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As the WSJ reports, U.S. stock indexes finished mixed in today's trading, marking a second day of turbulence in markets driven by stronger-than-expected U.S. inflation. The S&P 500 was off 0.1% at the end of the trading day, after the index closed sharply lower yesterday. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up less than 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.3%.
Bitcoin meanwhile fell below $26,000 for the first time in 16 months amid a broader sell-off in cryptocurrencies that erased more than $200 billion from the entire market in a single day. (It has since bounced back to $30,000.)
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of crypto exchange FTX, has taken a 7.6% stake in Robinhood, according to a new filing with the SEC. According to the document, a 13D form, Emergent Fidelity Technologies took a stake worth $648 million in the retail brokerage firm. Bankman-Fried is the sole director and majority owner, it says. 13D forms are used when investors plan to take an active role—perhaps by seeking board seats or agitating for a sale. Bankman-Fried said in the filing that he has no “intention of
taking any action toward changing or influencing the control of [Robinhood]” and bought the stake purely as an investment. But he left open the possibility of calling for the company to consider “strategic alternatives or operational or management initiatives.” He apparently began purchasing Robinhood shares in mid-March and continued through yesterday. He's now Robinhood's third-largest shareholder. More here and here and here.
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6k, a nearly seven-year-old, North Andover, Ma.-based outfit that says it has developed technology for producing battery materials faster and with less energy than standard methods, has raised $102 million in Series D funding. Koch Strategic Platforms led the round, joined by Energy Impact Partners, Albemarle and HG Ventures. Bloomberg has more here.
Aiven, a six-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based company that says it provides managed open source data technologies on all major clouds, has raised $210 million in Series D funding led by Eurazeo. Other backers in the round include BlackRock and earlier investors IVP, Atomico, Earlybird, World Innovation Lab and Salesforce Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.
Dock, a five-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based payments and digital banking platform focused on Latin America (the company is the unification of three brands that came together last summer), has raised $110 million in funding co-led by Lightrock and Silver Lake Waterman. Other backers in the round included Riverwood Capital, Viking Global Investors and Sunley House Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Evisort, a San Mateo, Ca.-based no-code contract intelligence startup, has raised $100 million in equity and debt funding led by TCV, with participation from Breyer Capital and previous backers General Atlantic, M12, Amity Ventures and Vertex Ventures. The company says it has now raised $155.6 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.
Interswitch, a 20-year-old, Lagos, Nigeria-based payments startup partly owned by Visa, has raised $110 million in new funding from LeapFrog Investments and Tana Africa Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
SkySpecs, a 10-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company that works with wind farms to monitor the health of turbine blades from above, has raised $80 million in Series D funding led by Goldman Sachs. TechCrunch has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Altro, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based credit service helping people build credit through recurring payments and subscriptions to Netflix and Spotify and the like, has raised $18 million in Series A funding. Pendulum led the round, joined by Marcy Ventures, Citi Ventures, Black Capital Fund, Concrete Rose Fund and individual investors, including Dick Parsons and Deborah Quazzo. TechCrunch has more here.
Ambient Photonics, a three-year-old, Mill Valley, Ca.-based developer of photonics energy harvesting tech, has raised $31 million in Series A funding co-led by Amazon and Ecosystem Integrity Fund. Other backers in the round included Tony Fadell's Future Shape and I Squared Capital. More here.
Bliq, a three-year-old, Berlin-based startup that helps gig economy drivers aggregate their various apps, has raised $13.5 million in Series A funding led by NEA, with participation from Speedinvest and earlier backers Proeza Ventures and Revel Venture Partners. Tech.eu has more here.
BVNK, a two-year-old, London-based banking and payments platform for crypto-native businesses, has raised $40 million in Series A funding at a $340m post-money valuation led by Tiger Global. Other investors in the deal included The Raba Partnership, Avenir, Kingsway Capital, Nordstar, Concentric and Base Capital. CoinDesk has more here.
CIQ, a two-year-old, Reno, Nev.-based startup that’s setting out to commercialize a new open-source Linux distribution and CentOS-successor called Rocky Linux, has raised $26 million in Series A round of funding led by Two Bear Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Co:Create, a three-month-old, Nashville, Tn.- based NFT minting company, has raised $25 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other backers in the round included VaynerFund, Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Capital, Amy Wu (of FTX Ventures), and others. According to The Block, the Co:Create protocol will essentially provide a smart contracts platform that projects can use to mint NFTs and control royalties to be paid in their native token. More here.
Eridan, a nine-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based maker of 5G radios, says it has raised $46 million in total funding, including a previously unannounced $8 million Series A round led by Social Capital and a new round led by Capricorn Investment Group, Monta Vista Capital, and Social Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Highlight, a 14-month-old, Bay Area-based outfit that says it lets creators design and mint NFTs and create a community around them (it sounds a little like Co:Create, above), has raised $11 million in seed funding led by Haun Ventures. Other backers in the round include 1kx, SciFi VC, A_Capital, Floodgate, Coinbase Ventures, 35 Ventures, Polygon Studios, Mischief VC, DAO Jones (haha) and Offline Ventures. The Block has more here.
