VENTURE CAPITAL POST

BTC China has halted deposits of local currency from the China Merchants Bank, causing the value of Bitcoin to fall from $500 to below $440, a 10% difference from its value in the past few days.

New York, US-based grocery delivery service Blue Apron is looking to raise $50 million in its Series C funding with Stripes Group as the lead investor to boost its growth and revenue.

After announcing via press conference that its Falcon 9 rocket has successfully made a soft landing in the ocean, Elon Musk expressed his desire for Space X and other private companies to join the bidding for military rocket launch contracts.

American film and music producer Warner Bros picked up a minority stake in Santa Monica, California-based broadband television startup TV4 Entertainment for an undisclosed amount to maintain its standing in the digital-video industry.

San Francisco, US-based large media storage startup Streem raised $875,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and other angel investors to provide unlimited cloud storage for their customers at $20 per month.

Seoul, South Korea-based content recognition tech firm Enswers scored $2 million in a recent funding round from Samsung Ventures to boost its expansion campaign across the US and North America.

American venture capital firm Domain Elite invested $6.5 million in Israeli endoscopy and colonoscopy products maker SMART Medical Systems to bring the latter's products to meet the demand for the said products in Greater China.

US social media giant Facebook entered the fitness arena with its acquisition of Helsinki, Finland-based mobile fitness tracking app maker ProtoGeo Oy for an undisclosed amount to beef up its mobile app portfolio.

Palo Alto, US-based software-focused venture capital firm Merus Capital formed a special Merus Capital Opporunity Fund just after it closed its second fund at $43 million to support the late-stage development of San Francisco-based ad-tech firm AdRoll.

Ohio, US-based Payments-as-a-Service company 2Checkout closed its first funding round at $60 million with Chicago Growth Partners and Trident Capital as the lead investors in a deal that will fuel its global expansion.

Houston, US-based virtual reality (VR) treadmill maker Virtuix Omni bagged $3 million in its seed funding round with Tekton Ventures and Maveron as lead investors to fund the commercial release of its product.

Burbank, US-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) database startup Connectivity secured $6.3 million in its Series A funding from Greycroft Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, Double M Partners, and other investors to release a new platform with additional features.

San Francisco, US-based real time enterprise collaboration platform Slack, the startup established by Flicker co-founder Stewart Butterfield, is raising $30 million in a new funding round to boost its growth campaign.

Michigan, US-based restaurant chain and pizza delivery firm Domino's Pizza launched a new mobile ordering app for iPad with a 3D pizza building feature that will give customers a visual way of customizing their pizza and when ordering for take-out or delivery.

In its 14th acquisition, San Francisco, US-based publishing platform developer Automattic bought New York City-based code-free website creation startup Scroll Kit for an undisclosed amount to integrate the latter's features into WordPress.