Climate-tech event highlights challenges

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The Daily Pitch: VC

October 16, 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:

The chief credit strategist at Goldman Sachs shares his thoughts on a comeback for LBOs

Five charts that showcase startups' difficult road ahead

Will Biden's $7 billion bet on hydrogen spur private investment in the technology?

Fundraising and hiring were top of mind at a recent climate-tech conference

We've ranked the top European colleges by number of successful startup founders

Today's Top Stories

Climate VCs talk talent and traction at SOSV

This year's SOSV Climate Tech Summit was a pulse check on the big hurdles for climate-tech founders, such as how to sustain fundraising momentum and source talent like battery chemists and electrolyzer engineers. In our latest analyst note, we report back on the water-cooler topics at the online conference, as well as all the buzziest climate-tech startups on investors' radars.

read it now

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5 charts: Startups feel the squeeze in Q3

(Yulia Reznikov/Getty Images)

It is the year of the squeeze for startups. The IPO window remains shut, capital demand is outstripping supply and the dealmaking environment has shifted sharply back toward investors.

Five charts from our latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor underscore the difficult path ahead.

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A message from CohnReznick

PE Webinar | How to scale growth, capture efficiencies, realize synergies

CohnReznick will be hosting a value creation webinar at 2 p.m. ET on Thursday, Oct. 26.

Deal teams develop a deep understanding of the companies and industries they invest in, plus access to capital, expertise, and resources. Yet, many private equity firms struggle to help their portfolio companies actualize efficiencies and achieve their full potential.

Tune in to this live webcast for strategies and case stories for scaling growth and realizing synergies. Experienced PE professionals will explore topics such as:

How to identify red flags and prioritize growth opportunities
Aligning resources effectively, managing risk, and tracking progress
Common and not-so-common synergies

Register for webinar

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Biden's $7B bet on hydrogen could supercharge private investment

President Joe Biden speaks Friday during the initiative's announcement.
(Mark Makela/Getty Images)

The Biden administration announced the recipients of $7 billion in federal funding distributed to renewable hydrogen hubs across the US in a landmark move backing the climate technology.

The massive injection is the culmination of a race by states to attract the promised funding and comes on the heels of several years of strengthening private investment in hydrogen energy tech.

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Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard deal crosses final UK hurdle

(Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been cleared by UK regulators, paving the way for the largest deal in video game history.

The deal will not only have implications for Microsoft's gaming rivals—notably Sony—but could also increase investment in VC-backed gaming startups by raising the prospect of more exit opportunities amid a consolidating market.

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Q&A: Goldman Sachs strategist expects LBOs to return in 2024

Goldman Sachs' New York headquarters
(JayLazarin/Getty Images)

Goldman Sachs' chief credit strategist anticipates a return of the leveraged buyout in 2024.

Lotfi Karoui attributes this to the record amounts of dry powder available to deal-hungry investors, paired with a turn toward financing with more equity and cash. Karoui sat down with PitchBook to discuss the outlook for the private credit market, its impact on deal flow in the coming months and his expectations about the future of the asset class.

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PitchBook Universities: European edition

For PitchBook's annual university rankings, we took a deeper dive into European schools to see which ones produced the most entrepreneurs who have raised venture capital in the last decade.

Oxford and Cambridge are the cream of the crop: Oxford placed first for undergraduate alumni, while Cambridge was in the top spot for graduate school alumni.

The UK had the most schools in the rankings, representing more than half of the undergraduate and MBA lists. Roughly a quarter of graduate schools that made our rankings are also based there.

Swedish and Dutch universities also had a strong showing, particularly for graduate programs, while Spanish and French universities were near the top for MBA programs.

see the data

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Recommended Reads

Companies facing a cash crunch are turning to so-called double-dip loans to refinance short-term debts. [The Wall Street Journal]

Computers are learning to smell, and it could revolutionize our understanding of one of the most mysterious human senses. [The Atlantic]

Taiwan will not surrender its semiconductor supremacy. [The Economist]

Since yesterday, the PitchBook Platform added:

38

People

36

Companies

See what our data software can do

The Daily Benchmark:
2021 Vintage Global Real Assets Funds

Median IRR

6.90%

Top Quartile IRR

21.87%

0.01x

Median DPI

Select top performers

Ultra Capital Sustainable Infrastructure Fund II

Waterous Energy Fund II

Infracapital Greenfield Partners II

*IRR: net of fees

34 Funds in Benchmark »

Check out the latest version of PitchBook Benchmarks

VC Deals

VC-backed Alpaca, which offers a stock and crypto trading platform, raised $15 million from Japanese financial service group SBI Holdings.

Paris-based ophthalmological digital health startup Tilak Healthcare secured a €10 million investment led by Elaia and Cap Horn.

Anysphere received $8 million from the OpenAI fund for its AI code editor.

Digital asset wallet startup Account Labs, which is based in Singapore, raised a $7.7 million pre-Series A led by Amber Group and Qiming Ventures, according to reports.

Amsterdam-based Carbon Equity raised a €6 million Series A led by BlackFin Capital Partners for its VC and PE investing platform.

Healthtech marketplace provider MDisrupt raised $3 million in a seed round led by The Venture Collective.

Fave raised $2 million from Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. The Delaware-based company provides a social media platform for music fans.

PitchBook webinar: Crypto and digital assets

Despite the bear market, traditional financial institutions continue to forge ahead, exploring and investing in digital asset and crypto products.

PitchBook's Robert Le, a senior research analyst specializing in cryptocurrency, will lead a conversation about the landscape at present—and in 2024 and beyond. Rosenblatt Securities' Dushyant "D" Shahrawat and Goldman Sachs' Matthew McDermott will examine crypto trends within traditional financial institutions as well as current opportunities and challenges.

Register now to secure your spot.

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PE Deals

I Squared Capital is close to acquiring Arriva, the international transportation unit of Deutsche Bahn and operator of London's red bus network, for €1.6 billion, Reuters reported.

Swiss software company SoftwareOne received takeover bids from Bain Capital and Apax Partners, Reuters reported.

Antares Capital is mulling an acquisition of European private credit rival Hayfin Capital Management, Bloomberg reported.

Hong Kong's Templewater is nearing a deal for Luye Medical Group's oncology and cardiology units, valued at around $337 million, Bloomberg reported.

Exit & IPOs

Multinational clothing brand Next acquired Bridgepoint Advisers-backed FatFace, a UK-based fashion retailer, in a £115 million deal.

Fundraising

Middle-market PE firm Incline Equity Partners closed its sixth fund on more than $1.9 billion.

Electronics and media giant Sony launched a fund to invest in seed to early-stage startups in Africa's entertainment industry with an initial allocation of $10 million.

PE firm ABS Capital closed a continuation fund for two of its portfolio companies, LabConnect and Viventium Software.

Chart of the Day

"H1 produced one of the largest-ever shifts in foreign investor strategy on China when Sequoia Capital broke into three, separating its China and US/EU operations and breaking out its India Fund. This breakup was telegraphed for some time, so while it wasn't an immediate response to US-China tensions, the added challenges that have arisen likely pushed this breakup sooner than planned."

Source: H1 2023 Greater China Venture Report

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Climate-tech event highlights challenges

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