Top startup news for today, Monday, April 1, 2019

Good morning! Here are some of the top technology startup news stories for today, Monday, April 1.

Toast raises $250 million in funding for staffing and R&D. Toast, a Boston, MA-based restaurant management platform provider, raised $250m in Series E funding to attract, engage, and retain guests, recruit and retain talent across research and development, customer success, sales, and marketing, improve operations and increase profitability. The round, which values the startup at a $2.7 billion valuation, was led by TCV and Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Lead Edge Capital and funds and accounts managed by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. Toast was founded in 2013 by CEO Chris Comparato.

CampusLogic acquires Funderbolt for an undisclosed amount. CampusLogic, a Chandler, Arizona USA-based student financial success platform, acquired Funderbolt, a startup focused on accelerating college student fundraising. The toal amount of the deal was not disclosed.  Founded and led by Ross Sylvester, CEO, Funderbolt provided student leaders with a crowdfunding platform and personal campaign consulting services needed to achieve their organization’s funding goals. CampusLogic provides higher education institutions with an integrated platform that features a net price calculator, online scholarship management, digital award letters, simplified financial aid verification, and instant financial aid insights. Over 500 schools serving 3 million students currently use CampusLogic.

Novo raises $4.8 million seed round to make banking easier and more accessible for small businesses with no-fee, FDIC-insured digital banking. Venture capitalists are betting big and pouring millions of dollars into fintech banking startups. One of the firms is Crosslink Capital. The firm is leading a $4.8 million seed round in Novo, an early-stage startup founded that offers startups and small business owners the technology they need to focus on their businesses. Other backers in this round include: Red Sea Ventures, Hack VC, RRE, Rainfall, and the Stanford Law School Venture Fund.

Daimler takes majority stake in Virginia-based robotics startup Torc as it targets autonomous truck market. Big carmakers are battling out in the fight for dominance in driverless tech. Yesterday, German auto giant Daimler is betting big on the future of self-driving technology with a big investment and majority ownership of Virginia-based Torc. The total amount of the deal was not disclosed. Tech giants, like Apple, are struggling to gain traction in the space.

Women’s health startup NextGen Jane secures $9 million in series A to enable earlier diagnosis of reproductive disorders. NextGen Jane (Jane), a diagnostic startup focused on developing tests based off a patented tampon collection technology, has raised $9M in a Series A funding round to further advance its scientific data set in select reproductive health areas. The round was led by Material Impact, along with Access Industries, Viking Global Investors, Liminal Ventures, and several notable Angels. Jane is planning for commercialization of its product sometime in year 2020.

Indian social app startup Healofy raises $8 million for its ‘women-centric’ social network. Healofy, an Indian social networking app aimed at pregnant women and new mothers, has raised $8 million in fresh funding to further strengthen the product, engineering and data science teams and scale its machine learning and personalization engine. Backers in China-based BabyTreeGroup, BAce Capital and existing investor Omidyar Network India.

The stock of Lyft falls below IPO price on its second day of trading. In a gut check for startups that are planning for their IPOs this year, shares of Lyft, a ride-hailing startup that went public last week, fell on its second day of trading. Lyft saw its stock jumped as much as 23 percent in its opening day Friday before settling to a 9 percent gain. Uber, Slack and Pinterest are much likely going to see  how the dust settles before they take the final IPO plunge. Lyft was valued at over $20 billion on its trading debut