Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: RelayRides gets Wheelz in a merging of car sharing market rivals

Today’s early-stage startup funding and acquisitions news:

Peer-to-peer car rentals platform RelayRides has acquired competitor Wheelz, in major consolidation in the car sharing market. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, although they companies have said that Wheelz investors would become shareholders in the new combination, according to TechCrunch. San Francisco-based RelayRides was founded in 2008, while Wheelz was a newer entrant that launched in 2011. Wheelz had raised $15.7 million in venture funding through Seed and Series A rounds.

Transferwise, digital currency exchange that utilizes a peer-to-peer model to cut the cost of sending money between countries, has landed $6 million in Series A funding led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. London–based Transferwise was founded in 2010 and previously raised $1.3 million in Seed funding in the spring of 2012. Here’s more on the funding, from the company’s blog.

Digital debit cards startup Akimbo Financial has closed an $850,000 Angel funding round. Investors include Rackspace chairman and co-founder Graham Weston and former CEO and Chairman Emeritus of Cullen/Frost Bankers and Akimbo co-founder Tom O. Turner, according to TechCrunch. The Austin-based startup previously raised $500,000 in Seed funding around its founding in 2010.

More funding and acquisitions news…

Liberty City Ventures Launches $15 Million Fund To Invest In Bitcoin And Other Digital Currency Startups (via TechCrunch)

GraphLab picks up $6.75m from Madrona and NEA to bolster its ‘Hadoop for graphs’ (via TheNextWeb)

Zoobean Grabs $500K From Kapor Capital & Others For Its Handpicked Kids’ Books Subscription Service & Online Shop (via TechCrunch)

Twitter acquires data visualization startup Lucky Sort for … revenue engineering? (via VentureBeat)

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Compiled by StartUp Beat editor Brian Kovalesky.