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June 24, 2020
Wednesday!
Also, quick apologies for a mix-up in yesterday's newsletter; we said Lightspeed Venture Partners had backed an L.A. games company called Treehouse but it was London Venture Partners. (Thanks, Harry.)
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Top News
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said today that he's stepping down from the board of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, on which Son made and early and lucrative bet that has largely supported his other ambitions. Son's announcement follows the recent announcement by Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma that he was resigning from SoftBank's board. Both moves are effective today. According to the WSJ, "Son said he was stepping down at his own request, and that he was 'matching' the day of his resignation with Mr. Ma’s. He said that the parting of ways was smooth and that he hadn’t had a fight with Alibaba."
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Sponsored By ...
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Massive Fundings
DispatchHealth, a seven-year-old, Denver, Co.-based startup that provides virtual and in-home health care, raised $135.8 million in Series C funding. Optum Ventures led the round, joined by Oak HC/FT, Humana, and earlier backers Alta Partners, Questa Capital, and Echo Health Ventures. Forbes has more here.
Pipe Technologies, a year-old, L.A.-based provider of a financing to SaaS platforms, has raised a $60 million in seed and asset financing, just four months after announcing a $6 million seed round. Fin VC has led the round, with participation from new investors Tribe Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures, Lachy Groom and KSD Capital along with earlier backers Craft Ventures, Fika Ventures and MaC Ventures. Crunchbase News has more here.
Sana Biotechnology, a two-year-old, Seattle gene regulation startup led by several co-founders of Juno Therapeutics, has raised a whopping $700 million in first-round funding. Investors include Arch Venture Partners, Flagship Pioneering, CPPIB, Baillie Gifford, F-Prime Capital, Alaska Permanent Fund, PSP Investment Board, Bezos Expeditions, GV, Omega Funds, and Altitude Life Science Ventures. FierceBiotech has more here.
Ujet, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud-based customer support platform, has raised $55 million in funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from GV, Citi Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, DCM, and Resolute Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Cyclica, a 10-year-old, Toronto-based biotech company with a hub-and-spoke model that aims to accelerate drug discovery, has raised CAD$23 million ($17 million) in Series B funding led by Drive Capital. Other participants include the Italian pharmaceutical company Chiesi Farmaceutici and GreenSky Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.
HelloOffice, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based commercial real estate brokerage, has raised $20 million Series A funding led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Initialized Capital, Founders Fund, SaaStr, House Fund, and NerdWallet cofounder Jake Gibson. The Commercial Observer has more here.
Librestream, a 17-year-old, Winnipeg, Canada-based maker of augmented site inspection tech with a growing number of applications, just raised $24 million in Series D funding from the Canadian Business Growth Fund, Export Development Canada, and Pender Technology Inflection Fund. VentureBeat has more here.
Memo Bank, a three-year-old, Paris, France-based banking upstart focused on small- and mediums-size businesses, raised €20 million from BlackFin Capital Partners and earlier backers Daphni and Bpifrance. TechCrunch has more here.
OJO Labs, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based maker of an AI assistant for the real estate industry (it helps automate parts of the home-buying process for consumers), has raised $62.5 million led by Wafra. Other investors in the round include Breyer Capital, LiveOak Venture Partners, Royal Bank of Canada, and Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures. The Austin American Statesman has more here.
Pixellot, a seven-year-old, Israel-based maker of sports production software to help professional and amateur sports teams cover and monetize their events, has raised $16 million led by Shamrock Capital, with participation from Altschuler-Shaham and earlier backers Grupo Globo and the Akrin Family. More here.
SQream, a 10-year-old, New York-based maker of a data warehouse that uses graphics cards to speed up large-sale analytics, has raised $39.4 million in new funding. Mangrove Capital Partners and Schusterman Family Investments led the round, joined by Hanaco Venture Capital, Sistema.vc, World Trade Center Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Silvertech Ventures and Alibaba Group. The company has now raised more than $50 million altogether. SiliconAngle has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Api.video, a year-old, France-based “developer-first” video platform that makes it easier for websites and apps to video features, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding led by Blossom Capital, with participation from Kima Ventures, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
Authomize, a year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that aims to help organization manage and secure complex and vastly different applications across cloud and on-premise applications, has raised $6 million in seed funding, including from Blumberg Capital, M12, and Entrée Capital. NoCamels has more here.
Calibrate, an eight-month-old, New York-based one-year telemedicine program that helps overweight shed pounds, raised $5.1 million in seed funding. Forerunner Ventures led the round, with participation from Redesign Health. Crunchbase News has more here.
