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Welcome to Last Week In Venture, the weekly roundup of venture deals inked with interesting companies that you may have missed.

To be sure, there was plenty of other news to focus on. Here鈥檚 just a handful of examples:

• Someone by over a minute.
• Uber is for several billion dollars, according to Bloomberg. This news came out as Uber formally enters into buyout talks with its chief Middle Eastern rival, Careem, this week.
• Amazon released new cylinders, screens, and microwaves that talk.

In spite of all that, though, investors continued to funnel staggering amounts of capital into companies like , WalkMe, Indigo, and Gitlab, among others which raised this week. It鈥檚 easy to overlook what companies outside the spotlight are contributing to startup ecosystems around the world. But that doesn鈥檛 mean their stories aren鈥檛 worth sharing.

Here we go!

SEC Sighting: Halan

Egyptian ride-hailing and logistics service raised all but $20k of a $4.38 million venture round, . Back in March 2018 it was that the company landed $2 million in pre-Series A funding from unnamed Silicon Valley-based and Singaporean investors.

In March, the company expanded its motorcycle, tuk-tuk, and tricycle-sharing app out of Cairo鈥檚 neighborhoods to Giza, Alexandria, Minya, Luxor, and Qalyubia governorates1, .

The $4.4 million round filed this week is likely the company’s Series A. Apart from company executives, Karim Hussein of , Nader Ghabbour of local auto manufacturer , and Ed Simnett of sit on the company’s board, per the filing.

In conjunction with the $2 million reported pre-A round and from November 2017, Halan has raised over $6.9 million in known venture funding to date.

Market Hot Spot: University Spin-Outs

As Crunchbase News has covered in the past, there is a lot of potentially world-changing technology developed out of university research labs.

Startups founded around a scientific discovery may benefit from longer runways and a known source of funding (often the university itself, but sometimes industry partners or wealthy alumni, too), but at the expense of going through the hassle of .

Here are some university spinouts that got funded this week:

• As its name might suggest, is a virtual reality company spun out of the . makes a clear statement: “Our mission is to build psychological treatments that really work using state-of-the-art immersive technology.” Oxford VR is currently developing VR programs for treating fear of heights, psychosis, and social anxiety, with treatments for more conditions coming in 2019. The company raised 拢3.2 million in . Investors include the University of Oxford, , , , and .
• Another Oxford spinout, , raised capital this week. After leaving the lab four years ago, the company has developed a suite of self-driving software that could turn “any vehicle” in “any domain and across any industry” into an autonomous one, according to . Oxbotica is currently partnered with Gatwick Airport and IAG Cargo to deploy its autonomous tech in airports. Its self-driving “CargoPod” van has “delivered groceries to [online grocery] customers in the residential environment of Greenwich, London.” The Financial Times that Oxbotica鈥檚 systems are used on the Mars Rover. The company raised from , , and . It’s the first outside equity funding the company has raised. Oxbotica has been grant-funded and bootstrapped to this point.
• raised co-led by and . participated in the round. Spun out of the , the Canadian AI company is basically using AI to build AI that explains itself. A in Next Platform makes for interesting reading, even if you aren鈥檛 an AI expert.

Followup: Accessibility Tech

In June, Crunchbase News covered assistive technology, and we mentioned a company called . It makes personal electric vehicles (PEVs) like wheelchairs and mobility scooters.

This week, WHILL a co-led by , , and . participated in the round.

Using this new capital, the company to further develop its mobility devices’ self-driving and self-stopping capabilities and continue to build out the B2B service side of its business as it pilots personal transport solutions for low-mobility visitors of big public venues like airports. The round brings WHILL’s total funding to $80 million.

Other Interesting Deals

• Social stock trading app raised led by . The app lets users follow their friends’ portfolios, track trending stocks on the platform, and make free stock trades. CEO Jannick Malling , “[i]nvesting in the stock market remains one of the best ways to grow wealth, but you shouldn鈥檛 have to do it alone. That鈥檚 what we鈥檙e going to change.” A finance app for young people that ingrains herd mentality into the user experience? There’s no way this could end poorly.
• Munich-based lithium-ion battery analytics startup raised 听It was co-led by German firm and , which is based out of Austria. In a blog post announcing his firm’s investment, Speedinvest principal says TWAICE’s AI technology can “” extend battery lifetime, compared to battery systems that don鈥檛 use its modeling and control features. This could prove useful for electric vehicle fleet operators
• raised round led by , the insurance technology studio run by French multinational insurance firm AXA. The U.K.-based company develops a B2B SaaS product which helps its customers spin up bespoke insurance products. For example, Setoo has helped an online travel agent develop a connecting flight guarantee; in another case, an e-commerce platform developed a delivery guarantee product. Setoo’s CEO, Noam Shapira, that “[t]his investment from Kamet is key to helping us expand across the EU and build further new products to empower more businesses to take control of insurance for their consumers.”

And for those intrepid folks who made it to the end, a lagniappe2: here鈥檚 a fearsome . Don鈥檛 go too far down that rabbit hole, you hear? ?

Image Credits: Last Week In Venture graphic created by 听Featured image by听pinkomelet provided by iStock.