Infinicept, a seven-year-old, Denver-based embedded payments startup, has raised $23 million in growth equity funding led by SVB Financial Group. More here.
Jambo, a seven-month-old, Kinshasa, Congo-based Web3 “super app” that combines education, access to play-to-earn games, and access to a network of Web 3 applications, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Paradigm (marking its first investment in Africa, notes CoinDesk). Other backers in the round included ParaFi Capital, Pantera Capital, and Delphi Ventures, among others. More here.
Komodor, a two-year-old, Israeli-based troubleshooting platform for Kubernetes, has raised $42 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from Felicis Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
Legacy, a four-year-old, Boston-based sperm testing and storage startup, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Bain Capital, with participation from FirstMark Capital, Section 32 and TQ Ventures. Axios has more here.
Mathison, a three-year-old, New York-based DEI hiring and retention platform, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. F-Prime Capital led the round, joined by Bain Capital Ventures, SemperVirens, ANIMO Ventures, GTM Fund, Gaingels and JPMorgan. More here.
Moralis, a one-year-old web3 development platform based in Stockholm, raised $40 million in Series A funding. Investors included EQT Ventures, Fabric Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Dispersion Capital. The company has raised a total of $53.4 million. CoinDesk has more here.
Predibase, a 14-month-old, Bay Area-based enterprise declarative machine learning platform (we don't know what these words mean, fyi), has raised a total of $16.25 million in seed and Series A funding led by Greylock, with participation from the Factory and numerous high-profile angel investors. More here.
Solidus Labs, a five-year-old, New York-based risk monitoring firm for crypto assets, has raised $45 million in funding led by earlier investor Liberty City Ventures, with participation from Evolution Equity Partners and Declaration Partners. The Block has more here.
StackHawk, a three-year-old, Denver, Co.-based startup focused on API security testing, has raised $20.7 million in capital co-led by Sapphire and Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Foundry Group and other, unnamed investors. More here.
Synergies Intelligent Systems, a 17-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that says it helps manufacturers optimize supply chain yield and production capacity, has raised $12 million in Series A round led by NGP Capital, with additional funding from New Future Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Tidio, an eight-year-old, Warsaw, Poland-based maker of subscription-based software for customer service teams, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by PeakSpan Capital. The round brings the company's total funding to $26.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Token.io, a six-year-old startup based in London that focuses on helping its banking clients facilitate account-to-account payments, raised a $40 million round co-led by Cota Capital and TempoCap; Element Ventures, MissionOG, and PostFinance and previous investors Octopus Ventures, Opera Tech Ventures, and SBI Investments also participated. The company has raised a total of $90 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Whoz, a six-year-old Paris startup whose recruiting software addresses such issues as skills mapping and team building, raised a €25 million round led by PSG Equity. More here.
Zeals, an eight-year-old Tokyo startup that lets businesses communicate with their customers via its chat application, raised a $27.2 million Series E and $11.6 million in debt from Z Venture Capital, Japan Post Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Mizuho Bank, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. TechCrunch has more here.
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Bubbles, a 10-year-old San Francisco startup that allows enterprise users to send and receive threaded and asynchronous videos or messages, raised an $8.5 million round. Investors included Khosla Ventures, Craft Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, 468 Ventures, and Bain Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Cachet, a four-year-old startup based in Tallinn, Estonia, that provides tailored insurance policies for gig workers, raised €5.5 million led by Truffle Capital, with additional participation from Uniqa Ventures and Icebreaker.vc. The company has raised a total of $7.6 million. InsurTech has more here.
Chainflip Labs, a two-year-old startup based in Berlin that is building a cross-chain decentralized crypto exchange, raised a $10 million round from Framework Ventures, Blockchain Capital, and Pantera Capital. The company has raised a total of $16 million. The Block has more here.
Crowdz, an eight-year-old startup based in Campbell, Ca., that aims to help small businesses with recurring revenue access upfront, has raised a $10 million round co-led by Citi and Global Cleantech Capital, with additional participation from Bold Capital Partners, TFX Ventures, and Augment Ventures. The company has raised a total of $25.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.
DevOcean, a one-year-old Israeli startup that has created a SaaS platform to analyze security vulnerabilities in cloud and security tools, raised a $6 million seed round led by Glilot Capital Partners. Calcalist has more here.
Full Harvest, a seven-year-old startup based in San Francisco that has created a marketplace for surplus and imperfect produce, raised $5 million in extended Series B funding from Rabobank’s Food & Agri Innovation Fund and JAL Innovation Fund. The company has raised a total of $39.5 million. Food Business News has more here.
Landgate, a six-year-old startup based in Denver, Co., that enables prospective purchasers to evaluate the value of a piece of land's energy resources, raised a $10 million Series B round. The deal leader was NextEra Energy Resources; Kimmeridge also chipped in. The company has raised a total of $12.5 million. Axios Pro has more here.
Novu, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that generates alerts when applications go down, just raised a $6.6 million seed round led by Crane Venture Partners. Eniac, MXV Capital, Entrée Capital, and Ariel Maislos also participated. Calcalist has more here.
