VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Marseille, France-based last minute hotel booking mobile app VeryLastRoom bagged $2.1 million in a venture round led by APlusFinance and Extend & Sigma Gestion to fuel its expansion in Europe.

San Francisco, US-based application lifecycle management (ALM) solutions provider Polarion Software Inc nabbed $10 million in a Series A funding round from Munich, Germany-based investment firm Siemens Venture Capital.

New York, US-based news website Business Insider raised $12 million in a funding round led by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos for the expansion of its workforce and subscription service.

Moscow, Russia-based affiliate marketing and advertisement firm CityAds Media nabbed a $5-million investment from private equity investor Klever Internet Investments in exchange of a minority stake in the ad company.

Mumbai, India-based social venture capital firm Aavishkaar Venture Management invested INR18.6 crore in US-based luxury lifestyle brand Mela Artisans for the latter's domestic and international product expansion.

Chicago, Illinois-based travel booking site Orbitz Worldwide snapped up Southlake, Texas-based private-label travel solutions firm Travelocity Partner Network, the affiliate network of Travelocity, for an undisclosed amount.

Unterfoehring, Germany-based production and distribution firm Red Arrow Entertainment Group picked up a majority stake in Bethesda, US-based entertainment firm Half Yard Productions in a deal estimated to be valued at more than $40 million.

Waterloo, Canada-based software giant OpenText invested $1 million to open a data center in Sydney, Australia, to help companies deal with problems centered on enterprise data.

Li Ka-Shing, the richest man in Asia, led a $23-million investment round in Silicon Valley, US-based synthetic egg startup Hampton Creek which is preparing to conquer the Asian market.

Bangalore, India-based outsourced engineering solutions provider Quest Global Engineering added Houston, US-based engineering firm Beeken TechQuest for an undisclosed sum to meet the engineering workforce demand in the oil & gas industry.

Seattle, US-based e-commerce and digital media giant Amazon will rename its London-based streaming video service LoveFilm as Prime Instant Video in Germany and the UK starting February 26.

Subiaco, Western Australia-based mining firm Balamara Resources Ltd agreed to divest three of its non-core assets located in the Balkans for A$15.2 million to focus on its flagship projects.

Tokyo, Japan-based Internet services company Rakuten Inc opened its first European research and development (R&D) facility in Paris, France, which is called the Rakuten Institute of Technology.

Pennsylvania, US-based language learning app Duolingo secured $20 million in a recent funding round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to conquer the Asian market and compete with other English-teaching services.

Cupertino, US-based smartphone giant Apple considered purchasing Palo Alto, California-based electric car manufacturer Tesla, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report citing an unnamed source.