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Top News
The SEC today told small businesses that everyday citizens may provide them with funding. Toward that end, the agency will lift restrictions related to reporting requirements and accelerate the approval of crowdfunding listings. TechCrunch has more here
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Massive Fundings
ApplyBoard, a five-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario-based platform that helps students wanting to study abroad through the application process, has raised $75 million in fresh funding at a $1.5 billion post-money valuation led by Drive Capital. Other participants in the round include Fidelity Investments Canada, Business Development Bank of Canada, Anthos Capital, Artiman Ventures, and Plug and Play Tech Center. TechCrunch has more here.
Back Market, a six-year-old, France-based company that operates a marketplace for refurbished smartphones and electronics devices, has raised a new $120 million funding round from Goldman Sachs, Aglaé Ventures and Eurazeo Growth. TechCrunch has more here.
Impossible Foods, the nine-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of the eponymous soy-based burger, has been in talks with investors about raising more funds after receiving excess demand for a $500 million funding round in March, says Bloomberg. The firm has reportedly held initial talks with potential investors including some Chinese funds, discussions that come as a potential meat shortage is bringing attention to substitutes. More here.
Ninja Van, a six-year-old, Singapore-based logistics startup that's trying to scale its operations to keep up with the surge in e-commerce deliveries in six Southeast Asian countries, has raised $279 million in fresh funding. The capital comes from GeoPost, B Capital Group, Monk’s Hill Ventures, Carmenta, Golden Gate Ventures Growth Fund, Intouch Holding, Grab, and two sovereign wealth funds and brings the company's total funding to date to $400 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Procore Technologies, a 17-year-old, Carpinteria, Ca.-based construction software company that filed in February for an IPO, has postponed those plans and instead completed a private funding round, according to Bloomberg. It reportedly raised more than $150 million at a valuation of about $5 billion, including from D1 Capital Partners. More here.
Robinhood, the seven-year-old, Bay Area-based stock picking app, has raised $280 million in Series F funding at an $8.3 billion valuation, led by earlier investor Sequoia Capital. Bloomberg reportedly recently that this deal was in the works. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
KlearNow, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based digital customers clearance platform, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by GreatPoint Ventures, with participation from Autotech Ventures, Argean Capital, and Monta Vista Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Knowde, a nearly three-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based online chemical marketplace, raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital. Other investors in the round include Refactor Capital, Bee Partners, and Cantos Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Medable, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform for decentralized clinical trials, has raised $25 million in funding. GSR Ventures led the round, joined by earlier backer PPD Inc. Crunchbase News has more here.
NEAR, a three-year-old, Bay Area-based blockchain project for running decentralized applications, says it has closed a $21.6 million token sale led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Pantera Capital and numerous other investors. The company had raised $12.1 million in venture capital last year from MetaStable Capital and Accomplice. Coindesk has more here.
Omilia, an 18-year-old, Athens, Greece-based company behind a conversational AI for customer support, has raised $20 million in its first-ever funding round. The capital comes from Grafton Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Sensor Tower, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile app marketing intelligence firm, has raised $45 million in new funding from Riverwood Capital. It's the first significant investment that the now-profitable company has seen since its $1 million seed round in 2013, reports TechCrunch. More here.
ZAF Energy Systems, a nine-year-old, Joplin, Mo.-based developer of battery tech, has raised $22 million in Series A funding, including from Élevage Capital Management, Catalus Capital, Holt Ventures, and Coventry Asset Management. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Classplus, a five-year-old, Noida, India-based platform for educators, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global, with participation from Blume Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Spiral Ventures, and Strive. TechCrunch has more here.
Curtn, a months-old, New York-based location-based dating app that's centered around video chat and is being advised by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Grindr founder Joel Simkhai, has raised $425,000 in pre-seed funding. TechCrunch has more here.
Instabug, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based debugging software startup that was founded in Cairo, Egypt, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Accel. TechCrunch has more here.
Oxwash, a two-year-old, Oxford, England based laundry startup that's using ozone to sterilize fabrics at lower temperatures, and electric cargo bikes for hyper local pick ups and deliveries,
raised £1.4 million ($1.7 million) in seed funding. Investors include TrueSight Ventures, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, Indeed.com founder Paul Forster and Founders Factory. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Redpoint Ventures, the 21-year-old early-stage venture firm with offices in Menlo Park, Ca., and San Francisco, is raising $500 million for its eighth flagship fund, shows an SEC filing. The outfit had closed its seventh fund in 2018 with $400 million. More here.