Ours, a two-year-old startup based in Houston that provides premarital counseling services over the web, raised a $4.5 million seed round. The lead was TMV; Serena Ventures, Lakehouse Ventures, Collaborative Fund, GreyMatter, and Bonobos founding CEO Andy Dunn also joined the round. More here.
SimpliFed, a two-year-old New York startup that works with its clients to ensure that their lactation consultations and other postpartum services are covered by their health insurance, raised a $6 million seed round co-led by Morningside Ventures and The Venture Collective, with additional capital provided by NY Ventures, Elizabeth Street Ventures, Waterline Ventures, and 3CC. The company has raised a total of $6.5 million. Forbes has more here.
Sizzle.gg, a three-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based platform that creates automatic and personalized highlights for esports leagues and teams, video game streamers and more, has raised $5 million in a seed funding round led by White Star Capital. Other backers in the round included Progression Fund, Eterna Capital, Play Ventures, Mindset Ventures, Xoogler Ventures and others. More here.
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6th Man Ventures has amassed the bulk of capital commitments it needs to close the outfit's second fund with $145 million, says firm cofounder Mike Dudas, a serial entrepreneur who previously cofounded the mobile commerce company Button and who founded the media company The Block in 2018 before leaving to joins the stable coin firm Paxos, from which he reportedly transitioned away in February. Dudas and his cofounder in 6th Man Ventures -- StayTuned Digital CEO Serge Kassardjian --raised $7.4 million for their debut fund so this is a giant step up. Backers in the fund include Galaxy Vision Hill, Three Arrows Capital, Sino Global Capital, FTX Ventures, Animoca Brands and AngelList. Numerous individual investors are also LPs in the fund, including investors Bill Ackman, Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon of
Andreessen. 6th Man invests in web3 projects and protocols. The Block has more here.
East Ventures, a 12-year-old, Singapore-based venture firm that's focused on startups in Indonesia, has closed its newest fund with $550 million in capital commitments, it says. Technode has more here.
Elsewhere Partners, a six-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based venture firm focused on business-to-business software startups, says it has closed its second fund with $175 million in capital commitments. The firm was founded by Chris Pacitti, a longtime general partner at Austin Ventures, one of the region's first and longest-running venture firms. (Its management team broke up in 2015.) More here.
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Twitter GM of Consumer, Keyvon Beykpour, announced today he will be leaving the company after seven years. Beykpour first joined the social media platform by way of its acquisition of Periscope, which he founded. He said in a tweet he was asked to leave by current CEO Parag Agrawal, who wants to take the team in another direction. Bruce Falck, Twitter’s revenue product lead, is also departing, Twitter confirmed to TechCrunch. A Twitter spokesperson said its VP of Consumer Products. Jay Sullivan,
is assuming both of their roles and that, additionally, the company -- like a growing number of outfits right now -- undergoing a hiring freeze.
Angel investor Jason Calacanis, an early backer of Uber and Robinhood, is seeking to raise tens of millions of dollars for a stake in Twitter as part of Elon Musk’s $44 billion agreement to buy the social media company, says CNBC, which saw his email to prospective investors and says the minimum investment required to participate is $250,000, according to Calacanis. He also reportedly says the fees he collects for the deal will total about $18,000 and that as manager of the fund, he’s asking for 10% of the carry, or the gains that come from the investment. More here.
Section4, an upskilling startup launched by renowned NYU professor Scott Galloway, has laid off a quarter of its staff, sources tell TechCrunch. The layoffs, which occurred last week, affected employees across all levels of seniority and teams, but specifically targeted a majority of the product team. We talked with Galloway in March of last year, when Section4 raised $30 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst.
Seven months after his November departure from Facebook, former Messenger boss and Paypal executive David Marcus is offering some early details on his next company, Lightspark, which will be building on Bitcoin’s Lightning network. Marcus will serve as CEO with a number of ex-Meta crypto team members serving in executive positions. TechCrunch has more here.
Billionaire VCs take out mortgages too, apparently.
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Through mid-April, 16 new funds where at least 60% of the decision-makers are women have raised $4.5 billion, exceeding last year’s total, reports The Information, noting this year’s jump is largely due to huge funds raised by Forerunner Ventures, founded by consumer tech investor Kirsten Green, and crypto-specialist Haun Ventures, founded by former Andreessen Horowitz partner Katie Haun. The funds, both announced in March, have raised a combined $2.5 billion, or more than all women-led funds raised in 2020.
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Wellington Management, the New York-based global investment manager, is looking to hire a venture associate for its private Climate Innovation Fund, a venture fund focused on climate solutions.
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SoftBank Group said today it lost more money in its last fiscal year than it ever has -- $13.2 billion -- and will cut back its pace of new investments. “The world is in a chaotic situation,” said CEO Masayoshi Son in a video presentation to investors, citing Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (and SoftBank's high-stakes strategy of throwing huge sums of money at a whole lot of startups and often marking up its own deals in the process). “In this chaotic world, the approach we at SoftBank should take is
defense," he said, adding that SoftBank may cut its startup investments this fiscal year by more than half in an attempt to right the ship.
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