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Top News
Slack shares fell as much as 17% in extended trading today after its first quarter earnings disappointed analysts. Slack reported steady revenue growth, but it failed to deliver the sort of blowout that video-calling service Zoom did earlier in the week.
Facebook said today it will begin blocking state-controlled media outlets from buying advertising in the U.S. this summer. It's also rolling out a new set of labels to provide users with transparency around ads and posts from state-controlled outlets. Axiox has more here.
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And Jio Platforms seals another deal, this time with Mubadala, the sovereign wealth. fund of Abu Dhabi. As with Silver Lake, General Atlantic, KKR, and Vista Equity Partners -- all of which have snapped up shares of the company in recent weeks - - it is buying its stake of 1.85% with $1.2 billion, meaning at a price that values the company the India-based telecom giant at $65 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
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A New Fund Bites Into Fast-Casual Restaurant Concepts
Mercato Partners, a 13-year-old, Salt Lake City, Utah-based investment firm that oversees a growth fund, a secondary investment fund, and a venture fund, has launched yet another fund -- this one a $90 million vehicle that the firm says will be used to invest in restaurant concepts that are gaining traction.
Its timing is interesting, given the devastating impacts of the coronavirus on the restaurant industry.
As it happens, deeper-pocketed chains have had a much easier time surviving the downturn according to the NPD Group, which tracks transactions for 70 quick-service, fast-casual and full-service restaurant chains. Further, with as many as 30% of independent restaurants never expected to reopen their doors again, quick service restaurants that are already returning to pre-pandemic sales are poised to gather even more market share. (CNBC published related data on the restaurant industry's recovery earlier this week that offers a fuller picture.)
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Massive Fundings
Athira Pharma, a nine-year-old, Seattle-based biotech company whose NDX-1017 drug seeks to restore brain function in Alzheimer’s patients, has raised $85 million in funding. Some of the many backers in the round include Viking Global Investors, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Franklin Templeton, Rock Springs Capital, and LifeSci Venture Partners. The Seattle Times has more here.
Cullinan Oncology, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based oncology biotech with seven compounds in its pipeline, has raised $98.5 million in Series B funding from MPM Capital and F2 Ventures, among others. Xconomy has more here.
Hyperscience, a six-year-old, New York-based data automation company, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include Tiger Global Management and earlier backers Stripes, FirstMark Capital, Battery Ventures, Felicis Ventures, 3KVC, Gaingels (real brand) and Penna & Company. Forbes has more here.
Jushuitan, a six-year-old, Shanghai, China-based company that sells e-commerce cloud cloud enterprise resource planning systems, data analysis, and other services, has raised as much as $100 million in Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs China. The company also counts Sequoia Capital China among its investors. More here.
Prilenia Therapeutics B.V., a two-year-old, Netherlands and Israel-based clinical stage biotech focused on neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders, has raised $62.5 million in a Series A funding. Forbion led the round, joined by Morningside Venture Investments, Sectoral Asset Management, Talisman Capital Partners, and Genworks. Endpoints News has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
1touch.io, a three-year-old, Stamford, Ct.-based company whose data discovery, mapping and tracking system let businesses, government agencies, and corporations securely maintain private data on civilians, has raised $14 million in Series A funding. Investors include National Grid Partners, Jerusalem Venture Partners, Connecticut Innovations, Mindset Ventures, and Ocean Azul Partners. Calcalist has more here.
Base Genomics, a year-old, Oxford, England-based epigenetics company, has raised $11 million (£9 million) in seed funding led by Oxford Sciences Innovation. More here.
BRYTER, a two-year-old, London- and Berlin-based platform that helps non-technical people build enterprise automation apps, has raised $16 million in Series A funding. Dawn Capital and Accel co-led the round, joined by Notion Capital and Chalfen Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Inky, an eight-year-old, College Park, Md.-based anti-phishing startup, just raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners. The company has now raised $31.6 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Nanox, a nine-old, Israel-based maker of low-cost X-ray. scanners, has tacked on $25 million to a $26 million Series B round that it closed in January, bringing the financing to $51 million and its total funding to $80 million.The fresh capital came from earlier backers SK Telecom, Foxconn and FujiFilm, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
Superpedestrian, an eight-year-old, Boston-based maker of electric wheels and scooters, raised $15 million in funding led by Edison Partners, with participation from earlier investors Spark Capital and General Catalyst. As part of the arrangement, Superpedestrian also acquired Zagster, a fleet management firm, from Edison Partners. The Verge has more here.
