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June 2, 2020
Tuesday! Hope yours went well.:)
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Top News
In a call today with Facebook employees who have protested the inaction on Donald Trump’s messages, Mark Zuckerberg said his decision was “pretty thorough.” Several Facebook employees have resigned over the lack of action, with one publicly saying the company would end up “on the wrong side of history.” The New York Times has more here.
Zoom reported revenue growth of 169% from the previous year in its first-quarter earnings report today and nearly doubled its revenue guidance for the full year. CNBC has more here.
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Massive Fundings
Bohemia Interactive, a 21-year-old, Czech Republic–based videogame developer that makes PC. and console games, has traded $260 million from Tencent for between 70% to 80% of the company, reports the Information. More here.
Climeworks, an 11-year-old, Zurich, Switzerland-based company whose machines catch carbon dioxide from the air and store it in solid state underground (it also takes the CO2 and delivers it to industrial clients like The Coca-Cola Co), has raised $76 million from undisclosed investors. Bloomberg has more here.
GoJek, five-year-old Southeast Asian ride-hailing startup that also offers food delivery and mobile payments, now counts both Facebook and PayPal among investors in its ongoing Series F round, which has pushed its total funding to date past $3 billion. The companies have not disclosed the size of their respective checks. TechCrunch has more here.
Vacasa, an 11-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based rental property management startup, has raised $108 million in Series D funding led by earlier investor Silver Lake. The private equity firm -- which separately snapped up travel-related stakes in Airbnb and Expedia is recent months and was once a major shareholder in Sabre Holdings -- led Vacasa’s $319 million Series C round last October, too. Altogether, Vacasa has now raised $634.5 million. GeekWire has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Cortex, a 17-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based company measuring for digital marketing campaigns, has raised $22 million in Series B funding. SoftBank’s Latin America Fund led the round, joined by Redpoint eventures and Endeavor Catalyst. Reuters has a bit more here.
Ezra, an 11-year-old, New York-based company whose AI-powered software boosts the efficiency of existing MRI machines by correcting distortions and errors in images, has raised $18 million in Series A funding. FirstMark led the round, joined by numerous individual investors, including Robinhood's co-CEO Vlad Tenev. Forbes has more here.
Locus Robotics, a six-year-old, Wilmington, Ma.-based company that makes autonomous mobile robots for fulfillment warehouses, has raised $40 million in Series D funding. Zebra Ventures led the round, joined by Scale Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
MessageGears, a 10-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based customer marketing platform serving enterprise brands, has raised $12 million in funding led by new investors Argentum and Bridge Bank. The company has now raised $20 million altogether. More here.
Tovala, a five-year-old, Chicago-based smart oven company with an accompanying meal kit service, has raised $20 million in Series B funding. Finistere Ventures led the round, joined by Comcast Ventures, OurCrowd and Rich Products Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Vention, a four-year-old, Montreal-based manufacturing automation technology company, has raised C$38 million ($28 million) in Series B funding. Georgian Partners led the round, joined by Bain Capital Ventures and White Star Capital. BetaKit has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Ahana, a months-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based Presto-based analytics company, raised $2.25 million in funding led by GV, with participation from Leslie Ventures and angel investors. More here.
Biobot Analytics, a three-year-old, Somerville, Ma.-based company tracking Covid-19 through its concentration in sewage (er, poop) to estimate the number of people infected in a given area, has raised $4.2 million in funding. The Engine led the round; it was joined by AmFam Institute Impact Fund and earlier backers Y Combinator and DCVC. Bloomberg has more here.
MySky, a five-year-old, Lausanne, Switzerland-based financial controlling and benchmarking tool for private jet owners that aims to optimize the time and money spent on their asset, has raised $5 million led by GMF Capital, with participation from Global Trading Group. Tech Startups has more here.
NEOU, a five-year-old, New York-based live streaming and on-demand platform for trainers, has raised $5 million from investors, including Ares Management CEO Mike Arougheti. The company has raised $30 million from numerous Wall Street titans since its funding and it reportedly plans to raise up to $50 million later this year. Bloomberg has more here.
Oloid, a two-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company building contactless biometrics platform for deskless workers, has raised $5 million in seed funding. Emergent Ventures led the round, joined by Unusual Ventures. Business Insider has more here.
Saturas, a seven-year-old, Israel-based developer of a precision irrigation management system, has raised $3 million from Gefen Capital, Hubei Forbon Technology, and Trendlines Agrifood Fund. NoCamels has more here.
