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June 11, 2020
Thursday! (So much news today! You might want to grab a sandwich.)
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Top News
The eight-year-old food-delivery company Instacart today announced that it has raised a whopping $225 million in a round led by DST Global and General Catalyst that values the company at $13.7 billion. When it last raised money in 2018, it was valued at $8 billion. The company has now raised more than $2 billion from investors altogether.
Separately (and possibly centered on the greater fool theory), DoorDash, the food delivery company, has held talks with existing shareholders T. Rowe Price, Fidelity and SoftBank about selling hundreds of millions of dollars in equity at a $15 billion valuation, says the WSJ. That's up from the $13 billion valuation the company was assigned by investors last year (and nearly 10 times its valuation in 2018). DoorDash is losing money as it battles rivals, but as the New York Times recently noted, its investors have found reason for optimism in Meituan Dianping, a Chinese food delivery company that went public in 2018 and turned a profit for the first time last summer.
Former top Facebook's former head of product, Chris Cox, is returning to the social-media giant just 15 months after leaving and he's re-taking the same position. Cox, who'd left over apparent disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg, said today in a Facebook post that he reached out to the company roughly one month ago after feeling the call to return. In his post, Cox, who was one of the first engineers at Facebook, wrote that, "Like many of you, I’ve been thinking hard about what I can do for our families and communities today, and for the world our children will live in tomorrow. Facebook and our products have never been more relevant to our future. It’s the place I know best, it’s a place I’ve helped to build, and it’s the best place for me to roll up my sleeves and dig in to help." The return of Cox -- who is seemingly beloved by colleagues -- is good news for Facebook, some of whose employees have openly run out of patience with the company. TechCrunch has more here.
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This Startup Just Raised $12 Million from Top VCs to Turn Financial Planning into an Employee Perk
Companies increasingly recognize that one of the greatest stresses for their employees is financial wellness. Even at innovative tech startups, people typically bump up against the limits of how much they know about wealth management pretty fast.
But providing financial education to a workforce, which has become more common, is largely useless as most employees will tell you. The information can be hard to navigate, and it’s often not personalized in a way that addresses an employee’s circumstance and goals, which change over time depending on whether someone is a recent graduate, getting married, or even eyeing retirement.
It’s why so many employed people look to outside apps to both better understand their financial picture and to actually manage it.
It’s also a missed opportunity, according to a growing number of founders who are working to convince employers to move beyond education and instead offering automated financial planning (with a dash of human involvement) as an employee perk.
Their understandable argument: While offering benefits around fertility, family planning, and mental health are wonderful, companies are missing out on the chance to address the very top priority for their employees, which is how to avoid financial trouble.
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(Other) Massive Fundings
Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, a five-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based clinical stage biotech focused on cancer immunotherapy, has raised $85 million in Series C funding. Longitude Capital and Novo Holdings co-led the round, joined by Medixci, Omega Funds, Clough Capital Partners, Sectoral Asset Management and BrightEdge. More here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Alkemics, a nine-year-old, Paris-based platform that helps brands to launch products with retailers, has raised €21 million ($24 million) in Series C funding. Backers include Highland Europe, along with earlier investors Cathay Innovation, Index Ventures, SEB Alliance and Serena Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Binah.ai, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company that develops general health and wellness video-based monitoring tools, has raised $13.5 million in Series B funding. Maverick Ventures Israel led the round, joined by Esplanade Ventures, Sompo International, GiTV, and iAngels. Calcalist has more here.
Conversa Health, a seven-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based virtual care and communication platform, has raised $12 million in Series B funding co-led by Builders VC and Northwell Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
iBanFirst, a seven-year-old, Brussels, Belgium-based cross-border business payments platform, raised €21 million in Series C funding. Elaia and Bpifrance co-led the round, joined by earlier backers Serena Capital and Breega. TechCrunch has more here.
Jiffy.ai, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based that helps companies to automate finance and other operations-related tasks that are usually performed manually, has raised $18 million in Series A funding. Nexus Venture Partners led the round, joined by Rebright Partners, W250 Venture Fund and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Neptune Networks, a five-year-old, London-based company that delivers bond market data from sell-side banks to buy-side clients, has raised $15 million across two tranches. Investors included Bank of America, Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Citi, Crédit Agricole CIB, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ING, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS. More here.
Ocient, a two-year-old, Chicago-based company that's developing a platform that analyzes large and complex data sets, has raised $15 million in funding led by OCA Ventures, with participation from In-Q-Tel among others. The company says the round is an extension of a $10 million round it had initially closed inn 2018. VentureBeat has more here.
Ontruck, a five-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based digital road freight platform, has raised $19.3 million led by OGCI Climate Investments. Other investors in the round include Cathay Innovation, Atomico, Idinvest Partners, Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures, and Endeavor Catalyst. EU Startups has more here.
