Friday Fundings: Nuro, Menlo, and JumpCloud

$500 Million in Funding for Autonomous Delivery Startup

Nuro, an autonomous delivery startup, just secured $500 million in a Series C round. The company, founded by two former Google (GOOGL) engineers, differs from some of its autonomous vehicle peers because it focuses on transporting cargo, not people. Nuro has partnered with companies including Kroger (KR), CVS (CVS), Walmart (WMT), and Domino’s (DPZ) to test its delivery systems.

Demand for affordable, safe delivery systems is growing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nuro’s leadership said that with the company’s new funding, they believe that their technology will be a part of consumers’ everyday lives in the near future.

The funding round was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. New investors, Fidelity Management & Research Company and Baillie Gifford also participated, along with existing investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 1 (SFTBY) and Greylock.

P.S. SoftBank is also a SoFi investor

Cybersecurity Company Raises $100 Million

Menlo Security raised $100 million in a Series E funding round led by Vista Equity Partners with participation from Neuberger Berman funds, JP Morgan (JPM), General Catalyst, and other investors.

With the rise of remote work, demand for cybersecurity solutions like the ones Menlo provides has surged. Investors are also piling into the industry. So far this year, funding for cloud security, cybersecurity, and network security in the US has hit $5.5 billion, up from $4.7 billion in all of 2019.

This recent round brings Menlo’s total funding to over $260 million and its valuation to $800 million. Menlo’s CEO said that this may have been the company’s last round of funding before it goes public.

Cloud Directory Service Raises $75 Million

JumpCloud, a cloud directory service, raised $75 million in a Series E funding round led by BlackRock (BLK) with participation from General Atlantic. The company has now secured over $166 million in funding.

The pandemic caused many companies to move their operations to the cloud for the first time, and JumpCloud has helped them make those transitions. JumpCloud has about 100,000 users. 3,000 of them pay for the company’s services and the rest use its free tier.

With the new funding, JumpCloud plans to hire 200-250 new employees in the next year. The company’s leadership wants diversity and inclusion to be at the forefront of this hiring process. In order to find people from a wide variety of locations and backgrounds, many of the new positions will be fully remote.

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