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The Daily Pitch: VC

August 23, 2023

The Daily Pitch is powered by PitchBook’s industry-defining research and best-in-class data

In today's Daily Pitch, you'll find:

Retail fintech VCs see opportunities in modern layaway programs

LPs in impact funds ask GPs to put some skin in the game

European venture-backed IPOs are nearing decade lows

Today's Top Stories

Despite a deceleration, there's a path for retail fintech

The retail fintech slowdown has continued, according to our latest Emerging Tech Research. VCs invested $1.9 billion across 188 deals in Q2, declines of 33.4% and 0.5%, respectively, from the previous quarter. Still, investors are eyeing emerging opportunities in the startups offering save now, buy later options for consumers, an idea that has its roots in Depression-era layaway programs.

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LPs push GPs to tie fund fees to impact goals

(Chloe Ladwig/PitchBook News)

As private equity experiences a slowdown in fundraising across the board, impact-minded LPs are becoming more selective with commitments.

Increasingly, GPs raising impact funds are being asked to put some skin in the game by aligning the fees they earn with the fund's sustainability outcomes.

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A message from SVB

Get SVB’s latest insights on private equity trends

How PE/VC funds are navigating today's liquidity crunch.

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VC valuations start to stabilize in Q2

In Q2, US VC valuations were considerably below the peaks of 2021 and early 2022. But there are signs that prices may be stabilizing. The median valuations for all stages, except for seed, registered an uptick from the previous quarter.

Although prices are no longer in a free-fall, the VC valuation glass may still be less than half full amid the near-frozen IPO market, reduced risk appetite from VCs and a continued pullback from nontraditional investors. Other key takeaways from our Q2 2023 US VC Valuations Report, sponsored by Morgan Stanley at Work, include:

Seed-stage deal sizes have started to stagnate, indicating that the capital that VCs are willing to give to the youngest companies may have reached a ceiling.

The median valuation step-ups for early-stage companies have hit a near-decade low, a challenge for seed-stage investors looking for markups.

Insiders have led 9.4% of late-stage rounds year-to-date, the highest proportion in nearly a decade.

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Banks poised to rebound in venture debt market

(Chesnot/Getty Images)

Private venture debt funds took market share from banks after Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, but their dominance will likely be temporary.

As the SVB bank run and its aftermath fade further into the past, venture debt from existing banks and new entrants such as HSBC may give startups a bevy of fresh new alternatives for less expensive debt financing.

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Poor performance plagues Europe's VC-backed IPOs

(Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images)

Over two-thirds of European VC-backed companies that have gone public since the start of 2022 are trading below their listing price.

The largely poor performance of startups that have recently listed has contributed to a decline in IPO activity in Europe, which could see its lowest count of listings in a decade.

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Recommended Reads

Chronic understaffing and an alarming pattern of safety lapses mean commercial airlines have far more close calls than almost anyone realizes. [The New York Times]

Breaking down the data behind the surge in US corporate bankruptcies. [Visual Capitalist]

Some investors are sounding alarms over Arm's exposure to China. [Financial Times]

Since yesterday, the PitchBook Platform added:

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Funds

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The Daily Benchmark:
2019 Vintage Global Secondaries Funds

Median IRR

25.12%

Top Quartile IRR

32.65%

0.52x

Median DPI

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Banner Ridge Secondary Fund III

Blackstone Strategic Partners Secondaries VIII

Traveller Capital Partners III

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VC Deals

Fintech startup Ramp has raised a $300 million Series D at a $5.8 billion valuation, a significant down round from its $8.1 billion valuation in 2022. Thrive Capital and Sands Capital led the round.

Nursa, which offers a nurse staffing platform, has raised an $80 million Series B led by Drive Capital.

Brazilian fintech company Nomad has secured $61 million at a roughly $361 million valuation in a round led by Tiger Global.

Oncology care company Thyme Care has raised a $60 million Series B led by Town Hall Ventures and Foresite Capital.

Israeli SaaS cybersecurity startup Grip Security has secured $41 million in a Series B led by Third Point Ventures.

Agtech specialist Bushel has raised $26 million in a round led by The Banc Funds Company.

Cerby, which offers an application management platform, has raised a $17 million Series A led by Two Sigma Ventures.

Tel Aviv-based network connectivity startup BBT.live has extended its seed funding to $8.4 million in a new round led by Tzvi Neta.

B2B payments startup Koverly has raised $7.6 million in seed funding from Accomplice VC, Vinyl Capital and One Way Ventures.

Mysthera Therapeutics, a Swiss developer of oral therapeutics for autoimmune diseases, has secured $3.5 million from Forty51 Ventures.

London's Borderless, which offers a workforce migration platform, has raised €3 million in a round led by Backed VC.

Don't miss our webinar today

Allocators employing traditional, quartile-based benchmarking methodologies to screen private fund managers face challenges in capturing historical performance. These techniques not only fail to capture the range of performance within each quartile, but also fail to offer a simple way to aggregate performance across multiple funds within the same strategy and compare that performance against similar strategies.

In this webinar, analysts from our Quantitative Research team will discuss a new framework for analyzing manager performance and unpack its implications for the due diligence process.

Register now to secure your spot.

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PE Deals

Francisco Partners has agreed to acquire The Weather Company from IBM, including most of its assets except its software sustainability business. IBM had purchased the company in 2016 for $2 billion.

Northvolt, a Swedish lithium ion battery maker, has raised $1.2 billion via convertible notes from BlackRock, CPP Investments, OMERS and the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, among others, Reuters reported.

Thoma Bravo-backed Swedish digital investigations company Magnet Forensics has bought Griffeye, which offers a platform used for investigating cases of child exploitation.

Trive Capital has acquired Hypergiant Industries, an AI-driven software startup serving the defense sector. Founded in 2018, the company's earlier VC backers included Align Capital, Capital Factory and Green Park & Golf Venture.

Greenbacker Capital Management has acquired a minority stake in Telyon, a renewable energy developer based in Connecticut serving commercial and industrial customers.

Exit & IPOs

Tiger Global Management is nearing a deal to sell a portion of its stake in generative AI startup Cohere at a $3 billion valuation, The Information reported. The sale would reduce Tiger's stake to roughly 5%, according to the report.

Digital banking platform Moniepoint has been cleared by Kenyan competition regulators to go ahead with its acquisition of Kenyan fintech startup Kopo Kopo.

Hg is considering a sale of German insurance broker GGW Group, which could value the company up to €1.5 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Exponent Private Equity is to sell part of its stake in UK sustainable diary and plant-based ingredients provider Meadow to Canada's Fairfax Financial.

Fundraising

Merit Energy has closed its latest fund on $485 million, The Wall Street Journal reported. The vehicle will target investments in mature oil and gas fields.

Investors

The family office of Philipp Nieland, the serial tech entrepreneur who founded cross-border payments company PPRO, has acquired a minority stake in Amsterdam-based PE firm HPE Growth.

Chart of the Day

"Fee data reported to PitchBook shows that the number of funds charging less than 2% has been shrinking over time, not growing, indicating that even with capital being more scarce than usual, this has not translated into bargaining power with GPs thus far."

Source: Q2 2023 Global Private Market Fundraising Report

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PitchBook News - The path ahead for retail fintech

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Private fundraising's changing tastes

VCs seek out stability in crypto sag

China's investment malaise

The overcapitalization of VC

VCs chase fresh medical tech

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