Temporall, a three-year-old, London-based AI and analytics-based platform meant to provide teams with performance insights, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding led by Luminous Ventures. EU Startups has more here.
Tictrac, a 10-year-old, London-based employee wellbeing platform that uses personalized content, lifestyle campaigns and incentivized challenges to motivate staff, has raised £6 million led by Puma Private Equity. The company has now raised £13.5 million ($17 million) altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Pascal Cagni, Apple’s former head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, has raised a second fund for his venture capital firm, C4 Ventures. C4 Ventures has backed the likes of artificial intelligence chip company Graphcore and Uber rival Via. CNBC has more here.
OurCrowd, the Israeli crowdfunding venture investment platform, today launched what it's calling its Pandemic Innovation Fund, with plans to raise a total of $100 million. The money will be invested in “urgent technological solutions for the medical, business, educational and social needs triggered by global pandemics and other health emergencies," says the outfit. TechCrunch has more here.
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IPOs
Applied Molecular Transport, a 10-year-old, South San Francisco-based biotech developing oral therapies for inflammatory diseases, revealed plans to raise $130 million in an offering of 10 million shares priced between $12 to $14 each. The company's biggest outside shareholders include EPIQ Capital Group and Founders Fund. Marketwatch has more here.
Dada Nexus, a six-year-old, Shanghai, China-based grocery delivery platform, plans to raise $264 million in an offering of 16.5 million ADSs priced between $15 to $17. The company's biggest outside shareholder include JD Group, which owns slightly more than half the company, Sequoia Capital China and Walmart. South China Morning Post has more here.
Playtika, a 10-year-old, mobile gaming company owned by a Chinese investor group, has hired investment banks to prepare for a U.S. IPO that could raise around $1 billion, says Reuters. It adds that Playtika's preparations illustrate how some Chinese-owned companies continue to pursue U.S. listings, despite heightened scrutiny of their auditing standards by U.S. politicians and investors
Vroom, a seven-year-old, New York-based online used car marketplace, plans to raise up to $318.8 million in an IPO of 18.8 million shares priced between $15 to $17 each.. The company's biggest outside shareholders include L Catterton, General Catalyst, and T. Rowe Price. TechCrunch has more here.
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Exits
Adweek has been sold from one private equity firm to another. The advertising industry publication, which marked its 40th anniversary last year, has been acquired by the L.A.-based PE firm Shamrock Capital Advisers. The seller, Toronto-based PE firm Beringer Capital, had owned Adweek for the past four years, acquiring it in July 2016. Folio has more here.
Civil, a blockchain-based journalism startup whose cryptocurrency was intended to free news outlets from having to rely on advertising, has shut down. Founder and CEO Matthew says his seven-person tech team will be folded into Civil’s main investor, blockchain studio ConsenSys, to develop new product strategies. Poynter has more here.
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People
Kareem Aly has joined Felicis Ventures as a principal. He'd spent the last four years with Thomvest Ventures.
Joseph Konzelmann has joined TPG as a partner and head of fundraising for the Eastern U.S. and MENA regions. He joins from Goldman Sachs, where he was a managing director and senior sovereign strategist.
Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao ripped Reddit cofounder (and current CEO) Steve Huffman today, tweeting to him in response to a letter he'd written to employees about the Black Lives Matter movement: "I am obligated to call you out. You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence," Pao wrote. "So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don't get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long." More here.
Twitter has a new chairman in former Google CFO Patrick Pichette, who joined the company's board in 2017. He's taking over the role from Omid Kordestani, who had served as Twitter’s board chairman since October 2015 (and is also a former Google exec). More here.
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Essential Reads
An executive order from the White House targeting Twitter for moderating one of the Donald Trump's posts is being challenged in a new lawsuit from a digital rights group. The president signed the order last week after Twitter added a fact-checking label to one of his tweets that made false claims about mail-in voting.
Apple may have a black board member - James Bell, a former EVP and CFO of the Boeing Company -- but of its 123 top managers, only one is black.
Boies Schiller Flexner, the high-profile litigation firm that recently defended Uber when the ride-hailing firm was accused by Alphabet's Waymos unit of stealing trade secrets, is going after another Alphabet subsidiary: Google. Today, it filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the company, arguing that "“Google tracks and collects consumer browsing history and other web activity data no matter what safeguards consumers undertake to protect their data privacy."
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Detours
Van Jones in conversation with Conan O'Brien.
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