PitchBook News - Blue Apron bounces back

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The Daily Pitch: VC

March 19, 2020

Like our newsletter? The data comes from the PitchBook Platform — our data software for VC, PE and M&A

Today's Top Stories

Blue Apron was (almost) dead. Long live Blue Apron?

Blue Apron has found an unexpected boon in a society where nobody can leave home.

The meal delivery company’s stock closed Wednesday up 148%, at $16.25 per share, capping a six-day stretch in which it has soared more than 600%. It's a sharp turn of events from last June, when the company was forced to conduct a 1-for-15 reverse stock split to remain listed on the NYSE.

Even after the remarkable surge, though, the formerly VC-backed company's market cap remains nearly 90% below its peak private valuation of $2 billion. Last month, Blue Apron floated the possibility of a sale, merger or capital raise.

The New York-based company hasn’t publicly notified investors about any expected benefit from mandatory stay-at-home policies in several US cities, but it did put out a call for hiring in its California and New Jersey production facilities.

Related read: The meteoric rise and ongoing demise of Blue Apron

More coronavirus news: Continuing coverage from PitchBook

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Nio's cash crisis underscores gloomy outlook for China's EV upstarts

Electric carmaker Nio has said there is "substantial doubt" it will be able to stay afloat without external financing, raising questions about how China’s electric vehicle market will weather the fallout from COVID-19.

Nio and fellow Chinese EV manufacturers Xpeng, Byton and CHJ Automotive have each raised huge sums of venture funding. But the capital-intensive industry faces major headwinds as the coronavirus outbreak disrupts production, slashes oil prices and slows consumer spending.

Following a rollback of subsidies last year, EV sales in China fell by more than 50% in January on a year-over year basis, according to Reuters, which cited preliminary data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Bloomberg reported about a month ago that the Chinese government was considering extending existing subsidies for the industry.

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A Message From InCloudCounsel

How PE firms are outsourcing to gain an edge

The private equity landscape is more competitive than ever. A record number of PE firms are vying for the best deals with a significant amount of dry powder. What can PE fund managers do to gain an edge in an overly competitive space?

InCloudCounsel produced a PE industry brief about how firms can get an edge by outsourcing non-core tasks so they can focus on advancing their core goals. Backed by industry trends data provided by PitchBook, the report also features an in-depth Q&A with InCloudCounsel founder and CEO Troy Pospisil, who shares how outsourcing routine legal processes to a global service provider with a scalable, end-to-end solution helps PE firms focus on higher-value work.

Read the report here.

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US middle-market activity tops $500B in 2019

During the first year of the 2010s, total deal value in the US middle market came up shy of $200 billion. It topped $500 billion in 2019, capping a decade of explosive growth for the kind of midsize deals that make up the bulk of the private equity market.

PitchBook's 2019 Annual US PE Middle Market Report, sponsored by Antares Capital in partnership with ACG, highlights the data behind this rise and several other developing trends in the industry, plus analysis of the market forces that came together to create a banner year. Other takeaways include:

Interest-rate cuts helped drive a boom in middle-market investments
The number of middle-market exits declined to a six-year low
Middle-market fundraising topped $130 billion for the first time in the 2010s

read the report

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Recommended Reads

Peter Bayer's paychecks usually come from his job as a professional baseball player. With sports suspended, he's turning to DoorDash as a source of some supplemental income. [Sports Illustrated]

On Feb. 19, a group of more than a dozen rafters set off for the adventure of a lifetime on the Colorado River. Nearly four weeks later, they returned to a very different world. [The New York Times]

The coronavirus pandemic could present a moral quandary to tech giants like Facebook and Google, who have access to private data that would be a public-health researcher's dream. [Politico]

An oral history of a Zoom bar mitzvah. [GrubStreet]

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Today's Headlines


	The Daily Benchmark
	2014 Vintage Global Buyout Funds
	VC Deals
	Circle Pharma brings in $45M
	Sight Sciences pockets $30M Series E
	Deepgram pulls in $12M
	Boro banks $12M Series A
	Quit Genius secures $11M
	Exits
	Immatics lines up reverse merger
	Fundraising
	Sequoia plans $7B fundraising spree

The Daily Benchmark

2014 Vintage Global Buyout Funds

Median IRR

17.00%

Top Quartile IRR Hurdle Rate

24.00%

1.45x

Median TVPI

Select top performers

Nautic Partners VII

Consonance Private Equity

BVIP Fund VIII

*IRR: net of fees

78 Funds in Benchmark »

Check out the latest version of PitchBook Benchmarks

VC Deals

Circle Pharma brings in $45M

Circle Pharma has raised a $45 million Series B led by The Column Group, with participation from investors including Nextech and Berkeley Catalyst Fund. The San Francisco-based biotech business is the creator of a platform used to discover potential treatments for cancer and other diseases.

Additional Investors:

Lifeforce Capital, ShangPharma Innovation

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View 30 competitors »

Sight Sciences pockets $30M Series E

Sight Sciences, a developer of medical devices for treating eye diseases, has raised $30 million in a round led by D1 Capital Partners. The company, which offers surgical and nonsurgical devices, plans to use the funding in part for clinical trials and market development.

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Deepgram pulls in $12M

Deepgram has raised $12 million in a round led by Wing VC, with participation from NVIDIA, Y Combinator, Compound and SAP. Founded in 2015 and based in San Francisco, the company offers a speech-recognition platform for audio transcription.

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Boro banks $12M Series A

Boro, the developer of a fintech platform designed to help students build credit, access loans and manage debt, has raised $12 million in a round led by LexinFintech. The Chicago-based company plans to use the funding in part to expand its offerings across US colleges and universities.

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Quit Genius secures $11M

Quit Genius has raised $11 million in a round led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Startup Health and Triple Point Ventures. The company offers cognitive behavioral therapy for substance addiction. Backed by Serena Ventures, Village Global and others, Quit Genius has enrolled around 700,000 participants to date.

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Exits

Immatics lines up reverse merger

Blank-check company Arya Sciences Acquisition has agreed to combine with Immatics, a German business developing cancer immunotherapies. The combined company will retain the Immatics name and be listed on the Nasdaq, with an expected initial market cap of $634 million. Immatics, which had raised prior VC from firms such as Wellington Partners and 3i Group, will receive gross proceeds of up to $252 million. Arya raised $125 million in a 2018 IPO backed by Perceptive Advisors.

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Fundraising

Sequoia plans $7B fundraising spree

Sequoia is planning to raise a total of $7 billion for separate regional funds focused on China, India and the US, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Silicon Valley stalwart has raised several previous vehicles in each of those regions. The news comes nearly two weeks after Sequoia published a public Medium post urging portfolio companies to brace for coming economic shocks.

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View 936 investments »