Tembici, an eight-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based micro mobility startup operating in Latin America (it rents e-bikes), has raised $47 million in Series B funding. Valor Capital Group and Redpoint eventures co-led the round, joined by the International Finance Corporation and Joá Investimentos. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Ethena, a year-old, New York-based software-as-a-service startup that sells anti-harassment training software that delivers "nudges" along with relevant studies and questions on a regular basis, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by GSV, with participation from Homebrew, Village Global and more. TechCrunch has more here.
Keevlar, a nearly eight-year-old, Cork, Ireland-based startup that designs supply chain software, has raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Elephant and Mosaic Ventures, with participation from Paua Ventures. Silicon Republic has more here.
PAIRIN, a nearly eight-year-old, Denver-based workforce development company, raised $2.1 million in its first tranche of Series A funding. New Markets Venture Partners led the round, joined by New U Venture Partners, JFFLabs, and earlier investors Village Capital, ZOMA Foundation, and Independent Spectrum. More here.
Searchable.ai, a nearly year-old, San Francisco-based conversational search engine that aims to make it easier to track and locate data across devices, has raised $4 million in seed funding. Susquehanna International Group and Omicron Media led the round, joined by Defy Partners, NextView Ventures and angel investors. The company had previously raised $2 million in seed funding last fall led by Defy. More here.
The Small Exchange, a three-year-old, Chicago-based futures exchange offering smaller products aimed toward retail customers, has raised $4 million in funding from Interactive Brokers and Phillip Capital Group. The Chicago Business Journal has more here.
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IPOs
ZoomInfo, a business-to-business database software company, soared more than 60% in its Nasdaq debut today. It. was the first tech IPO since the coronavirus shut down much of the U.S. economy. More here.
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Exits
Hippo, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based home insurance company that has raised roughly $210 million from investors, is acquiring Spinnaker Insurance Company, a five-year-old, Bedminister, N.J.-based national property and casualty insurer that was backed in part by Arch Capital. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, but Spinnaker is a much smaller company. Hippo employs a reported 280 people; Spinnaker had 10 employees. More here.
VMware is acquiring Lastline, an eight-year-old network security firm that had raised $52.2 million from investors, according to Crunchbase. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, but a source tells TechCrunch that VMWare will lay off 40% of Lastline's employees, or around. 50 people. More here.
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People
Barry Eggers, a founder of Lightspeed Venture Partners. was appointed today to be the 2020-2021 chair of the NVCA board of directors.
Ashish Kakran has joined Thomvest Ventures as a principal. He was formerly a senior associate with Engineering Capital.
Elon Musk today called for Amazon to be broken up, after an author complained on social media about his book -- which is skeptical about the coronavirus -- being removed from Amazon's Kindle publishing division. “This is insane @JeffBezos,” Musk tweeted at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whose space exploration company competes with Musk's own. “Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!” Musk added in a second tweet. Musk does not have legal authority to break up Amazon, notes Reuters. Meanwhile, an Amazon spokeswoman said the book was removed in error and is being reinstated.
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Quibi, the short-form streaming video service, has asked senior executives to take a 10% salary cut and has discussed laying off about 10% of its 250 employees, says a new WSJ report. The company, which launched its streaming app on April 6, hasn't received the traction it was expecting with consumers. Cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg recently told the New York Times of the company's lackluster debut, "I attribute everything that has gone wrong to the coronavirus."
Kitty Hawk, the flying car startup co-founded by Google’s Larry Page, is laying off nearly 70 people after giving up on its first vehicle, a single-seat aircraft called “Flyer.” TechCrunch has more here.
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Data
A new study on kids’ app usage and habits indicates a major threat to YouTube’s dominance. Kids ages 4 to 15 now spend an average of 85 minutes per day watching YouTube videos, compared with 80 minutes per day spent on TikTok. TikTok also drove growth in kids’ social app use by 100% in 2019 and 200% in 2020, the report finds.
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Essential Reads
Amazon may follow its American peer Facebook’s footsteps in securing a slice of India’s booming telecom market. The e-commerce giant, which has invested over $6.5 billion in India, is in early-stage talks to buy a 5% stake worth at least $2 billion in Bharti Airtel, the third-largest telecom operator in India, according to unnamed sources cited by Reuters. More here.
Speaking of Amazon, it's also deepening its partnership with Slack. As CNBC reports, Amazon employees will have access to Slack’s workplace collaboration tools, with Slack revamps its video-calling feature to take advantage of an AWS service called Chime. "The alliance helps both companies battle Microsoft, whose Teams communications service has grown in popularity," notes the outlet.
U.S. federal and state authorities are asking detailed questions about how to limit Google’s power in the online search market as part of their antitrust investigations into the tech giant, according to rival DuckDuckGo. Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive officer of the privacy-focused search engine, said the company has spoken with state regulators, and talked with the U.S. Justice Department as recently as a few weeks ago. Bloomberg has more here.
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Detours
Explaining the pandemic to my past self (part two).
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