Cape Privacy, a two-year-old, New York-based data science collaboration platform, has raised $5 million in seed funding. Boldstart Ventures and Version One led the round, joined by Haystack, Radical, and Faktory Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
DriveU.auto, a year-old, Israel-based connectivity platform aimed at ending unpredictable network behavior for teleoperators who remotely monitor and control autonomous vehicles, has raised $4 million in new funding. RAD group co-founder Zohar Zisapel led the round, joined by Two Lanterns Venture Partners, Yigal Jacoby, and Kaedan Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Jumbo Privacy, an 18-month-old, New York-based startup whose iOS app aims to protect consumers' privacy online, has raised an $8 million Series A round led by Balderton Capital. Techcrunch has more here.
Lightrun, a year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that makes it easier for developers to debug their production code, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Glilot Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Slice, a four-year-old, Bangalore, India-based startup that offers a prepaid card that comes with a pre-approved credit line, has raised $6 million in pre-Series B funding led by Gunosy, with participation from EMVC, Kunal Shah of CRED, Better Capital, and earlier backer Das Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Soil Carbon Co, a seven-year-old, New South Wales, Australia-based company that's converting atmospheric CO2 into stable soil carbon using microbial fungi, has raised $6.8 million in seed funding. Horizons Ventures led the round, joined by Grok Ventures; the family office of Atlassian cofounder Mike Cannon-Brookes, the Australian government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and Lowercarbon Capital. The Financial Review has more here.
Tara Biosystems, a six-year-old, New York-based company that's trying to pioneer predictive cardiac tissue models, has raised $10 million in extended Series A funding from OMX Ventures, Merieux Equity Partners, and LifeForce Capital. More here.
Tatch, a three-year-old, New York-based startup developing a patch to diagnose sleep disorders, raised $4.3 million in seed funding led by Spark Capital. Other investors in the round include Abstract Ventures and Correlation Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
BioGeneration Ventures, a 14-year-old, Netherlands-based firm focused on early-stage biopharma, has raised €105 million ($119 million) for its fourth fund. FierceBiotech has more here.
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IPOs
One of China’s most valuable artificial intelligence chipmakers, Cambricon, is one step closer to its initial public offering. TechCrunch takes a look here.
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Exits
Apple has acquired four-year-old Fleetsmith, a company that helps employees set up and manage their devices remotely. Apple confirmed the deal with TechCrunch earlier today without disclosing the price. Fleetsmith had raised more than $40 million from investors, including Menlo Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Upfront Ventures and Harrison Metal. More here.
TV broadcaster E.W. Scripps Co. is shopping podcasting service Stitcher around, according to The Information, seemingly to cash in on interest in the podcasting industry from companies like Spotify. More here.
Gilead Sciences is acquire a 49.9 % stake in Pionyr Immunotherapeutics, a five-year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based maker of cancer immunotherapies, for $275 million. The Motley Fool has more here.
Mastercard is shelling out $825 million to buy Finicity, a 21-year-old, Utah-based company that. helps consumers control and direct access to their personal financial and banking information when applying for loans, making payments, or conducting other online business with banks, lenders and financial service providers.provider of real-time access to financial data for $825 million. Finicity is backed by Experian Ventures and Nordmark Group. The Deseret News has more here.
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People
Bessemer Venture Partners promoted Mary D’Onofrio to vice president. She joined the firm in 2018 after spending time as an analyst at Morgan Stanley. More here.
Michael Hawley, a computer programmer and professor (and former roommate of Steve Jobs) who helped lay the intellectual groundwork for the Internet of Things, died today of colon cancer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 58. The New York Times has more here.
Zoom says it has hired Jason Lee from Salesforce as its new chief information security officer. Lee was senior vice president of security operations at Salesforce and before that was a security executive at Microsoft. As CNBC notes, Zoom is approaching the end of a 90-day period that it gave itself to create a privacy and security plan.
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Layoffs
In a new filing, connected speaker maker Sonos has outlined plans to cut 12% of its workforce, close some of its smaller offices and shutter a Manhattan showroom. As TechCrunch. notes, the move follows a letter to shareholders sent last month that acknowledged struggles stemming from a combination of closed retail storefronts and a broader lowering of demand for its luxury audio products. More here.
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Trivia
A group of geese is called a gaggle; a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance.
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Essential Reads
Google announced today that it will start to automatically delete by default new users’ location history and web activity after 18 months.
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