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Hello and welcome to Last Week In Venture, Crunchbase News鈥檚 weekly roundup of venture deals that may have flown under your radar.

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Business-wise, we鈥檝e kind of hit the lame duck period for 2018. Blame the Thanksgiving calories. But even tons of tryptophan-laden turkey weren鈥檛 enough to keep companies like Bright Health, Quip, CyberGRX, and others from announcing big venture rounds this week. We also zoomed in on Pittsburgh鈥檚 tech ecosystem, revisited the global scooter race, and, relatedly, explored why transportation startups need raise so quickly.

It鈥檚 easy to miss what companies outside the spotlight are contributing to the global startup ecosystem. But that doesn鈥檛 mean their stories aren鈥檛 worth sharing.

Let鈥檚 dive into the week that was in venture-land.

Let 鈥楨m Fly

Are you a Young Hip Millennial in London or Manchester, U.K. or Chicago, IL looking for a casual game of skill to play with some friends on a night out? If the idea of bowling gives you flashbacks to lasers and black lights and too-loud 90s pop music (or is that just me?), have you tried darts?

Yes, darts. No longer a back-corner game at the pub next door, London-based darts bar chain puts the game front and center, almost like a bullseye. The company patented its own networked dartboard with automatic scoring technology and operates club-like restaurants featuring the game, which it calls Social Darts. A relative newcomer to the emerging “” sector, Flight Club raised from to continue its expansion in London and throughout the U.K. Its Chicago location is the only one in the U.S., so far. Be sure to call when someone starts up a chain of air hockey clubs.

A Little Help On The Slopes

On Thursday, San Francisco-based , which makes robotic exoskeletons that assist human muscle to reduce fatigue or enhance performance, made several major . The company said it raised from the and , and that it would launch its first commercial offering this winter. The pneumatic exoskeleton system, called ELEVATE, is designed to boost quad strength and joint stability for skiers on the slope, as demonstrated in .

Though niche, it’s further proof that assistive technologies can benefit us all, even people already athletic enough to ski. CEO said in a statement that “Whether you are an Olympian, an everyday athlete, or looking to regain lost mobility, we want to power you beyond what your body currently makes possible.” It’ll be available for demo rentals in Lake Tahoe, CA and Park City, UT this season.

A Rock-Solid Trade

Let’s say you’re a mine operator with a couple dozen tons of ore concentrate and you need to sell it to a smelter. We’ve all been there before, right? What’s a person to do? You’d have to call up one of those pesky middlemen, wheel and deal with an opaque negotiation process, and probably end up leaving money on the table in the process because that’s how brokers make theirs. If you’re an observer of marketplace startups, you’ve probably heard some version of this before.

, founded in 2017, builds marketplace infrastructure that bridges the gap between miners and smelters to facilitate the direct exchange of these important raw materials. Open Mineral raised 鈧�4.8 million announced Monday. Earlier this year, Open Mineral sale . There was no mention of that token or the word “blockchain” in this week’s .

Charging The Future

Typically, the rounds we cover here in Last Week In Venture are small and early-stage. That’s not the case with the supergiant closed by electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure-builder . led the round. Participants include , , , and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund , among .

Given growing awareness of climate change and other costs of burning fossil fuels like gas and diesel to get around, now could be propitious timing for the company. ChargePoint says it will use this new investment to expand its network of vehicle charging points. EV industry blog Electrek it has “more than 57,000 independently owned public and semi-public charging spots,” but wants to up that , an over forty-fold increase over the next six years.

Other Interesting Deals

• As younger people put off having children until slightly later in life, companies are increasingly offering parental and family planning benefits packages to their employees. Chicago-based helps companies offer fertility planning, services, and insurance options to their workforce. This week, the company announced co-led by and .
• A UK-based company with a utopian name () and a quirky market (DIY kits and hackable toys for kids) extended its Series A round with . The company , according to Crunchbase data.

For those who made it to the end, a little reminder and a lagniappe for you. We鈥檙e in the home stretch of 2018, and the interstitial work weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years will go by in a blur. Be sure to take some time to of all that work, , , and do something festive. December comes just once a year. 鈽冿笍

Image Credits: Last Week In Venture graphic created by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash.