startups raises more money in 2018 than in 2012 and 2013 combined. With two months left in 2018, healthcare startups have already raised more in VC funding this year than they did in all of 2012 and 2013 combined, according to an analysis conducted for Forbes by Pitchbook. Venture capitalists have poured more than $26 billion into health startups this year. In 2012 and 2013 combined, the sector raised $22.3 billion in 12 months. So far this year that $26.3 billion has been spread among 1,540 deals, which is slightly less than half the 3,103 deals that took place in 2012 and 2013. In October, healthcare startups raised $2.69 billion, spread among 126 deals. That’s up 75% from a year ago, even though there were 128 deals then. On average each company raised $21.3 million, compared with $12 million in 2017, which is about the same compared with September’s fundraising average.

PeopleFund secures $11 million in Series B Funding to accelerate growth of its customer base. PeopleFund, Korea’s fastest growing financial technology platform that connects borrowers and investors, has secured $11 million in Series B funding to cement its leading position in the Korean fintech market. This is the largest Series B investment for a Korean P2P lending company. The funding was led by Kakaopay corp., a subsidiary of Kakao, which offers financial features into Korea’s popular chatting app, KakaoTalk. Returning investors included DAYLI Financial Group, 500 Startups, and D3 Jubilee, bringing total funding to date close to US$17M. Founded in 2015 by Joseph Kim, PeopleFund is Korea’s fastest growing financial technology platforms that delivers loans and a full spectrum of diversified alternative investment products. It is the first and only Korean P2P lending platform to fully integrate with a top tier commercial bank to process personal and business loans that are government approved.

Biotech startup OMEICOS Therapeutics raises €17 million to develop treatments for heart arrhythmia. OMEICOS Therapeutics, a Berlin, Germany-based biotech startup focused on developing therapeutics that can be broadly deployed in inflammatory, cardiovascular, ophthalmology and other disease indications, has raised 17 million Euros to develop treatments for heart arrhythmia. The company uses its proprietary technology and extensive knowledge of omega-3 fatty acid metabolism and biology, to treat heart diseases. The latest round was led by new investor Forbion, with participation from several existing investors including Vesalius Biocapital II S.A. SICAR, Remiges BioPharma Fund, and others. Founded in 2013, OMEICOS’ mission is to develop a safer treatment for long-term heart rhythm control for patients suffering from atrial fibrillation – a heart arrhythmia characterized by an irregular and rapid heartbeat that can result in palpitations, shortness of breath, and chest pain.

Tap is the world’s first public index and global search engine for drinking water. There is a new startup called Tap that wants to be the world’s first public index and global search engine for drinking water. Founded this year by Sam Rosen, Tap’s mission is to create a zero-waste drinking water network. Every minute, over 1 million plastic bottles are purchased and nearly 80% of these end up in our landfills and oceans. At this rate, the amount of single-use plastic ending up in our oceans will outweigh fish by 2050, unless we make a change. Tap is an app that allows you to find nearby Refill Stations, so you never have to buy bottled water again. You just open the app and within seconds you’ll find the closest place to refill your water bottle. Tap uses a combination of user-generated content and data from water fountain manufacturers to help you easily find clean water. To date, Tap has more than 34,000 refill stations across 30 countries indexed on the app.

Personalized discovery engine startup Stylyze raised $2.8 million in seed funding. Stylyze, a Seattle-based personalized discovery platform  that uses color and style to help customers create their lifestyle brand and shop it, has secured $2.8 million in seed funding to accelerate growth and roll out new services. Currently, The Stylyze Discover plaform helps uses find and coordinate amazing looks based on the colors and styles you love. Today, customers spend an average of 79 days gathering information before making a purchase decision. The startup was founded in 2012 by Kristen Miller and Lisa Perrone.