Top startup news for today, Monday, December 17

Good morning! Here are some of the top technology startup news stories for today, Monday, December 17.

Tech startup Toast bags $115 million to simply work for restaurant owners. Toast, an all-in-one restaurant technology platform, has raised $115 million to bring together many solutions from integrated online ordering to gift card and loyalty programs to labor and sales reporting all on a mobile, cloud-based POS system. Thousands of restaurants across the US are using Toast – from fine dining to fast casual, local businesses to national chains. Founded in 2011 and launched in 2012 by co-founder Aman Narang, Toast offers advanced functionality including tableside ordering, quick menu modifications, real-time enterprise reporting, online ordering, and labor management on an easy-to-use interface. Back in 2013, Narang was working in his basement building a new point-of-sale device and software for restaurants, raising a $500,000 seed round of capital for the effort. By the end of the year, the company had its first pilot customer for the Toast Go.

Switzerland Versant Ventures raises $700 million new funds for startups in Canada, Europe, and the US. Healthcare investment firm Versant Ventures raises $700 million capital infusion through two new funds. The first is a $600 million primary global biotech fund, Versant Venture Capital VII. The second is $100 million for a Canadian companion fund called Versant Voyageurs I.  According to the company release, the Versant Venture Capital VII, global biotech fund, will be allocated across 20 or more biotechnology companies in the U.S., Canada and Europe focused on translating breakthrough innovation into the next generation of therapeutics targeting the most important unmet medical needs. The second fund, Voyageurs, will be deployed across five to eight startup companies with Canadian operations.

Enterprise provide startup Avanan raises $25 million to transform how businesses secure SaaS email and collaboration. Avanan, an enterprise security provider for SaaS-based email and collaboration platforms, announced today that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding to further accelerate its growth. The round was led by existing investors StageOne Ventures, Magma Venture Partners and Greenfield Partners (a TPG Growth investment platform). Founded in 2014 by Gil Friedrich, Michael Landewe, and Roy Rotem, Avanan operates a cloud-based platform to provide security solutions for public, SaaS-based applications. The product is designed for organizations that need to monitor and protect their employees’ use of the cloud. Avanan’s customer base has increased ten times in the last 12 months. The company currently protects over one million end-user accounts in organizations across all industries, from startups to Fortune 100.

Israeli cybersecurity startup headed by ex-top security officials shuts down. Fifth Dimension, an Israeli security-technology startup that counted former top Israeli security officials in its ranks, has shut down after a key backer, the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, failed to transfer all the capital he had committed to putting into the company. Founded in 2014 by a group of former intelligence executives and data scientists, Fifth Dimension helps law enforcement and police agencies revolutionize investigation processes. Leveraging Big Data and AI technologies, Fifth Dimension created an investigation platform that transforms big data challenges into value.