Transcend, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that offers a virtual kill-switch for consumers to delete data, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Index Ventures and Accel co-led the round, joined by South Park Commons and numerous notable individual investors, including Figma CEO Dylan Field. Forbes has more here.
Smaller Fundings
CareAcademy, an eight-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based home care workforce skilling platform, has raised $9.5 million in funding led by Impact America Fund. Crunchbase News has more here.
Lane, a six-year-old, Toronto-based workplace platform that's akin to an operating system for offices, raised $10 million in Series A round funding. Round13 Capital led the round, joined by Alate Partners and Panache Ventures. The Real Deal has more here.
Opora, a two-year-old, Israel-based cybersecurity firm whose threat detection technology is based on an intelligence surveillance approach, has raised $7 million led by Jerusalem Venture Partners. Globes has more here.
Peppy, a two-year-old, London-based employee health care benefits platform, raised £1.7 million in seed funding. Outward VC led the round, joined by Seedcamp, Hambro Perks, and Form Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Scope, an 11-month-old, San Francisco-based implementation-as-a-service platform, has raised $1 million in seed funding. Craft Ventures led the round; it was joined by Plaid cofounder William Hockey. Crunchbase News has more here.
Spike, a nearly three-year-old, Israel-based "conversational email" startup, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from Wix, NFX and Koa Labs. TechCrunch has more here.
TeleVet, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup whose mobile telemedicine app virtually connects veterinary clinics to pet owners, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Mercury Fund, with participation from Dundee Venture Capital, Atento Capital, GAN and Urban Capital Network. The company had previously raised $2.3 million in seed funding. More here.
Ula, a five-month-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based wholesale e-commerce marketplace, has raised $10.5 million in seed funding, including from Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, SMDV, Quona Capital, Saison Capital, and Alter Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Vectice, a nine-month-old, San Francisco-based maker of data science software, has raised $3 million in seed funding. Spider Capital and Crosslink Capital co-led the round, joined by Global Founders Capital.
Wellsheet, a five-year-old, Newark, NJ-based healthcare records company, has raised $3.8 million in Series A funding. SpringTide Investments led the round, joined by BioAdvance and Newark Venture Partners. More here.
Not-Saying-How-Much Fundings
Axio, a seven-year-old, New York-based cyber risk management company, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding that was co-led by Fin Venture Capital and IA Capital and included earlier backer NFP Ventures. More here.
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New Funds
Facebook has been hiring seasoned tech investors to help lead a new multimillion dollar investment fund within its experimental apps team, Axios has learned. More here.
Max Ventures, a three-year-old, New York-based early-stage venture firm, is raising $35 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing. More here.
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IPOs
Generation Bio, a venture-backed biotech that specializes in gene therapy treatments for rare diseases, upsized its planned IPO today and raised the price range, suggesting strong demand for the deal. Marketwatch has more here.
China’s No. 2 online retailer JD.com reportedly raised HK$30.1 billion ($3.9 billion) in its Hong Kong share sale, cementing the world’s second-biggest listing this year. JD’s shares are slated to begin trading in Hong Kong on June 18, which coincides with its largest annual online sales event, reports Bloomberg. More here.
Could Palantir Technologies, the secretive, 17-year-old, big-data firm, finally be going public? Bloomberg thinks so. It says the company plans to file for an offering in the coming weeks and could start trading as early as the fall. More here.
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People
Audrey Gelman, cofounder of the women's-only club and coworking space, stepped down from her role as CEO today, just before employees went on virtual strike to protest her leadership and to ask for sweeping changes to the management of the Wing.
Amanda Donohue-Hansen has been promoted to managing director at the Chicago-based venture firm Cultivian Sandbox. Donohue-Hansen joined the outfit as a vice president last year after spending six years in business development at Cargill, the grain trading and processing giant.
Lime, the mobility company, has brought aboard two new board members; Sarah Smith, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, and Danielle Gray, who is an SVP, as well as the chief legal officer and corporate secretary for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.
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Countersuit!
Google has countersued Sonos for patent infringement, after Sonos filed a patent lawsuit against Google in January. The lawsuit alleges that Sonos is infringing five Google patents covering mesh networking, echo cancellation, DRM, content notifications, and personalized search. Google’s suit partly wants to "show how [the company] has been aggrieved after what it sees as helpful support for Sonos’ product development efforts," observes The Verge. More here.
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Essential Reads
Bloomberg Businessweek looks at Jack Dorsey's stand against Trump. Says one former Twitter employee who also worked at Facebook, the staff at Twitter feel “that they’re the indie rock punk band, and Facebook is the pop radio sellout.”
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