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IPOs
Ayala Pharmaceuticals, a Phase 2 biotech developing small molecule therapies for aggressive cancers, announced terms for its IPO today. The three-year-old, Rehovot, Israel-based company plans to raise $50 million by offering 3.3 million shares at a price range of $14 to $16. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Ayala Pharmaceuticals would command a fully diluted market value of $189 million. The company has raised $52 million since launching and counts as its bigget outside investors Israel Biotech Fund, which holds a 35.2% stake. Renaissance Capital has more here.
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Exits
Cumulus Networks, a 10-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based open-source-centric company that specializes in helping enterprises optimize their data center networking stack, has been acquired by Nvidia, the publicly traded maker of graphics processing units. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. Cumulus had raised $134 million from investors over the years. TechCrunch has more here.
Publicly traded DocuSign has completed its $188 million cash purchase of Seal Software, a 10-year-old, Walnut Creek, Ca.-based maker of contract management tools. The deal was announced in February. Seal had raised nearly $50 million from investors, including DocuSign. More here.
Intel is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire the public transit app developer Moovit for $1 billion. Moovit, founded in 2012 in Ness Ziona, Israel, has raised $133 million from investors including, notably, from Intel, BMW iVentures and Sequoia Capital. Calcalist has the story here.
Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy Softomotive, a 15-year-old, U.K.-based company that was originally founded in Greece and makes software robots to automate tasks. The company has previously attracted at least $25 million in capital, via a 2018 round from the London-based investment firm Grafton Capital. Bloomberg has the skinny here.
Slammed by the coronavirus pandemic and facing a bruising legal battle in the UK and the U.S., Sabre on Friday dropped plans to take control of airline software vendor Farelogix, saving around $300 million in much-needed cash after deal-related costs. The cracked deal may leave Farelogix in a vulnerable position, reports the travel outlet Skift, but it says there is a possible silver lining: Farelogix can now sell its software -- which help airlines adjust seat maps to scatter individual travelers across a plane while enabling families to sit together -- map out in-flight social distancing. More here.
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People
Tim Bray, a VP and one of Amazon's more distinguished engineers, said today that he quit the company on Friday, citing Amazon’s firings of vocally critical employees. TechCrunch has more here.
Elon Musk really is selling his physical possessions . . . just in time for his new baby boy, who arrived today. Musk tweeted afterward that the child's name is X Æ A-12 Musk.
WeWork cofounder and former CEO Adam Neumann is suing SoftBank for reneging on its deal with him and other investors to buy shares of the troubled co-working company. Neumann was looking to sell roughly $1 billion in stock.
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Essential Reads
Weeks after Facebook invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms, India’s top telecom operator, private equity firm Silver Lake is following suit — and is willing to pay a premium for it. Silver Lake announced on Monday it will be investing 56.56 billion Indian rupees (about $746.8 million) in Jio Platforms for about 1.15% stake in the Indian telecom network, giving it a valuation of $65 billion, a 12.5% premium to the valuation implied by the Facebook investment. It's the latest in a series of moves by Silver Lake -- which is currently raising a new fund -- that have attracted attention. TechCrunch has more here.
According to The Information, Uber is in talks to lead a $170 million financing in scooter rental firm Lime in a deal that would value Lime at $510 million, 79% less than where it was valued last. Uber already owns a minority stake in Lime, but the deal would significantly increase its share, at a cost to Uber of $85 million, says the outlet. As part of the proposed deal, Uber would transfer to Lime the bike and scooter business that the ride-hailing company purchased in 2018, called Jump. It would also have the right to buy Lime outright for a span of time (2022 to 2024) at a specific price (apparently unknown for now). More here.
The e-cigarette company Juul is moving its headquarters from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to improve its relationship with regulators and distance itself from Silicon Valley’s growth-at-all-costs culture, according to the WSJ's sources. The move is part of a broader restructuring plan that includes a reduction in the company’s workforce by roughly a third, the closure of some U.S. offices, and a scaling back of its footprint in Europe and Asia, reports the outlet.
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Detours
Tom Cruise and Elon Musk's SpaceX are plotting a movie that will shoot in space(!).
Working from home, celebrities grapple with revealing too much. ("You want to angle it so you're not showing toilets.")
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Retail Therapy
John Lennon and Yoko Ono's former Palm Beach home -- "El Solano" -- just listed for $47.5 million.
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